Should Parents Be Allowed To Educate Their Children At Home?

In many advanced democracies, parents are allowed to educate their children at home. Parents are also competent enough to educate their children. Furthermore, research shows that structured homeschooling results in better academic performance. Therefore, I believe that parents should be allowed to educate their children at home.

Parents have every legal right to decide what is good for their children. If a parent feels that it is in the best interest of the child to learn from home, then they should be allowed to do so. This choice does not contradict any statute. In USA, Canada, England, France and other advanced democracies, the law permits parents to educate their children at home.

The suggestion that parents are incompetent in teaching their children is a mistaken one. By the time professional educators interact with children in formal schools, the parents have already achieved remarkable milestones in educating their children. For example, language learning involves associating different meanings to various abstract symbols such as speech sounds, written words and gestures. Parents successfully teach their children these complex linguistic skills very early in life. Parents are therefore competent enough to educate their children.

Children educated at home score 20-30 points higher than those educated in public schools according to Ray (2010). Chang et al. (2011), agree with this observation. They add that performance is best in structured homeschooling programs. Parents make a positive impact on children’s educational performance.

Parents should be permitted to teach their children at home because it is legal. Parents are also competent teachers with or without training. Finally, parent’s contribution to their children’s education has a remarkable positive impact on children’s academic performance. Indeed, parents offer the most important and enduring lessons to children.