Trauma Aware America

The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has spent decades promoting itself as the protector of homeschooling families, but its version of “protection” comes at a cost. Their style of leadership is rooted in fear, hierarchy, and control, and it has a physiological and relational impact on the entire homeschooling community, even those who want nothing to do with them.

This is not a trust-based organization. It’s a top-down, lawyer-run machine that thrives on threat. Their leadership style keeps people in a constant state of alarm: the government might take your kids, social services might come knocking, the schools are out to get you. You need to pay us to protect you. From an Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) perspective, that’s a culture of chronic activation, not safety, curiosity, or connection. When a group’s nervous system is organized around defense and righteousness, it can’t regulate or listen, only react.

The group of lawyers built a lucrative empire out of that reaction. They wrote the two worst homeschooling laws in the country–Pennsylvania’s and New York’s–then made a business out of defending parents against those same laws. One of their lawyers even admitted to me that, “This may seem duplicitous, but this is what lawyers do best.” It’s a self-made problem that keeps them relevant. They create the storm, then sell the umbrella.

HSLDA ideology runs far beyond homeschooling. They’ve openly advocated for shutting down the U.S. Department of Education, took a stand on the imaginary “partial birth abortion,” and pushed “parental rights” legislation that strips children of the right to bodily integrity. They cloak themselves in the language of liberty while promoting control by parents, ideology,  and fear. The idea that children’s rights threaten parental rights says everything you need to know about their moral compass. 

I often went toe-to-toe with HSLDA and its attorneys, managing to beat them at their own game. In 2005, they tried to sabotage my homeschool regulation reform effort in Prince William County, Virginia. For more than a year, I had worked with the school board to better align its regulations with state law and remove a punitive three-day waiting period that delayed parents from starting homeschooling. Regulation required more than the state law. I had built genuine trust with the school board, the clerk, and even across party lines. It was a local effort led by a person who lived there in response to numerous phone calls from frightened local parents.

Then HSLDA swept in at the last minute, without consulting me or any other local homeschoolers. Their Virginia representative tried to torpedo the whole thing. He raised a stink and likely threatened, as that is their pattern. In response, the board chair withdrew the agreed-upon resolution from the consent agenda, breaking board protocol and undoing months of cooperative work in one afternoon. The irony is that HSLDA claimed to be defending homeschool freedom while trampling over the autonomy and intelligence of the homeschoolers who were working to make the system fairer. That’s their pattern.

From an IPNB perspective, this behavior is expected from an organization that runs on fear and hierarchy. It disconnects from reality and relationship. Their system depends on activating people’s survival responses–“They’re coming for your kids!”–instead of nurturing the social engagement and flexibility that real freedom requires. They can’t see nuance or build partnership, because their nervous systems are trained to look for threat and to dominate.

Meanwhile, those of us working from relationship and inclusion were operating from something entirely different: connection, trust, and respect. Our power came from attunement and collaboration, not control. We built regulation in the system by creating safety and mutual regard. HSLDA did the opposite: they created chaos and called it righteousness. The school board recognized this and voted for the resolution proposed by the board member who had been working the closest with me. 

HSLDA’s harm extends far beyond one county in Virginia. Their reputation for interference precedes them. Every time they barge into local initiatives and call it leadership, they erode the credibility of homeschoolers who are trying to work cooperatively with public officials. They polarize communities that might otherwise find common ground. They set back progress for everyone else by feeding the stereotype that homeschoolers are paranoid extremists who can’t work with anyone.

And what’s worse, they’ve built an entire identity around that paranoia. Their members are encouraged to stay vigilant, distrustful, and look to HSLDA to protect them. That’s not empowerment, but dependence. It keeps families from developing the relational capacity to engage their communities with confidence. It keeps the collective body of homeschooling culture tight, brittle, and reactive.

In contrast, the coalition I helped lead in 2005 worked through relationship. We didn’t rely on lawyers or fear. We relied on humanity, community, communication, and mutual respect. We succeeded because we regulated the system instead of inflaming it. And that’s exactly why HSLDA couldn’t stand it. True freedom, the kind that arises from connection and trust, threatens the power structure they’ve built.

Their brand of control masquerades as freedom, but it’s the opposite. It’s a body stuck in defense, a culture that can’t exhale.

This is why we repeatedly succeed where they fail. While they rely on fear, rules, and shame to keep people in line, we cultivate presence, awareness, and connection. We honor the body’s natural rhythms, listen to its signals, and create spaces where trust, curiosity, and compassion can thrive. Their system collapses under rigidity; ours grows through adaptability. Every time we choose safety, attunement, and mutual support, we reclaim what they try to control.