Reason #129 to Homeschool

On the cover of the current issue of MetroFamily magazine we read the teaser: Bullies: Surviving back to school with mean girls. According to the article inside:

In a recent national survey of students in grades 6-10, 30 percent reported being the target of bullies. Of the victims reporting abuse nearly 60 percent said they were bullied with threatening or embarrassing words through e-mail, instant messages, web sites, chat rooms, or text messages. The rise of cyberbullying (bullying through the use of technology) now runs rampant among the teen population. Gossip once confined to notes and conversations in the halls now flows freely from one friend’s phone to the next before finding its way online.

Whether bullying happens in person or online, it isn’t something that parents should merely observe from the sidelines--particularly given the serious emotional and physical abuse that can occur.

"Domestic education is the institution of nature; public education, the contrivance of man," Adam Smith once wrote. "It is surely unnecessary to say, which is likely to be the wisest."