Author/screenplay writer  

How can home and private schooled children be better prepared for the world they will enter in 18 short years?

The children placed in these situations have many various reasons. Some parents place their children in these situations to keep them away from other children who may be bad influences on them–drugs, sex, violence. For many others religion plays a role; public schools really shame religion in many ways. You can’t walk fifty feet in a public high school without hearing the Lord’s name taken in vain and at least five swears, possibly used by one person in one sentence that would be significantly shorter if the words were omitted. Also any thing you may not take part in or approve of on moral grounds can make you plenty of enemies–you can offend someone simply by telling her that you don’t think moving in with her boyfriend would be in her best interest especially considering the circumstances of their relationship. This can make highschool an especially trying time for children with morals. These are very good reasons and I support parents who believe this is a significant reason for removing their children from such an environment, that is, if they properly perform the duties they will have following this removal.

Many children who attend private schools or who are home schooled face harsh reality when they step out alone into the world we take for granted knowing before we’re swept into it. These children don’t know half of the terms commonly used in public schools; these words include ghetto, pimp, and rape. At first you may think these words would serve no purpose in a moral child’s life. You’re right, except what happens if they eventually live in a place where people tell them to stay out of the ghetto and to avoid pimps because they might get raped? They also hardly interact with people they aren’t familiar with. What will happen to them when they have to get jobs and deal with people, sometimes upset people? They will lack the social skills necessary to do the job and not go home crying at night. This is just setting the children up for failure.

You may ask, how do I know this? Why do I care so much about making a difference? That’s because this is the story of my life. I was enrolled in a Catholic school, married young, and because of my husband’s job, was placed in an environment I was completely naive to. I know how it feels and how much of an affect it has on the emotional and physical well being of a young adult. I support a parent wanting a child to be moral, but not hindering them in life for this purpose. Some integration into society must take place in order for a child to enter into society properly. This can happen many ways including sports, jobs/volunteer work, and music programs. However small, it is necessary for a child’s well being and this is the point I make in my book The Torments of the Modest, Secluded Farm Life (ISBN: 1-58721-806-2) and my screenplay Broken Souls. If you are considering such schooling or are just interested, please, read it and consider the ramifications.

Thank you,

Doris Anne Beaulieu

Which takes me to the second reason for writing The Torments of the Modest, Secluded Farm Life: the mental trauma of having lived a protective, sheltered life and entering the cruel, dishonest, harsh world as an independent adult. One is first hit with harsh language he can not begin to understand. The lying and cruelness of how people treat each other is enough to make him want to run back under that umbrella of protection. Just think for a moment, if you were raised with no conflicts in child’s play. How does one expect you to have developed the skills needed to handle adult conflict? Do you do as you were raised and just shut up and become victims in this harsh society? Do you just run home in fear and cry? That life style creates fear and fear is a powerful thing, especially for women. An individual gets confused as to what is right and wrong in life because the world is not what he was raised to believe. He feels like there must be two different worlds and he needs to find the other kinder one as the other world scares him to the point of total disbelief. My book, The Torments of the Modest, Secluded Farm Life, shows us all as parents the need for proper transition from one world to the other that our home-schooled children need from us in order to not only grow up physically, but also mentally. A proper transition of such would save the children from an adult life of mental therapy.

Finally, the third reason for writing my book is based on the fact home-schooling rules differ from state-to-state. Some states have no regulations at all, and with the No Child Left Behind law I feel that these rules contradict each other. Where the states fail our children with proper accountability of education for home-schoolers, the government needs to take notice, step in, and make a change. I had a conversation on one of the political sites on Myspace where a man said "I quit school at 16 because school was nothing but a waste of my time." This same man said he was going to home-school his children. Can you just imagine the education his children are going to receive? And how are they going to adjust into society when they turn eighteen? Schools are all being academically measured up, but what are we going to have for these failing parents? What kind of society are we creating?

In the year 2003 there were over one million children being home-schooled and various forms of unschooled. Yes, you heard me right "unschooled," where counting eggs while picking them is math. That was 2003 and the numbers have more then doubled since that time. We as a nation need to wake up fast and take a real hard look at this area of education. Let my book in part be a wake-up call to the society being created and let us worry much less about stepping on toes and let us as a nation do what is morally right for the children in our nation. Every child deserves an equal shot to an education and for this education to allow growth, not only physically, but also mentally. Read my book, The Torments of the Modest, Secluded Farm Life, for the heads-up on the society that is being created and as a good starting point for making changes to help the children here at home in America.

Thank You,
Doris Anne Beaulieu
www.lifesultimatetest.com