Andrea Dunlop

the situation.

And I don't know, I would love to think that the police would have given you some helpful resources.

Truthfully, I don't know, because there are plenty of police that don't even understand that this is a crime when it involves a small child.

So having an adult call them and say, I'm in this situation, I don't know.

Yeah.

And it's, I mean, it's deliberate, right?

I mean, that isolation is deliberate.

Yeah.

The homeschooling thing comes up in so many, not just Munchausen by proxy cases, but other abuse situations where, and of course, there are many homeschool families and homeschool parents that are not abusive.

But unfortunately, for opportunistic abusers, it creates a situation where you don't have the child exposed to the outside world and importantly, mandatory reporters of abuse, right?

And a lot of reports about Munchausen by proxy come from schools because those teachers and school nurses and administrators are – if the child is in school, they're very aware of the child being taken out of school for long periods of time and they're observing the child for longer periods during the day.

You know, my kid – my oldest is in school.

you know, she's at school all day long, right?

If I was telling the school, oh, she has, you know, she has this seizure disorder and she has all these things and all of these problems, and then they're observing her being a normal child during the day, they're going to have an inkling that something is up.

So that is, I think, a part of the reason why

you know, why they keep them out of school, right?

They don't want other eyes on the child.

And I think like eyes on the child is always healthy for the child.

I don't think there's any, truthfully, I don't think there's any argument for a child being isolated at home with one parent.

You know, even in situations where, you know, children have profound disabilities.