10.12.2011

Homeschooling Should Not be Grounds for Terminating Parental Rights


Annie and Domenic Johansson

"Social services workers who had police snatch a 7-year-old boy from his parents while they were aboard a jetliner preparing to move to the mother's home country of India because he was being homeschooled have called for a court hearing where they apparently will seek to terminate the parents' rights completely.

That word has come from officials with the Home School Legal Defense Association, which along with the Alliance Defense Fund already has elevated the dispute involving Christer and Annie Johannson and their son, Domenic, of Sweden to the Europe Court of Human rights.

Find out why classes seem so different these days, in "The Harsh Truth About Public Schools"

Christer Johannson told WND by email this week that he got a letter from the court explaining social workers wished 'to move custody of Domenic to the foster family.'

Domenic, now 9, has been in the custody of social services, and in foster homes, in Sweden ever since 2009 when he was snatched from a jetliner he and his parents had boarded in order to move to India."  Read the entire story at http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=352733. Read more at Social services threaten homeschooling parents http://www.wnd.com/?pageId=352733#ixzz1aV8RyqoL.

 

Homeschooling should not be grounds for terminating parental rights, nor should it have been a cause for emergency removal of a boy from his parents' custody.


There have been several post on this blog regarding homeschooling and its benefits to children, their families and societies.  See http://www.regentfamilyrestoration.blogspot.com/search?q=Aaron+Block

 

Parents want educational choice, and in large numbers are choosing home school.  In Virginia, for example, about one third of families in Hampton Roads choose home education every year.

 

The Supreme Court of the United States has clarified that the parental right to direct the upbringing of children is fundamental to our constitution.  Parents have a right to teach their children values and to prepare them to become self-sufficient and productive members of society.

 

Furthermore, this method of education is extremely economical for the state.  At a time when public education is failing families and private education is cost prohibitive, homeschooling is an alternative that allows parental responsibility in the best sense.  Student results reveal that those who are educated at home are academically and civically far surpassing their public school counter-parts.  Homeschooling is a growing trend in America and globally (see  http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/02/09/educating-children-evolution-home-schooling/). 

but Sweden's decision to punish one family for doing so seems a clear violation of basic human rights, and certainly family destructive. 

2 comments:

  1. I find it heartbreaking that a young child would be ripped away from his loving family for any reason, but for being home-schooled? It is almost laughable that social services considered homeschooling to be detrimental to this child's life. I can not speak from personal experience, but I know that homeschooling is a major responsibility, and this family decided to selflessly take on the tremendous task of directing their child's education. How could that decision be considered to harm their child when it involved spending a great deal of parental one-on-one time in order to make their son's life better? Instead of having to go through the heartbreak of losing their son, these parents should be applauded for deciding to take on such a huge responsibility in order to give their son the education they believed he deserved.

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  2. This is a tragic situation that highlights a growing issue in western government, the state is demanding too much power. A democracy should never have the authority to rip a child from his home because they disagree with the parenting style. The only excuse a government should ever claim to remove a child is abuse. A state does not get to dictate the morals of its people and this is a clear attempt to do just that. A state should be defined by its people, not the other way around.

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