Wednesday, September 3, 2014

The Sinister Side of Parenting



This article The Sinister Side of Homeschooling and this blog called Homeschooling's Invisible Children have been my reading this evening. I warn you, you will not forget these stories of real children who have been horribly abused by their parents. 
The common element in all of the stories is that all of the families claim to homeschool in order to cover up positively horrific abuse.
Which begs the question, without getting all militant on homeschoolers because some parents are douche bag abusers, what can be done to protect at-risk kids who are being abused in abject horror and out of sight using homeschool as their protection?
Does that mean we should be suspect of homeschooling?
The knee-jerk reaction is to impose tons of restrictions and supervision on homeschoolers. 
But abusive people are great at hiding their abuse. No supervision requirement would ever uncover those kids who are being hidden.
From "To Train a Child"
Many of the stories contain references to Michael and Debi Pearl's To Train Up a Child and other fundamental Christian doctrine, but I have no illusions that the people who abuse under those ideas are no more Christian than they are homeschoolers.
I find the existence of people like this abhorrent. Absolutely the antithesis of a homeschooling parent, or any homeschooling parent that I know. 
I have talked to too many people who have experienced subpar homeschooling conditions growing up to act like it doesn't happen. Bad parents can be found in every sphere of life, every form of education (or lack thereof), every religion, every strata, every socioeconomic level, every continent, everywhere. 
Does that mean we should be suspect of parenting? 
 What do you think?????


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