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In Reply to: Re: PUBLIC SCHOOLS / PRIVATE SCHOOLS / Anxiety posted by an other on October 29, 2002 at 12:48:21:
I was the same way. When I left the F. I was terrified to put my children in a public school. Because of that, my oldest who was a teenager at the time got behind because I was too busy with a new baby to help him. After a year of trying to home school him, we gave up and put him in the public school. Later on he would say, “Mom, why didn’t you just put me in the school?” I couldn’t give him a good answer. To him, the choice was simple and my fears unfounded. I agree that the public school, in spite of its problems and peer pressure is at the same time a good learning ground for social skills, problem resolution, learning to make good choices. Sheltering a child all their lives doesn’t necessarily protect them from harm and can sometimes have the opposite affect. You’re right that the problems are often at home rather than at school. My children have gone to some of the worst public schools yet they have come out of them doing just fine and even better than my TRF neighbors who home schooled their children until high school and then threw them in where they did not know how to fit in or adapt and they made some really poor choices in spite of their protected upbringing. In the public schools, they can have bad teachers but they can learn from that too. Of course, we always try to give them the best, but sometimes the best is not always what we think it is. I know it’s a dilemma and we are filled with anxiety worrying about our children and bad effects from the awful kids and situations in the schools. But that’s life too. We can’t shield them forever. That’s what I found out. For years I felt bad that I couldn’t put my children in a Christian or private school, but now that I see how they’ve turned out, I’m glad they went through exactly what they went through.
