Arizona, which has more than 32,000 children being home schooled, including almost 13,000 in Maricopa County, requires parents only to file an affidavit promising to teach reading, writing, math, science and social studies. There’s no mountain of paperwork, no army of bureaucrats looking over their shoulder

Personally I think it’s an interesting decision why parents choose to homeschool. The fact is Arizona has a large enough community to sustain this, and I think it is a powerful testimony to the home schooling movement across the world.

Here are some basic issues raised:

I received a post from Melissa Henkel recently that read:-

“I am adopting a special needs child. She is 11 years old and currently in a residential facility. She came from a horrible background of neglect and abuse. She had to care for other children in the home because her mother was a nonfunctional alcoholic. The mother willingly released her rights a year ago. How do I teach this child not to lie and steel?”

Shyness stems from different root causes. One of it is usually the anxiety of having to meet people. The other could be that the child was so focused developing one area that the social area was neglected. Both require different strategies as solutions. The biggest pain this has is the social stigma associated with shyness. Most other children stay away from shy children at best, and bully them at worst. It’s an important issue to address, and a set of skills should be taught to cope with and deal with shyness.

A lot of parents are afraid that they aren’t doing the best they can. So, they compensate for it by buying their children things, thinking it will make up for it. Well, good parents often do one thing right - they learn about how to be a better parent through reflection, and occasionally learning from another good parent.

See, every child is different. You can see it in your home if you have more than one child. They are just different. The circumstances in which you conceived your child would have made a difference already, let alone the emotions and events that were happening at that time.