Home schooling, also known as home education, is defined as the education of children at home, generally by parents or guardians, instead of in a public or private school. It provides children with a different learning environment than that found in public or private schools.
Violence in schools has been dominating the headlines lately. More and more parents fear for their children's lives, safety, and health. Home school seems to be a better alternative than sending children to school, where they may become the victims of school violence.
Preschool Has Damaging Effects
In a study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley, and Stanford University, evidence was gathered on the fact that children who spent more than six hours in preschool had difficulty with respect to cooperation, sharing, and participating in classroom activities, while children who remained at home with their parents prior to starting school showed no difficulty whatsoever. According to a Harvard Longitudinal Study, children who went to daycare centers were shown to have an inability to form psychological attachments later in life. Another study showed that the time spent by children in daycare was directly proportional to the likelihood of their becoming disobedient, defiant, and aggressive by the time they reach kindergarten.
The conclusion that can be derived from these studies is disturbing. Children who attend preschools or go to daycare centres instead of remaining at home with their parents suffer serious problems with social and emotional development. This leads to aggression, hostility, and eventually violent behavior as they grow older. This may be one of the reasons for violence in schools. A child who is socially and emotionally underdeveloped may have difficulty controlling his or her aggression or hostility, which may lead him or her to act out and resort to violence, endangering the safety of other children.
Home Schooling as the Solution
Studies have shown that children who are home-schooled are more socially and emotionally adjusted compared to children who go to private or public schools. Children who are home-schooled have stronger ties with their families and feel more secure because they know that they have their parents' support. This gives home-schooled children more confidence to think and act without subjecting themselves to peer pressure.
Home-schooled children learn from the people that they trust and with whom they have the closest ties to their parents. This encourages them to open their minds without the restrictions imposed on them in a classroom setting. They not only learn what they are supposed to from their academic lessons, but they also learn about real life because they get to learn in a real setting and not in an artificially controlled environment like that in classrooms. The end result is that these home-schooled children learn to resort to patience and reason rather than aggression. They are better socialised since they interact with different people other than those in their own age group, and they are more emotionally secure compared to children who learn in a classroom setting.
It is not difficult to see that home schooling may be one of the solutions to curbing violence in schools. Parents who can afford to spend more time at home with their children should consider home schooling as an alternative method of instruction, considering the fact that children who are home schooled grow into socially and emotionally mature people, who in turn become assets to the community.
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