I just read a heartbreaking story from a young woman who felt homeshooling should be outlawed. You see, she was abused throughout her entire childhood by parents who hid their actions under the guise of homeschooling. What her parents did to her was awful and incomprehensible, but to make homeschooling illegal because of one case, would do a disservice to the many homeschooled children who are reaping great benefits.
Abusive parents are abusive parents. Whether they are going to put their children in public school, private school, or homeschool them, they are first, and foremost, child abusers. Whether or not they homeschool will not change this fact. There is a greater chance of teachers catching and reporting abuse of public schooled kids, but many children still slip through the cracks.
In the past two years, I have heard of three local children who died due to suspected abuse. One child was beat regularly because of his ‘bad behavior’. He died after being locked in a trunk. Another child was beaten, tied up, and left in the garage over the Christmas holidays, where she died. Both of these children went to school. School did not save them from their horrible fates. The third child was from a homeschooling family. This child was a toddler and fell, hit his head and died. The older child who was homeschooled was taken from his parents for an extended length of time while the family was investigated. Eventually, the child was returned, and homeschooling resumed. There was no apparent reason to withhold the child from his parents or deny them the right to homeschool.
While the young woman who told her sad story should definitely work to prevent what happened from her to ever happen to another child, but she should not be working to make homeschooling illegal, as is her wish. Somehow, people who have been abused have the inability to separate the abuse from the homeschooling label that was used to mask the abuse. Such grouping of labels is akin to calling all Catholic Priests child molesters. Neither label should be placed without careful examination.
Read: Misinformation About Homeschooling: Don’t Believe the Lies
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*Want to know more about homeschooling? Start with the 2006 homeschool blog in review!