Homeschooling parents (and their leaders and lobbying organizations) love making grandiose claims about the impact of homeschooling on their children. Actual homeschool alumni outcomes, on the other hand, tend to be more nuanced and complicated. Here are 10 common myths promoted by homeschooling parents—as well as the realities:
1. Homeschooling parent myth: “If we homeschool, our kids won’t be queer.”
The reality, according to research analysis by the conservative Center for the Study of Partisanship and Ideology (CSPI) in 2022, is that “whether a college student attended a public, private, or parochial school, or is homeschooled, appears to make little difference to their propensity to identify as LGBT.” CSPI also found that, “Homeschooled and parochial schooled undergraduates are as or more likely to identify as LGBT or non-binary as those from public or private school backgrounds.”
2. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschooling will protect our kids from porn.”
The reality, according to research by the child advocacy nonprofit organization Common Sense Media in 2022, is that homeschooling does not shelter children from seeing pornography at school: 26% of public school teens see at porn at school, compared to 50% of private school teens, 41% of charter school teens, and 27% of homeschooled teens.
3. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschooling protects my kids from sexual abuse!”
The reality is that homeschooled kids can experience higher rates of sexual abuse than other kids. For example, research by Tanya Crossman, the Director of Research and International Education at TCK Training, found that 28% of homeschooled missionary kids were abused—compared to 21% of non-homeschooled missionary kids. Child-to-child sexual abuse rates were also higher, at 29% among homeschooled missionary kids versus 26% among non-homeschooled missionary kids.
4. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschooling will cure my kid’s mental illness.”
The reality is that homeschooled children struggle with mental illness as much, if not more than, other children. Homeschool Alumni Reaching Out (HARO)’s 2014 survey of 3,702 homeschool alumni found that almost half of the homeschool alumni experienced suicidal ideation and almost 1 out of 10 attempted suicide. This is higher than in the general population, where 17% of children report suicidal ideation and 7-8% of children attempt suicide.
5. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschooling will keep my child from substance abuse.”
While a few initial studies found highly religious homeschooled children use substances less frequently than other children, those studies “treated other adolescents as homogenous despite within-group differences,” according to the Journal of Adolescent Health in 2020. More careful analysis found that, “Homeschooled adolescents had significantly higher rates of past-year prescription opioid misuse, benzodiazepine use, tobacco use and non-marijuana illicit drug use, and past-month nicotine dependence than low dropout risk adolescents.”
6. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschoolers are disproportionately investigated and targeted by child protective services.”
Homeschool lobbying organizations like the far-right Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) like to spread this myth. They breathlessly describe horror stories of child protective services picking on homeschoolers, instilling fear and paranoia about such services among both homeschooling parents and homeschooled children. For example, HARO’s 2014 survey of 3,702 homeschool alumni found that nearly half of respondents experienced fear of child protective services as children—and the most common causes of their fear were either parental warnings (38%) and literature produced by HSLDA (24%). Despite HSLDA’s rhetoric and the resulting parental fears, analysis of HSLDA’s own numbers demonstrates that homeschoolers are less likely than other families to have social services called on them.
7. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschooling will make my kids well-adjusted.”
The reality is that many homeschooling communities and organizations are inundated with messages about how civil society is out to get homeschoolers. This naturally increases distrust in civil society. As documented in research by the conservative Association of Classical Christian Schools in 2019, “Homeschoolers score lowest of all groups on trust measures, such as trusting neighbors, co-workers, the federal government, public schools, the mass media, scientists, atheists, or people in general. They are most likely to think the dominant U.S. culture is hostile to their religious and moral values.”
8. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschooling will set my child up for success in life.”
How a person defines success will obviously determine whether homeschooling succeeds or not. But if success is defined as being able to support one’s self productively, the reality is that homeschool alumni often struggle to support themselves as adults. According to research in 2025 by the Christian think tank Cardus, “All homeschooled adults were less likely than non-homeschoolers to have a full-time job or to have an above-average income.”
9. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschooling has nothing to do with abuse.”
According to Homeschooling’s Invisible Children, a database of abused homeschooled children created by the Coalition for Responsible Home Education, “A 2014 study of child torture victims found that nearly half of victims were homeschooled as means of evading suspicions of abuse. In a typical case, victims were originally enrolled in school, but abusive caregivers withdrew them to homeschool after the closure of a social services investigation. Research and investigative reporting from Connecticut, Iowa, Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois all point to withdrawal from school as an indicator of abuse and neglect under certain circumstances. Across this body of work, a pattern emerges of at-risk families choosing to homeschool not for legitimate educational reasons, but in response to concerns raised over academic failure, chronic absenteeism, truancy, and/or signs of abuse. In spite of this trend, all 50 states allow families that were recently subject of a social services investigation to withdraw their children from school.”
10. Homeschooling parent myth: “Homeschooling my kids will lead to a blessed, multigenerational family life.”
While homeschooling parents love to parade their families around as the epitome of conservative, American family values, the children of these families do not always feel similarly. In fact, according to a 2011 study by the Christian think tank Cardus, homeschool alumni “reported much higher rates of feelings of helplessness about dealing with life’s problems and of lack of clarity of goals and sense of direction. They get married at far younger ages than all other groups, have fewer children than the national average, and get divorced more than other private school graduates. The divorce finding is particularly provocative, for the researchers found a very large effect of homeschooling itself here, and not just demographic background variables. What that means is that lots of young adults who were homeschooled are getting divorced even though their parents weren’t.”