Are homeschool kids abused?

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A recent opinion piece in the New York Times brings up (again) the question of homeschoolers and abuse. (December 14, 2025: The Homeschool Kids are Not All Right, By Stefen Merrill Block) In this article, Stefen Block tells of his experience as a homeschooled child from 4^th-8^th grade. His education was seriously neglected during those years, and because of that, he makes the case that all homeschool families need state oversight to prevent abuse and neglect.

The claim that all homeschool parents could potentially be abusers is not new, but it is fueling a rise in invasive legislation that challenges freedom and parental rights. These rights aren’t just about education: people like Stefen Block are challenging the right of parents to bring their children up in their religion of choice, challenging medical freedom, and challenging the social opportunities that parents deem appropriate.

So, the question is: are homeschooled kids suffering abuse simply by being homeschooled?

Let’s read a bit of the article:

By my third year of homeschooling in 1994 when I was 12, mom’s project of turning me back into an infant was nearly complete. Ever since she pulled me out of school, she had been applying lighteners and hydrogen peroxide to restore my brownish hair to the bright blonde of its baby color.

After reading that a crawling phase might help an infant develop fine motor control, she determined that even at age 12, it might not be too late for me to crawl my way to better handwriting. She had me crawl whenever I was at home, which was most of the time. Mom homeschooled me between fourth and eighth grades, and even today, as a parent who has come to see plainly how damaging those years were, I know that she believed that her choice was in my best interest.

It was the lack of state oversight or standards that allowed our situation. It was the laws that failed me. Today, as homeschooling numbers continue to surge, similar laws fail to protect millions of kids. Mom called what we did unschooling, a concept championed by the homeschooling pioneer, John Holt. She agreed with his assertion that schools are bad places for kids, or at least for a certain kind of kid.

My brother Aaron, she decided, was better suited for public school and was sent off on the bus each morning. I, on the other hand, was a creative global learner and mom said that she was going to give me a quote, free form education in order to pursue passions. Other than math, which I began to do by correspondence course, I mostly spent my days with her visiting shops, libraries and restaurants of our rapidly growing suburb or else having “project time,” drawing superheroes, rereading my David McCauley and Roald Dahl books, or writing short stories by the pool as mom reapplied my hair bleach.

Mom had been going through a hard time ever since we’d moved to Plano, Texas. Her social life was dim, her career as a children’s magazine editor had been put on hiatus. And her own mother had begun a long decline into dementia. But my presence by her side seemed to lift her spirits.

“You are better than any grown-up, Steph. You are more than all I need,” she told me. I felt proud to help her, but silently I worried. The longer I spent at home with her—dad was at work five days a week—the more impossible it seemed that I might ever go back into the world. I knew how badly my return to school would hurt her, and increasingly school seemed to me a terrifying place. I had mostly lost my friendships from my old school, and my few attempts to re-enter the land of other kids had been failures.

After just a day or two at Boy Scout camp, I’d actively tried to contract conjunctivitis so that I might be sent home early. Sometimes flipping through one of my brother’s old textbooks, I’d see how far behind I’d already fallen, but who could I speak with about any of that? As the years passed, my isolation deepened. My mom needed to take on part-time work, so now I largely spent my afternoons alone in my room, where there was no one to witness the long AOL instant messenger romance I had carried on with a supposed teenage girl, who in fact turned out to be an older sexual predator. No one noticed the track of scars I’d been making on my hip with the tip of a compass. No one saw how I’d spent countless hours alone in my room with a portable TV inches from my face, wanting to disappear into the worlds on screen.

Not once in the four and a half years I spent at home did anyone from the state come to assess whether what sort of education I was receiving or even just a check on me. I didn’t know it at the time, but our homeschool had fallen into a newly legislated invisible space where a child could easily vanish from public view.”

He goes on to talk about homeschooling in Texas, which is not regulated in any way. I know because that’s where I live and homeschool. And so, he begins to make the case for homeschool oversight for every kid. But let’s back up just a minute in that article.

Clearly, his mom was mentally ill. She needed help. This was not a “homeschooling” problem. This was a mom with a mental illness, and a dad who wasn’t paying attention or just didn’t care. If you read further, he talks about how she had early onset Alzheimer’s, which runs in their family. This lady needed help. She was not homeschooling and homeschooling wasn’t the problem.

She was unschooling, but barely. I’ll be honest: I’m not a fan of unschooling. I believe in a solid academic foundation for all kids. You can read all my blog posts and listen to all my podcasts to know that I don’t care for child center parenting of any sort. Parents have a duty to provide their children with everything they need to grow up healthy, safe and prepared for adulthood. And I believe a strong academic foundation is a big part of that, and so do the millions of homeschool parents who are raising their children outside the government school system. I don’t believe that this mother was educating her child, whatever she wanted to call it. And it’s clear from this article and from the other research I did on this author that his mother suffered from mental illness.

But all of that aside, let’s address what his main goal is with this article. And that is to impose more restrictions across the board on all homeschoolers. His premise is that all parents could be guilty of abuse or neglect. In fact, further down in the article, he states that “states continue to allow parents to operate with little or no oversight, resigning the fates of millions of kids to the assumption that parents know best, even if evidence abounds that that is not always the case.”

Well, of course, it’s not always the case. And this is true of all parents, no matter where their kids are educated.

Let’s be clear: definitions matter. Block states his definitions of abuse, and I want to address each one separately.

“Legal definitions of abuse vary, but (1) the choice to isolate a child from peers and outsiders seems to me plainly abusive. I would also characterize as abuse a (2) parent’s decision to limit a child’s access to learning materials, or to (3) indoctrinate a child into one mind-set or ideology without the possibility of other perspectives, or to (4) willingly limit a child’s ability to function in a larger society.”

• I get these comments ALL THE TIME. People really do believe this. They view homeschoolers as basement-dwellers where the kids have no interaction with the outside world (in rare cases this is true). They really believe that homeschooled kids are not socialized at all. (Read the comments on my Instagram post here, and my X post here.)
• This is not abuse. It’s a choice. Sometimes it’s circumstantial. But his definition of this one is vague. Any house that has an internet connection has access to learning materials. Kids are savvy internet users. Even if they never leave the house, they can search YouTube. 200 years ago in America this argument would have been non-existent, when only the wealthy had home libraries, and the majority of children were taught their lessons at home with less than five books.
• I guarantee you 100% that this refers to Christians who teach their children that the Bible is the true and inerrant word of God, that God created the world in a literal six days, that there are only two biological sexes that cannot be changed, that life begins at conception, etc.
• This is a repeat of the “isolation” claim, the idea that only public school environment prepares a person for the real world. Again, if you’re a homeschooler you might laugh at the absurdity of this, but I’m telling you that people still believe that homeschoolers are isolated. I recently did a podcast all about homeschoolers and socialization, and even if a kid wasn’t in a co-op or sports team, they still live a normal life in their town, interacting with other humans. Compare that to the kids who attend public school, but cannot make eye contact with adults or carry on a conversation with a stranger.

The definition of abuse is going to differ depending on who you talk to, and that is the problem. Trust me when I say that in some circles, homeschooling is considered abuse, church attendance is abuse, not vaccinating is abuse, and the list goes on.

What Research Says About Public School, Private School, and Homeschool Child Abuse, Neglect, and Fatalities (National Home Education Research Institute,  Sep 15, 2025.

Research in this field has produced some not-so-surprising results:

Key Points

• 10% to 12% of public and private school children are victims of educator sexual misconduct during grades K-12.[1] This would suggest about 5,460,000 of school-age children in 2022-23[2] would be victims of school employees by grade 12.
• In addition, there are many thousands of student-on-student sex assaults[3] and bullying in institutional schools (public, private) every year.
• The preceding-mentioned abuse occurs despite many laws and regulations controlling public and private schools and the mandatory reporters working in them.
• Over 80% of child abuse and neglect fatalities occur before school age.[4]
• Wicked adults – whether public or private school teachers or other staff, school police officers, or parents – find ways to hide their evil deeds and harm children in spite of laws.
• The limited number of research studies done to date suggest that institutional school students are at slightly higher risk than homeschool children for abuse, neglect, and fatalities.[5]
• Cross-sectional findings suggest that school sector (institutional school compared to homeschooling) “… is a non-issue after considering the role played by demographics (e.g., family structure, years in foster care, large family size, and household poverty) in the maltreatment of children,” shows a key peer-reviewed study.[6]
• The incidences of abuse and neglect for homeschool children are statistically significant only when the children are out in the community or some type of schooling environment, and not at home with their families.[7]
• There is no clear evidence of an increase in reported incidents of abuse or other harm in states that move toward laws recognizing and allowing fuller homeschooling freedom.[8]
• There is no correlation between the degree of state control of homeschooling and abuse and neglect.[9]

Read the article and citations at NHERI.org.

The “homeschool abuse” narrative often comes from widely publicized and heartbreaking stories where parents were abusing their children, and kept them out of school in the name of homeschooling. The most significant point is that these families were not actually homeschooling.

I recently spoke to a state support group leader in Oklahoma who said they have encountered numerous public school families who had become truant, and the public school officials advised them to say they were homeschooling to prevent legal action.

These are just two instances where the term “homeschool” is applied to truant, neglectful, and abusive family situations, not because the family was actively homeschooling, but because the kids simply were not in public school.

Is education a right?

Education is not a right, despite the many arguments that would claim otherwise. That doesn’t mean that it is not beneficial. We can all agree that every child deserves a solid academic foundation, but that does not make it (or anything that’s beneficial) a “right.”

But those who write the laws do claim that there is a legal right to education. So, for argument’s sake, if this is true, who determines what that education looks like?

Now we come to the point:  the state determines what education looks like, with a lot of input from lobbyists:

lobbyists like the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, an activist group that purports to protect children. Their true goals are clearly spelled out on their website under the model legislation called The Make Homeschool Safe Act:

“The Make Homeschool Safe Act protects homeschooled children’s right to be safe, to learn, and to access resources. Created by legal experts who were homeschooled, this model legislation is a blueprint for advocates and legislators to create common-sense protections for homeschooled children in their state.

How the Make Homeschool Safe Act helps children

Homeschooled children deserve to be accounted for.

• Under current law: 12 states don’t require home educators to tell anyone they’re homeschooling their child. Other states do require home educators to enroll their homeschooled children, but they don’t follow up with the family if the enrollment doesn’t happen.
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: Home educators must notify their local superintendent that they intend to homeschool a child at the start of each school year. If they don’t do it within 30 days of notifying the superintendent, they must enroll their child in a public or private school.
• Why it matters: Homeschool enrollment helps ensure that no homeschooled child falls through the cracks. It also helps prevent abusers from using homeschooling to isolate a child away from community members and mandatory reporters.

Homeschooled children deserve to get a quality education.

• Under current law: 19 states don’t require home educators to teach their homeschooled child any specific school subjects.
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: Homeschooled children must learn the same subjects that children in their state’s public schools do.
• Why it matters: Some parents use homeschooling to deliberately keep their child from learning math, science, or other core subjects. Others neglect their children’s education entirely. Ensuring homeschooled children learn the same subjects their public school peers help protect their right to an education.

Homeschooled children deserve to be safe at home.

• Under current law: 48 states allow convicted sex offenders, child abusers, and others with violent records to homeschool children. All 50 states allow a child to be withdrawn from school to be homeschooled after a recent substantiated child welfare investigation; 49 allow withdrawal during an active investigation. 
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: People convicted of specific violent crimes, including those against children, are banned from homeschooling. No one can withdraw a child from school to homeschool them within three years of a child abuse or neglect investigation.
• Why it matters: Parents and guardians convicted of violent crimes or under investigation for abuse should not be allowed to isolate children from public help and accountability. Homeschooled children deserve the same protection from abusive educators that their peers in public school have.

Homeschooled children deserve to have their academic progress assessed.

• Under current law: Only three states consistently assess homeschooled children’s academic progress.
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: Home educators must provide a portfolio or test scores showing the homeschooled child’s academic progress each year, including an in-person assessment of the child’s progress by a professional.
• Why it matters: A portfolio review is the best way to evaluate a homeschool, as portfolios can reflect a much wider variety of educational styles and methods, but test scores can also demonstrate basic academic progress. The in-person assessment means that the child has at least annual access to a mandatory reporter. It also offers reassurance that the child is the one actually completing the work, and an opportunity for families and school districts to address the child’s educational or developmental needs.

Homeschooled children deserve to have records and identification.

• Under current law: In all 50 states, it’s legal for parents to refuse to create citizenship documents for their child, such as a birth certificate or Social Security number. 
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: Parents must provide copies of their homeschooled child’s identification, immunization, and academic records to the local superintendent.
• Why it matters: As a child grows, they need personal identification documents to confirm their citizenship or residency, be legally employed, and access resources and programs. Academic records show that a child is learning, help them create diplomas and transcripts, and help them with placement if they later enroll in a public or private school. External records of these documents and of the child’s existence are crucial, especially in cases of extreme isolation.

Homeschooled children deserve to have educated instructors.

• Under current law: 40 states don’t require home educators to have at least a high school diploma or its equivalent.
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: Home educators must have a high school diploma, GED, or other qualifications to homeschool a child.
• Why it matters: Home educators should have at least basic firsthand knowledge of what’s usually included in a grade school education.

Homeschooled children deserve to access school resources and activities.

• Under current law: Homeschooled children have inconsistent access to public school classes, sports, and other activities nationwide. 
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: Homeschooled children must be allowed to take part in classes, sports, and other activities available at their local public school as long as fairness and eligibility requirements are met, and schools receive appropriate funding.
• Why it matters: Homeschooled children deserve an equal playing field with their peers in public school. Extracurricular access is an important part of college enrollment, career preparedness, and educational enrichment. 

Homeschooled children deserve to get support for their disabilities.

• Under current law: Homeschooled children are only guaranteed access to public school assessments for disabilities like ADHD and dyslexia. But they don’t have guaranteed access to services.
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: Homeschooled children are guaranteed access to both assessments and services to meet their developmental needs. Home educators also have the tools to address their child’s individual concerns.
• Why it matters: Every child has the right to an education that prepares them for an open future, including homeschooled children.

Homeschooled children deserve medical care.

• Under current law: 46 states don’t require proof of immunizations for homeschooled children or have any other requirements to prevent medical neglect.
• Under the Make Homeschool Safe Act: Homeschools must follow the same state policies for immunizations as other types of schools, and homeschooled students must have an annual well-child visit. Homeschooled children have access to the free hearing and vision checks, counselors, and other resources that children in public school have.
• Why it matters: Homeschooling shouldn’t be treated as nothing more than an immunization exemption, but as a legitimate educational choice that meets a child’s individual needs. Well-child visits are essential for both a child’s individual health and for public health. A simple hearing or vision screening can radically improve a child’s life.”

Remember when I told you at the beginning that Stefan Block (and Coalition for Responsible Home Education) are not just “preventing abuse?” They are lobbying to take away religious freedom, medical freedom, and education choices from parents.

Would More State Control Over Homeschooling Reduce Child Abuse, Neglect, and Murder? (NHERI.org)

“Is there, however, any empirical evidence that there is a problem to solve with respect to the homeschooling community and are the promotions of more state control over private home education supported by any empirical bases?”

The short answer: no.

• “There is no body of research that suggests the rates of child abuse, neglect, and murder (or fatalities) are any lower amongst public schooled and private schooled children than homeschooled children.
• There is no body of research that suggest that more civil government control over private homeschooling would reduce any immoral or illegal behaviors that are occurring in America.
• There is no body of research that suggests there is any problem with the homeschooling community that requires more state control over the homeschooling community.
• On the contrary, the extant body of research suggests that there are fewer problems associated with homeschool children and their families than those involved in institutional public schooling.”

Homeschool freedom advocates in every state will confirm that this group, CRHE, lobbies for this model bill to be passed in their legislatures. You can see a video of a CRHE representative testifying in the Oklahoma legislature in 2024 here.

Just like gun control activists and gun control laws that limit the freedom of everyone because of a few bad apples, broad homeschool oversight laws will restrict the rights of good homeschooling parents everywhere.

Who determines what is bad for children?

Let’s flip this narrative for a moment:  Should all parents be investigated because:

• They let their kids eat so much unhealthy food that they develop diabetes?
• They don’t monitor internet use?
• Their kids bully other kids?
• Their Public schooled kids can’t read?
• Parents overly medicate their children with prescription drugs?
• Parents sexually transition their children with surgeries and drugs?

I believe these are dangerous for children. But guess who is not policing any of this??

The public school system has a terrible track record when it comes to some of the biggest issues these lobbyists claim to care about:

• 12% of kids (6 million +) report experiencing some form of sexual misconduct [by school staff and school peers] by the time they graduate. (Psychology Today)
• 22% of 12th graders are proficient in math, and 35% of 12th graders are proficient in reading. (NAGB.gov)
• Ideology: science has been traded for feelings, and pronouns aren’t even used properly anymore

The government school standard is the one that all homeschoolers are held to, but the government schools get away with dismal academic failure, sexual misconduct among their staff, and ignoring biology! Concerned parents and community members get a timed 3-minute speech at school board meetings if they have a complaint. School boards are not independent. Look up your state’s associate of school board members and do a little deep dive into why nothing ever changes. (See how it works in Texas here.)

But the public school system is not and should not be the standard. It is certainly not a standard for excellence or healthy socialization, and it is not the standard model for Christian parents whose authority and rights come from God.

And yet, one of the stated goals of CHRE is for homeschooled kids to participate in public school activities, and to mimic public school in every way.

Conclusion

Stephen Block’s story is a sad tale of being raised by a parent with mental illness. What should have happened? His father should have stepped in. He only states that his dad worked five days a week, implying that he was in the home. Why isn’t Block talking about this?

 Second, if they were members of a church, (as the majority of 1990s homeschoolers were) the church elders should have stepped in. In a healthy church situation, the family is part of a bigger community, and church members notice needs, step in to help, counsel, and meet needs in difficult situations.

Thankfully, Block seems to have overcome whatever damage was done in those four unschooled years. He is a best-selling author, and according to The Dallas Observer, “has lived something of a charmed life. Besides boasting a supportive family, he was an international science fair champion in high school and received his lucrative book contract when he was only 24.” His story shows what so many others have: that a child growing up in less-than-ideal circumstances can still forgive his parents, understand their shortcomings, and achieve success in his adult life.

The story should end there. After all, it’s actually a beautiful story of redemption.

But instead, Block found comradery with the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, and chose to make a small personal story into a national attack on perfectly legitimate parents all over America. He even has a new book coming in January called “Homeschooled.”

His story has become part of a movement to redefine parental rights and children’s rights. But what does God say? In his book,“Education: Does God Have an Opinion?” Israel Wayne lists a few biblical points on the rights and duties of Christian parents:

• “All of this is predicated on the realization that God has given children to their parents (see Genesis 33:5, 1 Samuel 1:27, and Psalm 127:3) and has charged them with inalienable rights and responsibilities.
• Instruction of the young is a job given to parents and grandparents.
• Evolution and humanism are substitutes for the true and living God.
• Government schools dishonor parents (and by example teach children to as well) by claiming that the State can nurture children better than the parents.
• Christian education is best understood as the equipping of each successive generation to train the next. This is a family matter, not a governmental mandate.”

Our American founders explicitly agreed that our rights come from God, and that any government that would seek to take those rights away should be thrown off for a new one.

So how can we balance the essential need to protect innocent children from abuse and neglect while safeguarding the rights of the majority of loving parents?

How to help children who may be in abusive situations:

• Observe and assess, don’t assume
  • Get to know the family on a personal basis
  • Don’t assume that every parent is abusive
• Consider taking Ministry Safe training, or something similar, to identify children in abusive situations.
• Be a friend. Know your neighbors, the children in your extended family, and in your church.
• Offer to help with homeschooling, meals, and activities.
• If you see true abuse or neglect, it is your duty to report it.

How to safeguard parental rights:

• Pay attention to the legislative process in your state in these areas:
  • Education
  • Homeschooling
  • Medical freedom
  • Religious freedom
• Learn to read bills and get involved with your local political group and state homeschooling organization.
• Follow your state’s homeschooling laws, work to change them, or move to a state with better laws.
• Be informed, be confident, and be bold.

The New York Times article is a serious warning for homeschool parents who value their freedom. Don’t laugh it off. Push back. Protect your rights.

And beware the state funds to pay for your homeschooling, because this will be the most convenient way to implement more restrictions in the long term. Read up on “school choice” here.