How many homeschooling families are there on AFF?

[jfrog]

Originally Posted by MissBrattified

I feel like these answers are obvious, but okay...I'll humor you.

Neglectful, lazy, or uninterested parents (uninterested in homeschooling--not necessarily uninterested in their children) would top my list. Also, there are obviously parents (especially single parents) who legitimately don't have the time and resources to homeschool their children.

Any parent in an abusive or otherwise damaging relationship should obviously not be homeschooling. Of course, they shouldn't be in the relationship anyway, if their children are in harm's way.

Any parent who lacks the mental capacity to adequately care for their children--ummmm...but should they even be caring for their children?

Any parent who is so tyrannical or authoritative that their children fail to thrive under their guidance--but of course, such personality types won't see their own children being harmed, will they?

There are a lot of situations in which children might be better off in a public school setting--but many of those situations have to do with a lack of parenting skills, and those aren't the kinds of parents who are interested in homeschooling anyway. (Most of the time.)

As in any situation where children are being neglected, abused, or otherwise not thriving, concerned parties can report those parents to the appropriate authorities, unless there is a possibility that localized intervention can help make positive changes. There is absolutely NO need to place limits on homeschooling as a whole in order to root out these bad seeds. What is more damaging is when such situations are observed and people are afraid to speak up in defense of the children. Of course, there are children attending public school all the time who are abused and neglected at home, and are also subjected to abusive situations in school. I wonder who we report those perpetrators to?

Our children went to public school from 2004 - 2007, for various reasons. It wasn't a terrible decision on our part, but I'm glad we decided to try homeschooling again, because it has been a wonderful success and I can't imagine sending my children back.

What about the situations that don't have to do with lack of parenting skills? What else can cause failure besides lack of parenting skills?