Home Schooling Provides a Safer Environment

Each year more and more parents and guardians are electing to home school children from kindergarten through high school. They are choosing this method of schooling rather than utilizing conventional public or private schools. This article summarizes some of the reasons why home schooling provides a safer environment for school.

It has only been in recent years that child safety has been a serious consideration in where to send a child to school. In the last few years there have been annual incidents, when children happily go to school in the morning are killed while at school. No this is not an epidemic, but even one school shooting death, is one too many. Furthermore, some of the preventative precautions schools are now taking to reduce the risk of on campus violence are degrading, demoralizing and often frightening to children. Home schooling eliminates these daily on campus searches.

Another type of safety risk occurs when children are traveling to and from school. Every year children are injured or killed in school bus accidents or on streets or sidewalks when going to or from school. Granted these incidents usually represent true accidents. However, home schooling eliminates these risks.
Another set of risks to children at school are rare, but serious when they happen. These are the risks of physical or sexual assaults on children by other students, staff and teachers. We have all heard news reports of teachers, school staff or students, who have seduced students. Some have gone to jail for this. Protection from such events is also afforded to students schooled at home.The above are serious problems that occur rarely, but are devastating to the child and family to whom it happens.

Additionally, there are very frequent and devastating distractions to learning that are eliminated by home schooling. These types of distractions are related to bullying and negative social pressures. These are very common occurrences and are very stressful to children. How can a child concentrate on math problems or balancing chemistry equations, when he or she thinks other students are making fun of him or her? Home school eliminates this during the school day. The school day should be a time to focus on learning. Other activities such as athletics, scouting, children's clubs, church activities and others are the time for learning social interaction. When participating in supervised activities outside of school time, children learn more positive social skills than they do in the unsupervised, and often negative, interactions that randomly occur in campus based schools.

This article focuses on safety considerations that favor the decision to home school. Some in school risks and risks going to and from school are identified. There are some common negative interpersonal factors that are eliminated when children are home schooled. We realize that home school is not right for every student, but the above are a few reasons to consider this option when possible.

About the author. Andree-Ellen G. Coole, "Grandma" is a retired grandmother who has home schooled four grandchildren for several years. She is interested in helping other parents and guardians who are home school mentors. Her other interests include computers, the Internet, crafts, travel, pets, and cooking. She enjoys free lance writing in these and other areas. Visit her website to learn more. http://www.askinggrandma.com/homeschool.html