Relying on a decade-long participant observation study, this book focuses on the salience of parent-child relationships for home schooling. Those experiences with traditional schools emerge as a major motive for home schooling. The quality of the relationships that develop between parents and children are the major predictor of a successful home schooling experience. Comparing the socialization between traditional schooling and home schools, Family Ties: Relationships, Socialization and Home Schooling investigates significant controversies in these two separate environments. Professor Gary Wyatt is able to represent a parent with both experiences and contends to dispel the typical home schooling critiques. The efforts of home schooling parents to negotiate favorable identities with others and the techniques used to manage the anxiety associated with this unconventional lifestyle are explored.