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To: Star Traveler
My limited experience with home school, or even private religious based school, is those parents are very aware of what's out there. Not availing their child to some of the more prevalent 'social benefits' of the public system is a primary motivator towards an alternative education system. I'm not going so far as to say these parents are overprotective, but I think you'd agree, they keep things on a pretty short leash.
230 posted on 05/31/2010 8:26:08 PM PDT by moehoward
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To: moehoward
Yeah, I can understand that motivation, given the sorry condition of the public schools. I've always been a supporter of homeschooling, so that's why I was puzzled as to why some might advocate pushing those youngsters into the university system, which is so much worse than the public school system, both in idealogy and in safety.

I've got extended family members where they have kids in private Christian school, and let me tell you (unfortunately) that even in private Christian schools some of the prevalent culture's attitudes with girls and guys carries over even into that environment. It would be by way of peer group interaction and not so much by way of teaching curriculum, of course.

In many Christian circles, there's what is referred to as an "upper story/lower story" existence for Christians (something that I heard from Francis Schaeffer). It's that one carries on in the current culture as is normal for anyone and everyone and then on Sunday (or your weekly Bible study meetings) you then go into your "upper story" mode ... (and may the two never meet ... :-) ...).

Well, the Christian kids in those private Christian schools are sort of like that, too. There's one in particular that I'm thinking of right now, that I know what's going on from the "inside" and I hear what's happening from the parent's viewpoint (of which they are on the "outside"). I hear about the "inside scoop" from another relative, who is about six years older than this gal in Christian school, who talks to her a lot on the computer.

So, she gets "hooked up" with this guy when she's just 15 and they're engaging in an intimate relationship, in spite of the parents' attitudes (which are against it, if they knew...). Now, the boy is a bit older and now he's in Afghanistan, joined not too long ago and was just shipped out recently. But before he left, she ended up spending a week with him at the boy's parents' house. Hoo-boy! That's just dumb. Of course the parents of both knew that, but I'm not sure what they thought was going on, "really". But, I already know from what I've gotten from my other relative who stays in contact with this young girl.

They're not "distant relatives" and so I know a lot of what is going on. She was not homeschooled but her parents are what you would consider conservative and the dad is what anyone else would consider "right wing". There's nothing liberal there and they're sending their daughter to a private Christian school and yet this is going on.

Now, the funny thing (and as is probably familiar with some in their own extended families) sometimes there are those in your family that you wouldn't want your kids to associate with very much. Well, this older girl that I'm getting the "inside scoop" from about the younger girl (the one who are fairly close relatives to me and they are Christian parents) -- they don't necessarily want their daughter to associate with this older girl (as I said, about six years older) as they consider her a bit wild (and I would agree, too). But, their daughter (if they only knew) only manages to keep some of the same stuff hidden from her parents, even though she goes to the private Christian school.

I'm sure you can have the same story repeated a thousand times over again with different families. What I find out a lot, is that the parents actually don't really realize what their kids are involved in and how they think, because they're pretty good at disguising and hiding these things from their parents. I have seen this a lot. I hear these kinds of stories over and over again (friends or relatives or co-workers...).

If parents only knew the half of what goes on with their kids ... and that's why I would never put this younger girl in that kind of university environment at that age.

231 posted on 05/31/2010 9:03:46 PM PDT by Star Traveler (Remember to keep the Messiah of Israel in the One-World Government that we look forward to coming)
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