A Ticket For Poor Kids

Sometimes the best ideas are the simplest.

I just read an inspiring article in my hometown newspaper. It has provided me with renewed hope that, if only we mustered sufficient political will, we could successfully solve one of our most important social challenges: How to improve the academic performance of poor kids?

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I regard childhood poverty as the single greatest public health menace facing our children. Like most public health threats, we have some good (albeit imperfect) solutions.

After working with inner-city children for almost a quarter of a century (ouch!), I've come to believe that the best ticket out of poverty, the ticket that allows economically disadvantaged kids to become productive members of society, the ticket to their personal fulfillment, is educational success (by that I mean at least finishing high school and, better still, going on to higher level education or training).

How can we achieve this noble but daunting goal, especially given the myriad reasons almost half of poor kids never complete high school: their underfunded, overcrowded schools, parents who neither demand nor expect school success, the myriad psychosocial issues they are dealing with, the unsafe neighborhoods, a peer culture that demeans 'brainiacs', the learned hopelessness... Pick your poisons.

One can become depressed by the intractable complexity of academic failure. It's easy to throw up your hands and declare it hopeless: let's just invest in more police, bigger prisons and unemployment benefits!

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The newspaper article was about the "Say Yes to Education" project, the brainchild of a smart, caring, rich guy named George Weiss. It started over 20 years ago when, while giving a talk to a class of 6th graders in a Philadelphia inner-city school, he made the following promise: "I will pay your college tuition if you graduate high school." In the article, a 25 year old man discusses how Weiss made this same pledge to him when he was in 2nd grade and how it changed his life and the lives of the majority of his classmates.

How simple and how brilliant! Of course we need to improve our public schools. But what about enhancing a child's learning by raising her own internal motivation and aspirations? Mr. Weiss' pledge gave the students (and, of course, their parents) - at an early age - the hope and the inspiration and, most importantly, the means to attain their dreams of making it in this hard world.

The success of this simple strategy has been replicated over and over in the last two decades and gives lie to the perceived hopelessness of the situation. For you evidence wonks (I hope there are a few of you out there), below is an outcome graph you can click on (better still, go to their website, from which it is taken) showing that about 75% graduate high school (compared to the average of about 55% of economically disadvantaged kids), and about 1/2 of those continue beyond a high school education.

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Feeling down in these trying times? For an inspirational pick-me-up and for instructive lessons, do yourself a favor and go the Say Yes To Education website and read about this fabulous project which now provides children with not only the promise of college, but health care and educational supports along the way.

I can't help but wonder, why aren't our federal and state departments of education following their lead? I can think of a lot of worse (and few better) ways to spend my tax dollars.

Related Topics:

• Parental Absence Stifles Kids' Learning
• Less Education, Higher Death Rates?

Technorati Tags: children, education, poverty, Say Yes to Education

Preventing allergies: When to introduce solid foods

Dr. P's Pediatric Journal Club

The study
Data on 2,612 German infants was gathered from birth as part of an ongoing study looking at when solid food was first introduced and the development of allergies by two years of age.

What the study found

• Waiting until after 6 months of age to start solid foods did not have a protective effect on the development of eczema ("atopic dermatitis") or other recognized allergies at age 2 years.
• Waiting until 4 months of age to introduce solid foods may or may not have had a protective effect on the development of allergies. The data were not clear.
  

Dr. P comments
My WebMD Message Board is filled with parents who are agonizing about what, when and how to introduce solid foods to their infants. It's also filled with a ton of different opinions - "I fed my baby cereal at 2 months and she is fine!"... "Hold off until she is past 6 months or she will have allergies!" ... "My pediatrician says that 4 months is OK, but only cereal!" The only similarity between the varying opinions is that each side is 100% certain that their way is the right way!

Whenever there is such diversity in parents' and pediatricians' advice, you can bet it's because kids do fine almost no matter what the parents do, and because there isn't much scientific evidence to guide us one way or the other. (Interestingly, these are often the parenting issues about which the various camps feel most passionately.)

As the authors of this study state: "Scientific evidence supporting a delayed solid food introduction for the prevention of atopic diseases [allergies] is scarce, inconsistent, and based on a few studies only." This study helps by demonstrating there to be no benefit in waiting for more than 6 months, and suggesting that it's still up for grabs whether there is really a benefit in waiting 4 months.

Truth be told, this is a common scenario for pediatricians: often there is insufficient scientific evidence to strongly recommend one practice over another. So we essentially fly by the seat of our pants and make our best judgment based on meager evidence and our experience, and wait for definitive research to clarify the issue.

So here's my seat-of-the-pants advice on starting solid foods:

• Hold off the introducing solid foods until 4-6 months. (Remember that cereal does not increase sleeping through the night!)
• Introduce one new food every few days, so if there is a digestive problem or apparent allergic reaction, you will know what may have caused it.
• Always be sure the texture of the food is such that your baby doesn't cough and sputter when it is introduced.
• Introduce the small amount of the new food when your baby is hungry - before, not after, he has had her milk. Then gradually increase the amount.
• Don't let "neophobia" (fear of new foods) discourage you. Even if your infant doesn't take well to some (or all!) solid foods, never try to force feed him. Remember that milk alone can serve the baby's nutritional needs until at least 6 months. Gently and cheerfully reintroduce the hated taste/texture at another time.
• Most importantly: keep meal time fun and pleasant for all. In the long run, that's much more important than whether your bundle of joy eats his broccoli or not. More than anything else, emotional warmth and support at mealtime is what promotes a love of eating in the child and makes family meals a joy.

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Article cited:
"Timing of solid food introduction in relation to atopic dermatitis and atopic sensitization". Zutavern A, et al. Pediatrics, February, 2006, pp.401-411.

Related Topics: New Clue on How Babies Learn Words, Studies Short on Soy Formula Risk

Technorati Tags: parenting, infants, newborns, feedingsolids, foodallergies

Green Our Vaccines?

Two well-publicized events caught my attention last week. Each is terribly sad in its own way, but each offers insight into what remains a contentious issue: the safety of vaccines for children

Story #1: On May 28, 2008, a thunderstorm knocked out the electrical power in Memphis. Unfortunately for 61-year-old Dianne Odell, the emergency generator in her house also failed. Tragically, her family was unable to keep the iron lung - in which she had lived for the past 58 years - working, and the last polio victim in America still using an iron lung to breathe, died.

Story #2: Exactly one week later, on June 4, 2008, celebrities Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey sponsored a "Green Our Vaccines" (GOV) Rally in Washington (attended by either 1,000 or 8,000 people, depending on whom you believe). Its goal, they insisted, was simply to make vaccines safer by taking the 'toxins' out of them and by delaying some immunizations.

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For me, these events offer an instructive point-counterpoint.

Ms. Odell's death reminded me of how lucky we are to be free from the diseases that have been eliminated by childhood vaccinations. I'll bet you have never known anyone who had polio or smallpox or diphtheria or tetanus or whooping cough or... When I was in pediatric training, H Flu bacteria frequently caused meningitis and other fatal infections. I well remember a two-year-old patient in my private practice who went stone cold deaf after such an infection. Now our pediatric residents may never see a single case.

In addition to the millions of children who owe their lives to vaccines, UNICEF estimates that more than one third of the 10,000,000 children who die world-wide every year would live if they were properly vaccinated. Let me repeat that: 3,000,000 kids a year wouldn't die if they were given the immunizations that the GOVs decry.

There is zero doubt: childhood immunizations are one of the great inventions of the 20th century (really in the history of mankind). Their stunning success, however, has spoiled us and, especially if you lack imagination and a historical sense, you might not grasp what a blessing they are. You might even argue that children would be safer without them because of their rare (real or imagined) side effects and because you have never seen a child suffering with measles. It's a profound miscalculation, with potentially devastating consequences.

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Enter the "Green Our Vaccines" campaign.

First: a brilliant name! After all, who is against 'greener' (i.e., safer) vaccines? Who does not want to make our already very safe vaccines even safer? Sign me up on that one. But if you object to their movement (as I do, for reasons I'll explain), their clever name makes you appear to be anti-green (would that be 'brown' or 'puce'?) and a heartless advocate of loading kids up with nasty toxins.

Their name, however, is the only brilliant thing about this 'movement'. The rest is sadly misguided. I take no pleasure in saying this, as these parents (mostly of autistic children) are just being admirably she-bearish about their kids. But in doing so, they have taken a wrong turn, with the potential to cause great collateral harm to their naive followers. Here's why.

• Their agenda is more than anti-preservatives, it is anti-immunizations. Here's what Jenny McCarthy had to say in an unguarded moment: "I am surely not going to ask anyone to vaccinate. But if I had another child, there's no way in hell...for my next kid - which I'm never going to have - there's no way." I suspect some of the sponsors of GOV see the elimination of 'toxins' as a first, more acceptable step in eliminating vaccines altogether via scare tactics.


• They rally for "100% safe immunizations." While the rate of side effects (mostly minor) is not zero, there is no such thing (nor will there ever be) a 100% safe vaccine (nor a 100% safe car, nor a 100% safe medicine, nor a 100% safe life). Of course we can and should seek - as we have - to make them safer. However, if one objectively weighs the benefit/cost ratio of current vaccines, they (along with clean water) remain the greatest health boon for children in the proud history of medicine.


• The GOVs continue to argue that vaccines and/or the preservatives in them cause autism. There's not enough space here to refute this argument (see my blog + see the reports from the FDA + Institute of Medicine on this). Suffice it to say that, given how much damage would be visited upon unimmunized kids, you would think they would muster very strong evidence to support their hypotheses. In fact, the preponderance of studies show them to be mistaken (for example, the incidence of autism has not declined with the withdrawal of thimerosal from most vaccines). But scientific evidence does not dissuade the GOVs from their absolute certitude. I find their apparent indifference to the potential consequences of their anti-vaccine screeds to be irresponsible and, in the end, unconscionable.


• They promote distrust and paranoia about the "establishment." If you do not accept their view, you are the bad guy. Perhaps you are part of the vast profit-over-well-being pharma industries. Perhaps you are part of the FDA, which has vested interest in not being proved wrong after all these years. Perhaps you like making money off autistic kids. Any way you slice it, you're just another conspiratorial evil-doer.


• They claim that the sheer number of immunizations (which I view as a blessing) somehow overwhelms the immune system, so immunizations should be spread out or postponed. Sounds reasonable. Could be true. The problem with this interesting hypothesis is that there is no evidence that it is true and accumulating evidence that it is not. Therefore, why postpone and thereby increase the potential risks for our children?

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I can't help but wonder what Ms Odell might have said to the Green Our Vaccine parents and to all parents who are reluctant to immunize their kids. Of the many gifts you give your children, being a fully immunized human is right up there at the top.

Related Topics:

• FAQ: Vaccine Court Hears Autism Cases
• Autism-Vaccine Link: Evidence Doesn't Dispel Doubts

Technorati Tags: vaccines, immunizations, autism, Green Our vaccines, Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, pediatrics, healthy children

The Potty Whisperer

As some of you know, many years ago I was a fellow in developmental and behavioral pediatrics with T Berry Brazelton at Boston Children's Hospital. Among his many accomplishments, Dr. Brazelton is the populizer of the "child-oriented" approach to toilet training, which has become the standard toilet training in the U.S.. Basically, it involves watching for developmental signs of readiness for toilet learning and to proceed slowly, with no pressure, at the child's pace. (For much more of my scoop on poop, go here)

During my fellowship training, a curious article was brought to my attention. In it, the authors described the "toilet training" (actually no toilet is involved!) practices of the East African Digo tribe. The Digo begin toilet training in the first weeks of life by making whooshing sounds whenever their diaperless infant shows signs of impeding pee or poop. Then they whisk the infant out of doors where, in his mother's arms, he happily relieves himself in the dirt. With this "nurturant" conditioning approach, night and day dryness was accomplished by 5 or 6 months, a far cry the method I was being taught by Dr. Brazelton (which typically doesn't start until about 2 years of age)!

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As if to prove there is nothing new under the sun, enter the latest rage: The Potty Whisperer(http://www.pottywhisperer.com/). I've come to learn that "whisperers" are really big these days and, not coincidentally, a marketing force to be reckoned with.

[Quick digression. If you Google the word "whisperer" you'll get 9,660,000 hits. Just for fun, here are some of the whisperers already out there: "The Horse / Dog / Cat / Pet Whisperer" (correct the animal of your choice), "The Angel Whisperer" (vibrational healing - don't ask) , "The Plot Whisperer" (for writers), "The Wood Whisperer" (for woodworkers), "The Breast Whisperer" (not porno, but a lactation consultant), "The Boss Whisperer" (tame your abrasive boss), "The Baby Whisperer"(how to calm, connect and communicate with your infant), and my favorite "The Maui Horse Whisperer Experience" (which combines horse whispering, equine facilitated learning, equestrian skill building and corporate training in leadership).]

Anyway, the Potty Whisperer, is catching parents' attention, so I've done some investigative reporting on it for you.

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As far as I can tell, the Potty Whisperer has simply appropriated the Digo method! The "whisper" part of it is the Digo's whooshing sound associated with the impulse to pee or poop. Motivated parents can attempt to train their infant to be dry in the first year of life. For later starters, the Potty Whisperer recommends the Toilet Training in Less Than A Day method to get the job done quickly and efficiently. One way or another, the diaper dependency days of your little poopster are numbered .

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You may be surprised to hear - aside from the wacky name - I'm pretty OK with the Potty Whisperer's techniques and advice, just as I am with Dr Brazelton's. Here's why.

In big letters at the very front of their web site are the "Potty Whisperer's No-Nos":

• no punishment


• no pressure


• no coercion


• no shaming


• no competition


• no showing off


• no obsessing


• no perfectionism


• no rushing toilet learning


• no attachment to time goals


• no negativity

I completely agree with this terrific list! (Of course, it's a bit ironic they are recommending "no rushing toilet learning" to parents who are interested in potty training their 6 month old infant! Perhaps I should become "Dr. P - The Fetus Whisperer" to start the whole process in-utero.)

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In my view, when and how potty training is initiated is far less important than making sure the process is not distorted by one or more of the above no-nos. As long as it is a positive experience for the infant or toddler, as long as it is not done to win a competition, as long as it is done with humor and flexibility, as long as the child's needs and abilities are respected, as long as it doesn't somehow have a negative impact on your relationship with your little poop machine, it's going to turn out OK, almost no matter how you play it.

Freud was wrong. Except in extreme nasty cases, toilet training is just not a big deal psychologically and has no lasting effects on our personalities. So how it's done is not a life and death issue (unless, I must reiterate, it engenders bad feelings, low self esteem, and/or a contemptuous relationship that persists).

So avoid the no-nos and feel free to pick the time and place and method of toilet training that best fits with your beliefs and with your heart and with your child's development and temperament. I guarantee, like pretty much every other human in the history of the world, your child will - sooner or later - master this earliest of the developmental challenges of childhood.

Related Topics:

• WebMD Video: When to Introduce Potty Training
• WebMD Video: Potty Training 101

Cognitive development in infants

Dr. P's favorite quote of the week

Children are born true scientists.

They spontaneously experiment and experience and reexperience again.

They select, combine, and test, seeking to find order in their experiences -

"which is the mostest? which is the leastest?"

They smell, taste, bite, and touch-test for hardness, softness, springiness, roughness, smoothness, coldness, warmness:

they heft, shake, punch, squeeze, push, crush, rub, and try to pull things apart.

-R. Buckminster Fuller

U.S architect and engineer (1895-1983)

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Among the joys of parenthood for you, I hope one will be the thrill of observing how your child learns to make sense of the world ("cognitive development").

If you are interested, there is a great book on the subject: "The Scientist in the Crib" by Gopnick, Meltzoff and Kuhl. In it, the authors explain how your infant learns so much so fast:

• S/he has a brain which is ready to solve problems and process information and make hypotheses on how the world works
• S/he has great teachers (that would be you!).
• (Most surprisingly), infants are already born with a good deal of knowledge.

All of this ordinary eternal machinery is our evolutionary heritage. There is no need for extra stimulation: the little scientist will learn to figure things out in the "ordinary expectable environment", with "good enough" (i.e., not 'super') parents.

Of all the motivations for your infant and toddler's behavior mentioned by the gurus, the drive to understand - to make sense of the world - is vastly underrated and neglected. If you realize, for example, that your oppositional 2 year old is really conducting a legitimate social experiment and not being 'terrible', that will go a long way in helping you figure out what is really going on and how to respond in a constructive way.

Children are not little, unformed adults. They make sense of the world in fundamentally different ways than us. Your job as a parent is to discover - not invent - your child. Learn how you can support your little scientist's quest for understanding by learning more about his/her cognitive development.

Related Topics: Milestones for 2-year olds, The Incredible Growing Baby

Tags: babycare, childcare, milestones, childdevelopment, webmd

Does having kids make you happy?

Dr. P's Pediatric Journal Club

The study

In 1987-1988, the National Survey of Families and Households interviewed and tested 9,000 people for:

--> Whether they had children (= 3/4) or not (= 1/4).

--> Levels of depressive symptoms.

--> Data on socio-economic status.

What the study found

--> Higher rates of depression were seen at younger ages, in women, in Blacks, in persons with less education, in those not employed full-time, in those with lower family incomes, and in non-married adults.

--> As a group, parents reported significantly higher rates of depression, compared to childless adults.

>> This was especially true of parents with young children.

>> On the other hand, "empty nesters" reported the same levels of depression as childless adults.

What this study suggests

Parents, especially those with young children, report higher rates of depression compared to childless adults.

Dr. P comments

OK, by now you have given up the myth of parenthood being a time of uninterrupted bliss and joy.

More likely, especially if your kids are young, aside from the fun and excitement and good times and joy, it is a time of relentless demands and responsibilities and dilemmas and worries. It's a stressful time - at least to some extent - no matter what your life circumstances might be.

Add to the mix a general lack of appreciation (by partners, families, friends, society) of how hard and how important a job parenting is. Is it any wonder that most parents become depressed some of the time?

I have no pat explanations, except to say that we in the U.S. provide less support for parents (time off work, high quality child care, resources for parents who choose not to work outside the home) than all the other industrialized countries. I wonder: is the level of parental depression in those cultures less than in ours?

Other than moving to Finland, any suggestions that might help? Here are some things I have learned:

>> Children are best served when their parents are living happy and fulfulling lives, whether that means engaging in full time work outside the home or devoting full time as a stay-at-home parent or a combination of the two.

>> Parents often become depressed when they make the mistake of giving up all the things that used to be meaningful to them in their childless days: keeping close friends, working on maintaining and making time for a loving supportive relationship with their partner, keeping up with their long term interests in the world, etc. In short, having a life outside of the kids.

>> Parents may become depressed if they are consumed with the notion of "infant determinism" - a theory popularized by some parenting gurus - i.e., the need to be a perfect parent because every little thing one does with your child is fraught with significance for their long term development. One false move and the child will be an endlessly neurotic, unhappy adult. Since the perfect parent has yet to exist, guilt is inevitable.

>> Parents may become depressed when they view themselves inadequate to provide their child with the skills needed to overcome the new threats to children of the 21st century, threats which were inconceiveable and largely unknown when we were kids (drugs, early sex, early exposure to inappropriate content on the media, etc.)

The good news of this study for you should be a confirmation of your complicated feelings about being a parent. Don't get me wrong, there is (I hope) plenty of joy and fulfillment coming your way. But so too is there almost always a downside, one that parents are rarely given permission to talk about or even feel.

Anyway you look at it, parenting is a tough job. Sure, you get depressed and stressed. But, as this study tells us, you are not alone. In fact, you're not even weird. You're just human.

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Article cited:

"Clarifying the relationship between parenthood and depression."

Evenson R and Simon R.

Journal of Health and Social Behavior. December, 2005

http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/EvensonSimonJHSBDec05.pdf

Related Topics: How to Be A Positive Parent, Welcome to Parenthood

Technorati Tags: parenting, depression, stress

Q & A: Help! My child hates me!

Q: My 4 year old has started to say, "I hate you," to his brother and to me. He acts proud when he says it, as if he has power over me. Should I just overlook it?

A: Heaven protect us from the bright 4 year old who has learned the power of words!

This is a very common and very normal scenario. Let's see if we can figure out what's happening here. Your little guy has learned an exciting new way to push your buttons, this time by merely saying three little words. It's likely at this age he doesn't know what "I hate you" even means. What he does know is that you think it's a bad thing to say and, when he does say it, people respond in a very lively way. Sure, it's not a positive response, but that's beside the point, because the ability to generate any intense response gives you some power over your little world.

Think about it. The world of a 4 year old is generally one of powerlessness. You have to eat what your parents feed you and sleep when they dictate. They choose if you go to school or stay home. They pick your clothes. You're dependent on them to explain to you how the mystifying world works. There is very little over which you feel you have much control.

Then you find some simple words that confer onto you a power that is as irresistible as it is rare, and therein lies the fun. Of course your son doesn't really "hate" you. If you responded the same way if he said, "You're a potato," then that's what he'd be saying when he became frustrated. By the way, it's the same story when children begin to use swear words. It's the response they're looking for -- they have no real idea what the words mean.

Fortunately, it's a habit easily broken by simple ignoring. If no one moves a hair whenever he says,"I hate you," -- no response, no acknowledgment, no anger, no time-out, no laughter, no nothing, as if he hadn't said anything at all -- the fun's over and soon he'll stop saying it.

Of course, then he'll look for other creative ways to gain a measure of control over his world, so be prepared for what he comes up with next!

Tools to Try:

• Home Safety: 7 Top Health Hazards
• Tips to Stop BedWetting

Technorati Tags: pediatrics, FAQ, ask the pediatrician, 4-year olds, child development, talking back

Should Homeschooling be Illegal?

The California Court of Appeals recently decided a case which could have a major impact on the legality of homeschooling in California, and perhaps all over the U.S. The ruling involved the statutes that mandate - quite reasonably - that all children in California be taught only by persons with the state teaching credentials to do so.

The problem is that most homeschoolers are parents with no real training or credentials. Then that's illegal!, the court ruled, thus jeopardizing the status of most of the 166,000 homeschooled children in that state.

"California courts have held that...parents do not have a constitutional right to homeschool their children," said the ruling. "Parents have a legal duty to see to their children's schooling under the provisions of these laws." If adopted nationally, it could signal the end of homeschooling in this country

I think we all can agree that teaching is so important it shouldn't be left to amateurs and that children deserve the finest quality instruction we as a society can provide them. Additionally, this is a very important issue because it touches on an essential conflict: the proper role of the government in children's education and upbringing versus parents' rights to raise their children as they see fit.

Let's delve into this fascinating dispute a little deeper.

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I have cared for about 10 families who homeschooled their kids (at least for a while). Here are two that exemplify why this is such a difficult issue for me to reconcile.

The Morgans were a wonderful, loving, and talented family. Both parents were accomplished professionals, but the mom decided to drop out and homeschool their three kids until college. She seemed to be gifted at it. They would tell me of field trips, of studying at their own pace, of how interesting and fun she made everything. After school hours, they had rich social lives and, they told me, didn't miss being around their pals during the day (which was my big concern). All three kids went on to excellent colleges and, to my eye, seemed like well-adjusted, accomplished kids.

The Beckers were a very close knit, very religious family. They were quite suspicious of the outside world (myself included), full of sin and temptation and false prophets as it was. They worried mightily at the corrupting influence of the school environment on their kids. So they chose to homeschool their four children. As far as I could tell, much of their curriculum was focused on religious teachings and values. "Really," the mother once confided in me, "I have no use for science and they only really need as much arithmetic as it takes to know how to pay their bills." One of the kids did eventually go to a junior college; the others joined the family business, but all remained socially isolated and, as far as I could tell, had little interest in the world outside their parents' domain.

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Those two families explain why I'm so ambivalent about homeschooling. On one hand, if parents are themselves talented and choose to homeschool for the "right" reasons (e.g., to instill a love of learning, to share the family experience, to promote emotional closeness. because they feel they can do a better job of it), I've seen homeschooling succeed magnificently.

On the other hand, if it's done for the "wrong" (at least in my biased opinion) reasons (e.g., because of paranoia about exposure to the real world, to limit the child's knowledge to a few narrow precepts, to avoid outside social interactions), then I've seen homeschooling stunt the socioemotional, academic, and intellectual growth of children who, in my opinion, desperately could have used a "parentectomy" during the day to allow them to transcend their parents' narrow views and ambitions.

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In 2003, there were approximately 1.1 million homeschooled kids in the U.S. The reasons parent gave for homeschooling included concern about the school environment (31%), to provide religious and moral instruction (30%), dissatisfaction with the academic instruction of schools (16%), and the child has special needs (14%). What (I hope you are asking) do studies tell us about the functioning of these kids?

Surprisingly, there has been very little research but that which has been done tends to look more like the Morgans than the Beckers. For example, their average math and reading scores were in the top quarter. (These data, however, are questioned because the test was voluntary, meaning that perhaps only high functioning homeschooled kids agreed to be tested.) Those that apply to college tend to have higher SAT and ACT scores than the traditionally schooled.

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Excuse me, so where's the problem here? Aside from the legal question of instruction by a licensed professional (no small matter), here are the arguments of homeschooling detractors:

• The children are being denied important socialization experiences.


• The academic quality is often incomplete, excluding important subjects (like the Beckers and science).


• The parents often advocate an extreme religious or social agenda.


• It diverts much-needed money from the public schools.


• The "parallel society" of the homeschool is incompatible with the state interest in social cohesion and harmony (as the judge in the California case wrote: . "A primary purpose of the educational system is to train school children in good citizenship, patriotism and loyalty to the state and the nation as a means of protecting the public welfare.").

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So, was the court correct? Shouldn't all kids be taught by credentialed teachers? If we open the door for just anybody to teach our children, how can we ensure they are not exploited by incompetents and zealots, as some have surely been?

I've tried, as best I can, to lay out the complexity of this issue and my own mixed feelings, based on my history with the Morgans and the Beckers. Still - and with some misgivings - I've decided that homeschooling should not be illegal, that it is more often than not a good experience for children, and that parents should have the right to responsibly take on the education of their kids if they so choose.

I want to emphasize the word "responsibly." Each state has its own standards (some are tight, others abysmally lax) on what that must be taught. Parents need to be held accountable if their homeschooled kids can't cut it educationally.

Yes, the state has a compelling interest in its citizens' educations, but so too do parents have the right to raise their children without interference if that state interest is not in some way significantly violated. Until I see data to prove otherwise, I don't think homeschooling meets that threshold.

Tight regulations on home schooling - yes. Courses on how to teach for homeschooling parents - better still. An outright ban of homeschooling - not justified.

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View the ruling by the Second District Court of Appeal.
Read the statistics on homeschooling.
Review the homeschooling regulations in each state.

Related Topics:

• Culture Is the Key to Math Gender Gap
• Learning From Your Child's Teacher

Technorati Tags: homeschool, school, pediatrics, health and wellness