Incredibly sad... Like you say it's so hard to believe. Home schooling isn't the reason he did this awful thing--he was just very confused young person. Heart breaking for two families.
These stories are good reminders that it is not homeschool or private school or public school that create good (or bad) kids.
In my circles, growing up, Christian education (private schools) was going to save kids...and of course it didn't. There were as many troubled kids there as anywhere else.
These stories are a good reminder to PRAY and PRAY and PRAY. God must have our kids' hearts or our efforts are in vain. We must rely on HIS power, and not on a system to save.
(I'm not trying to start a debate, btw; and I do see the importance of homeschooling.)
This only serves to show that only an internal change will make a difference. As Spunky wrote in Extreme Parenting, it is a matter of the heart. If we think that our home educating will mold the person and bring forth a certain result, then we are not different than the founders of modern education who have seen it as a way to remold society into their version of a utopia. If our main purpose of educating our children is not to bring them to where they can know their Maker through the bloody sacrifice of His Son, and then to disciple them so they know Him, then we are doing it for the same reasons that public education was founded upon. We are not going to create our own little utopia through home educating. Hopefully, our children will come to know their Redeemer and will be transformed by a relationship with Him. Otherwise, it is vanity.
We have to take into account that there have been many who have been raised in homes that love and honor Messiah Yeshua/Jesus, but that each person still has a choice and no matter how much we teach them, be an example, pray and love our children, there is the chance that some of them may choose wrongly. How many of the redeemed of past times (John Newton of Amazing Grace comes to mind as well as others) have come to know Yeshua/Jesus after living a life of shame? Then in their testimony they will tell of a praying parent who prayed all those years for their salvation.
The main thing is our own relationship and obedience to our Redeemer and then trusting Him to do His work in our children. Home education is no magic formula as these tragedies are showing forth. We cannot and must not trust in what we are doing. Our trust has to be in G-d and that He will do His perfect work in us and in our family.
Love and shalom,
I'm reading a book titled, "Hold On to Your Kids" by Gordon Neufeld, Ph.D. and Gabor Mate, M.D. I've just finished the first chapter which focused on the parental relationship with thier children vs childrens relationships with their peers. The authors point out that over the last 40-50 years our culture has shifted from one where children look to their parents for guidance to one where they look to one another. In essence, many of our children look to one another for support - physical, emotional - basically it's the blind leading the blind.
It used to be that the role of the parent was to provide their child with a safe, secure, loving environment. A place for their child to mature not only physically but spiritually and emotionally as well. That is no longer the case. We now live in a culture where parents allow their children to raise one another. These children have no idea what responsibilities come with physical, spiritual and emotional maturity. Our children look to one another for acceptance. Let's face it - kids can be cruel and most often have no concept of unconditional love. I believe that unconditional love is given by parents NOT peers. Looking back on your own childhood you can clearly see that any type of support you received from your peers was probably conditional. What happens when kids don't meet the expectations of their peers? I think you know.
The author points out that there has been a fourfold increase in the rate of suicides in the last 50 years for the 10 to 14 age range in our country. "Suicide rates among that group are the fastest growing with a 120 percent increase from 1980 to 1992 alone." The study that these numbers came from found that parental rejection was not a significant precipitating factor. The significant factor was how kids were being treated by their peers. Another quote from the book, "The more peers matter, the more children are devastated by the insensitive relating of their peers, by failing to fit in, by perceived rejection or ostracization."
The sad thing about it is that the kids see this as "normal" because they don't know any different. They don't understand that their lives do not have to be like this. In discussing with dh some of what I'd read, his comment was, "We live in a society that hates children."
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