Homeschooling

Homeschooling is an unusual punishment inflicted upon many children in America. School is a place to be educated, make friends, find out who you are and learn life lessons. Homeschooling doesn't allow a child to independently develop. They are hidden from the real world. This causes many problems later in life.

The “deschooling” movement began in the 1960’s due to concern that schools weren’t teaching the same religious values that are taught at home. People feared their children would become anti-religious and lose their values because they were spending time with immigrants. Children homeschooled today can be for a variety of reasons. In addition to the ones listed above, some people believe they would provide a better education for their children than a conventional school would, they want to build strong family bonds, or they are afraid of sending their child to school. I believe these are exact reasons that children do need to be sent to conventional schools instead of remaining at home.

A dear friend of mine was homeschooled. Her parents, however realized that it was inhibiting her social skills and her growth as a person. I fear that other parents won’t see this. They won’t realize that being at school with other kids is what’s right for their child, like my cousin. She has been homeschooled her whole life. This year she begged her parents to let her go to high school, but to no avail. She just wants to experience it, to go to prom and football games, to hate gym class and complain about the food, to help and be helped with homework. She just wants to see the world, at least through the small lens of high school. Preventing children from growing and developing.

School can be a damaging place for many, kids can be cruel, ...

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... steady immersion into the world. Ideally there is a feeling of a safe home to fall back on, but an exciting challenge ahead on our own. The process starts on the first day of school, the first day without your parents. Eventually we can spend the night at a friend’s house and then maybe even a week at summer camp. We learn to make ourselves food and to do our own laundry. We slowly learn to function on our own without the help of our parents. Obviously school is a necessary requirement for learning to do laundry but these are skills that our parents need to let us learn. They are there to help, but at some point we have to do it on our own.

As Hodding Carter said, “There are two lasting bequests we can give our children: One is roots, the other is wings.” While homeschooling is a great way to bond with your child and create solid roots, it does not provide wings.