Who does home schooling?

Yes, the government.

In principle I agree that what parents do with their own kids is their own business (and their right).

But we all know that there are exceptions to that.

If a parent sexually abuses the kid the government can decide to take the kid away.

If the parent neglects the kid's education the government can punish the parents as well.

Many areas require that homeschoolers test their kids to make sure that the parents are educating them.

I like that kind of regulation.

In many areas of the world the majority of the children get no education and are sent to work or beg at an early age. I like that in advanced societies educating children is not a right but also a responsibility.

As much as keeping the government out of personal decisions sounds good, there are obvious exceptions to that ideal.

People say things like "the government should stay out of parenting" or "the government should stay out of the bedroom" a lot.

What they usually mean to say is that they disagree with a particular policy. Because they usually agree to exceptions to both proposed axioms.

For e.g. laws on rape are an example of the government in the bedroom.

Laws requiring parents to educate their kids already is governmental interference in parenting.

So are the laws against beating a kid senseless, raping the kid........

I'd like to see as little governmental interference in parenting as possible, while ensuring the kid's safety.

Personally, I'd rather have been beaten senseless every day than to be denied education. I wish the social workers who'd tried to intervene had been successful.

Home schooling is one of those American phenomena that fascinate me, that I know nothing about, but would like to. Reading through this thread, I thought that for most of the issues you brought up, there should lots of evidence. How do home-schooled children measure up against regularly educated ones in terms of SAT scores and college admissions? How do they compare in measures of social skills, such as their crime rate, joblessness, volunteer work etc? Does anybody know?

The statistically tracked ones do very well in all data I have seen. I can't recall them off the top of my head.

My qualm is that there is a large amount that is not tracked at all, and "home schooling" is used as a euphemism for denying education and sheltering those kids.

I don't have any stats on this group but do know from experience and anecdotal evidence that it wouldn't be pretty.

To me there are two classes of home schoolers.

Some have a focus of education, others have an alternate focus and "home schooling" is the excuse used to circumvent laws about putting your kids in schools.

The ones who do it for education usually have kids who do well. The ones who use it as a pretext for other agendas usually have children who do poorly.

Sadly this second group is poorly documented.

Craven- I am torn up the middle about how much authority the government is allowed to exert over parents concerning their children. I want to see children safe, but I question as to whether governmental interference is always the way to go. In your case, it is understandable that you would have wanted help, but I think that your situation is definitely in the minority.

Let me give you an example. A woman that I worked with, a professional social worker, ran a mental health clinic. She was bright, educated, and absolutely adored her 6 year old daughter. One day the kid received a bad bruise while playing. The school reported the bruise to the authorities, and the woman had to go (to court, as I remember), and explain what happened. These kinds of things should not happen.

When I was a child, the government did not interfere with the parents at all. Because of that, there were cases of abuse and brutality that went unchecked. Today, society has swung in the opposite direction. I really do not know what the answer is.

I agree, but even worse is that blunders like that are used to argue against intervention when it is sorely needed.

I grew up in a group that literally advocated beating children with a 2 by 4. That is not a joke, the leader wrote extensively about how using a 2 by 4 to beat the children would exorcise the child's demons.

He went into detail saying that it should be brutal enough to lift the child off the ground. And he drove his daughter insane, and then decided to tell everyone she was possessed.

And he too cited such stories. A father whose child is taken away by social workers because a neighbour saw him changing her diaper... etc etc.

I've heard of the social worker horror stories. I've seen them myself. Social workers causing more harm than good, waking children up at the point of a gun to take them away from their parents.

I know of the many horror stories. But there are worse horrors. Sometimes they are inflicted by parents.

Parental discretion is a fine ideal, but I don't think it should stand in the way of relieving a child from a grossly abusive enviroment.

And it's a damn shame that ideals such as religious freedom and parenting rights get in the way of helping abused kids.

In England, Argentina and several other countries the group I speak of was raided and had their kids seized.

For the most part the children were returned and this was achieved through the help of right wing Christian groups helping to defend this cult against "religious persecution" and "governmental intervention".

The group never believed in home schooling but when that became more common it was their way to circumvent laws about education.

Earlier I touched on how this was done. Here's a more detailed investigation.

In one such community where I lived they would practice drills. At any hour of the day or night they'd play a song (we called it the "wolf jingle" or somesuch) and the entire community (several hundred people) would divide into 3 parts.

One part would go out the back door (it was a huge building made just for them) and hide in the forrest.

One part would go to the bomb shelter (it was a building made for them remember? This includes the paranoid person's number one need. A bomb shelter).

This was a seriosu bomb shelter that could not be opened from the outside.

The last group was the smallest. I was in this group.

This was the "best foot" that was placed forward. This is the group that would be tested. We'd get the social workers off our cases.

Now with this group hudnreds of children were seized and examined in several countries. Social workers never found anything wrong and in almost all cases ceded to parental discretion.

The only cases with positive resolution involved a parent outside of teh cult winning custody.

So I know from first hand experience how hard it is for social workers to tell. As a kid we were taught that they were "persecuting" Christians and we were taught to be "deceivers yet true". The girls lied about the rape they suffered. Remember to them the social workers were the anti-christ persecuting the "end time prophets".

This was quite literally a group of psychos. Their literature contained manuals on performing oral sex on children and encouraging pre-pubescent sexual activity and prostitution (called "flirty fishies").

When under fire this group destroyed the incriminating literature, relocatted the abusive adults and we children lied to cover for them. We knew of all the practices but we really considered it right. We were god's children living as he'd intended and the rest of the world was the "syetem". Hell the Bible does say "be not of this world" and yeah, the Bible says not to "spare the rod".

So we thought it was perfectly normal for there to be a demerit system in which most kids got a beating each week (using paddles with holes drilled in them to be able to be swung faster).

Many of the girls are now furious that they helped this group get away with it. They lied about being raped and in some cases shamed the doctors into not even examining them.

This group knew that bruises and pregnancy were red flags, so most of us were bron to midwives that were sympathetic to the group.

The 12 year old mothers delivered their babies at home. The beatings started to follow instructions that would not leave evidence.

Other punishments like solitary confinement, remotely located camps and "silence restriction" wer used instead.

My long winded point is that this was very clearly an extreme case, but it's also a case in which several nations tried to find evidence to intervene but for the most part were thwarted by these tactics and the arguments against religious persecution and intervention in parental issues.

It's a travesty that these arguments for reasonable parents are used so successfully to defend criminally extreme parenting.

And while you think it's rare I know it's not. This one single group I reference is in every major city in the globe.

These types of fanatics are everywhere. They just have a facade that is less extreme. The group I reference had two ideology levels. The "milk" and the "meat".

To the public the "milk" is all that is seen. This is general (if odd) Christian teachings.

The "meat" is not for "spiritual babes" and this is where the pernicious teachings took place. This is the part that few people see.

This group has performed at the White House, countless people have supported them.

Religious extremists like this are everywhere, and you don't notice it. And the overwhelming majority of these cults use the pretext of "home schooling" to perpetuate their ideology and prevent contact from the outside world.

In my case it was extreme. I never knew anyone outside of the group till I left. But I know of thousands of very similar cults with similar "home schooling" practices.

They too are successful in keeping the government out of their business while they destroy their kids' lives.

Craven- I feel like crying. Now that you (and I would assume others) are out of the cult, is there anything being done to protect the children who remain in the group? Has anyone blown the whistle on the monsters who abused the children so terribly?

What you are speaking of is NOT bad parenting, but criminal abuse. Of course in a case such as this, it would be perfectly reasonable, and necessary, for the authorities to step in, and remove the children from their tormentors.

As for the girls not telling about the rapes, grown women in mainstream society have difficulty overcoming shame and fear, so many will not report a rape. What could you expect of a child who was brought up to believe that these things are normal?

((((HUGS))))

You must be made of very sturdy stuff to have gone through what you have, and have been able to grow up and have a normal life.

Not really. The cult has moved onto this "home schooling" movement and use it to circumvent investigation.

They created their own educational institution to give themselves diplomas world wide and through this homeschooling front they are able to hide their denial of education.

The mantra of parental rights and religious freedom is very frequently used to defend them.

In addition thare are other hurdles to clear. The leaders have lived in undisclosed locations for longer than I have been alive. We don't know where they live.

And when they get in hot water they simply run. They take their kids to a new country, change the cult's name or whatnot.

They used to be called "the children of god" but changed their name to "the family" to promote a more family-oriented image.

When they get attention from the authorities they simply flee. They consider this to be "persecution" and as a child we all had "flee bags" to escape the authorities.

A lot of us want to do something but it's difficult. They used "Bible names" in the group so nobody really knew anyone's legal name.

It's hard to try to prosecute "Uncle Natham" who used to rape the girls 10 years ago in the Phillipines.



Yes, in many countries. On individual levels there have been positive resolutions. A court case was won in England.

But on the grander scale the group continues to successfully hide behind "freedom of religion" and "home schooling".



I agree. And that's why I said what people say about keeping the government out of parenting only makes sense with cases that are not criminally extreme.

My point is that the people who hate education (this was an actual ideology, they had a publication called "to hell with homer" in which anything other than basic education was labeled "worldly" and evil) can use "home schooling" as a loophole.

To deny a kid education is criminal. And many do so under the cover of "home schooling".

This is the point I'm trying to make. To avoid such cases there needs to be regulation. There needs to be intervention. Simply put the existing laws need to be enforced. And to do so requires occasional intervention.



Yep, it was disgusting. The girls who wouldn't sleep with adults were labeled not "spiritual" enough and not "revolutionary" enough. One girl was ridiculed in a publication that went around the world as "teh girl who wouldn't".

She refused to have sex with someone and this was equated as "saying no to god".



For a long time it was not normal at all. I've been out for over 10 years.

And I was lucky. I was kicked out at around 11 and I got to attend some school.

I didn't learn a damn thing in schools but it was a big help in integrating with society (or the "syetem" as we called it).

Many others were not as lucky. Many of them left in their late teens and the results have been sad. Many have killed themselves because they could not support themselves with a 6th grade education in a foresign country.

Many are drug addicts, strippers and prostitutes.

I was lucky, I was only sheltered till 11 and from taht point on I integrated with society.

Like the others I had my period of extremity. I've been a drug addict, I've ran with gangs and been afoul of the police. When I ended up homeless for the second time as a teen I managed to turn it around.

Many of the ones who left at an older age were not so lucky.


Anywho, this isn't supposed to be about me or even this group. My point is that without regulation, home schooling is the perfect cover for nutjob parents.

This is hardly the only cult that uses home schooling as a pretext for a hermetical lifestyle imposed on their kids.

Just about every wacko out there and just about every cult uses it as a cover. And there are many of these groups, they look only slightly odd from the outside and by using home schooling as a barrier between them and society they get to keep their criminal negligence hidden behind walls.

That's why I caution against hermetical home schooling. It's not enought o have a few friends here and there who are also home schoolers. Parents who try to dictate their child's contacts run the risk of social retardation for their kids.

And on the extreme scale it's a cover for criminal negligence.

That's why I support the regulations requiring the kids to pass tests. It's an unnecessary evil to help protect kids from abusive people who use home schooling as a pretext to socially isolate the children.

Thank you for telling this here, Craven, it's so important for people to know.

My husband's family had good friends whose teen daughter was taken into what I am guessing is the same cult. The parents are to this day heartbroken; it was about thirty years ago.

Craven- WOW! You certainly have made a case for government standards for home schooling. No wonder you have such a strong opinion on the subject.

Honestly, I was totally unaware that the home schooling movement had been co-opted by fringe wackos. I had been thinking of people who believe that they can do a better job of educating their kids than the schools can.

You are right that the children should be made to take state developed tests, probably at the end of every grade. If a child is very far behind, the parents should be mandated to send him/her to school. The problem is that many kids IN schools do not come up to standard.

Ugh. I knew most -- well maybe half -- of this story, but how utterly appalling. Yes, there has to be some way for it to be impossible for them to get away with it.

I had a close brush with a cult in California (of course), a different one, was more horrified the more I saw but I never got too close. (Not for lack of trying on their part, though.)

There are people who seem to be able to do well in most any circumstance, even when their success is certainly no commentary on the supposed benefits of the circumstance. My friend Amy Rowley set back education for deaf children because she was so intelligent that even though she was severely disadvantaged by the fact that her school wouldn't provide interpreters, she did fine. Since she did fine, she must not really need interpreters -- right?

http://www.wrightslaw.com/law/caselaw/ussupct.rowley.htm

I hope that cult gets smashed at some point, Craven, and that that point is not too far in the future.

I disagree very strongly, Phoenix. I'd much rather see the authorities err on the side of caution, and examine cases they don't need to, rather than miss the kids that need to be given shelter and safety. Children need to be protected by the entire society.

I've seen a social work system almost ruin a person, but I still agree in the larger good of it as a whole, and in some sort of review of education of each child as vital. I know it's problematic re both philosophy and that kids could be coached to pass, but the larger horror that Craven describes is too gross to bear happening.

ehBeth- I would hate to think that if I had a young child, that I would have to fear for myself every time he got a bruise in the playground.

I can understand it if a teacher reports the parents of a child who has been showing signs of abuse, but in the case I have mentioned, the entire idea of this girl being abused was ridiculous.

I have heard horror stories of people who have been thru hell with the authorities, because of some overzealous and inept social worker.

speaking of inept social workers, I have warned people about me, often.

I recieved Osso's PM to come here and I'm sorry, but I won't touch this one.

Oh, Craven.

I am so sorry. I didn't know your story when I posted what I did. I apologize for opening a can of worms that you probably didn't want to open. Honestly, I had no idea.

Obviously, you are right. Some governmental regulation is needed. I wasn't aware of the hideous practices that hide behind the benign front of "homeschooling." The homeschoolers I know aren't even in the same ballpark with the ones you describe. In fact, their children do take annual state-mandated tests to ensure they are learning up to grade level. For the sake of thousands of children who have experienced the hell you've gone through, I sincerely hope my friends represent the majority.

Thank you for telling us your story. I know it must have taken a lot out of you to do so. You have come a long, long way, haven't you. You should be very proud of yourself. If I were there right now, I would kiss you. Nobody should have to go through what you did.

(((((HUGS)))))

((((((((Craven)))))))))

Wow -- I had heard something about Craven's cult background before, but not that they were that evil. I totally agree there should be tests for homeschooled children, as there should be for children in any kind of school. But the level of abuse you experienced doesn't seem to reveal primarily a bug in the American school system -- it seems to tell us that something is seriously wrong with the way America enforces its criminal law. Are cults really above the law in America?

I know we have some cults in Germany, but they are very closely monitored, and most of them haven't gained much ground here. (I know I heard about the 'Children of God' in confirmation class, and the description we were given was definitely what you described as the 'meat' layer, not the 'milk' layer.) The only cults that have a really significant following here seem to be Jehova's witnesses and Scientology, both of which sound people's alarm bells wherever they appear.

Independent of home schooling: Why hasn't America developed that kind of immune system against cults -- either on the society level or on the legal level?

Thomas- In the US, we take freedom to practice religion very sriously. Any group can start a sect. It is only when they break the law, that the government will step in. As you have read, in the case of the Children of God, it was very difficult for the authorities to prove impropriety.

After reading Craven's story, I went on the net, and read a bit about the Children of God, including perusing their own website. To the outsider, it all looks so benign.

I think that you would have to have lived in the US through the late 1960's to understand how groups like these started. Many of the college kids had thrown off all the trappings of middle class society. Some became "flower children", and wanted to spread peace and love. There was a tremendous backlash on account of the Vietnam War. A number of communes were formed in the US.

It was in this climate, with angry and disaffected young people, that cults were able to flourish.

I'm not sure it shows anything about American law per se mostly because, as Craven mentioned, this isn't a US specific group. Much of what he's mentioned here happened outside of US borders.

But, there IS a huge difference in the concepts of government monitoring and law enforcement between the US and Europe. There is a big difference in how the public views government and how government interacts with the public. Those differences are highlighted in cases like this.