Posted on 06/01/2002 1:38:07 PM PDT by parsifal
OCD Epidemic Among the Home-Schooled
Journal of Educational Pseudo-Psychological Studies
Rachel Knee- Rabinovitch, Ph.D.
A recent study of home-schooled children indicate a mini-epidemic of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder among those home schooled more than six years. Rachel Knee-Rabinovitch a psychologist and educator in Marin County, California notes that home schooled children are 12 times more likely to engage in activities and hobbies requiring either extensive memorization or obsessional finality, such as collecting or earning Eagle Scout status.
"These home-schooled children are driven. Rather than participate in normal activities like soccer, gymnastics, or playing video games, we are beginning to find children as young as nine aspiring to win spelling bees or collect full sets of trading cards. By age 14, these children are obsessively collecting merit badges or collecting stamps. They do not know how to go outside and play like normal kids."
Ms. Knee-Rabinovitch also notes that younger siblings of home-schooled students experience delayed weaning and toilet-training. "On average, younger siblings of home-schooled children wean from the bottle 4.2 months later than siblings of children enrolled in public schools. The average age of complete toilet-training is 3 years, 9 months, and 2 days for siblings of home-schooled children versus 2 years and 10 months for siblings of publically schooled students. These home-schooled children are little "mommies' babies" well into their teens."
In the controversial conclusion to the study, Ms. Knee-Rabinovitch also claims, "These little home-schooled kids are bundles of repression. They are markedly quieter and more docile than students exposed to the healthy environment of public schools. They seem uninterested in Rock music, MTV, and other normal teen-age fads. They are missing out on the rebellion phase of personality individuation. We are grooming a generation of future neurotics. They can spell persipacity but can they sing a Rob Zombie song? We are turning our children into ‘spelling' vegetables."
Critics note that the study was restricted to 312 children in Northern California whose parents earned in excess of $125,000.00 yearly income. Mack McHeath, a plumbing contractor, and spokesman for Alliance for New and Alternative Learning, a pro-home-schooling coalition, notes that among lower income home-schooled children, "Many of these kids, including my own, can't spell for crap."
Carolyn
So home-schooled children are, de facto, not normal? Since when has the defintion of normalcy included partcipation in soccer, gymnastics and the like? What an unbelievably slanted article.
Not exactly your prime, middle-American demographic group.
For the life of me, I can never tell whether stuff coming out of Marin County is for real or not. Who knows? parsy the unknowing.
What kind of problems did this author have in mind? I was an A+ English student all through school. I won every spelling bee every year until I graduated. List some problems and I'll tell you if I had/have them...
I saw a picture in the Enquirer of a couple of home-schooled kids with their brains blown out!
No... Wait....
OK, OK, Those two weren't home-schooled...
But the home-schooled ones are dangerous! I saw one digging in my trash can last night...
I threw a brick at him and he looked up with those glowing red eyes they have and hissed at me!
I think the title says it all.
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