One of any government’s primary purposes is to protect its citizens - from foreign threats and from crime. While capturing and punishing people who have committed crimes is an easily defined task (though often difficult to carry out), the task of crime prevention is much more broad and ambiguous. One crime prevention method government tries is to regulate people’s activities. Unfortunately, the regulations often impinge on and limit lawful activities, and regulations tend to grow more numerous and onerous.

These contrasting characteristics of homeschoolers and government are a recipe for tension, friction, or even collision. To a government official who isn’t familiar with it, homeschooling can easily appear to be educational neglect. Sometimes this mistake is encouraged by educrats, union operatives, and politicians who are philosophically opposed to homeschooling, and/or have a financial interest in limiting and eliminating it. Another vector for government officials wrongly interfering with a family’s right to homeschool is false reports of abuse and neglect from malicious extended family members, neighbors, and (sometimes) educrats. These mistakes, interest conflicts, and acts of malice are the reason some homeschooling families receive illegal demands from educrats or are wrongly investigated for abuse or neglect. Homeschoolers in the US are fortunate to have constitutional and statutory rights that enable them, if they are aware of and skillfully use those protections, to resist mistaken and illegal attempts to restrict, burden, or eliminate their rights to educate their children. Thus, homeschoolers need to be aware of the law and guard their rights when necessary. It would also be prudent for homeschoolers to maintain a high degree of privacy and low visibility where government is concerned. The fewer details local government, social services, and educrats have, the fewer pretexts they have for interference.

There are several practical situations where maintaining prudent privacy should be a consideration in homeschooling parents’ actions. Educrats or social workers sometimes ask for information, for interviews, or for home entry to which they are not legally entitled. The requests may be made very appealingly - requesting "cooperation" or that parents "work with" the educrat or social worker. The implied (and occasionally clearly stated) threat of ensuing consequences absent that cooperation should be sufficient warning that the educrat’s or social worker’s real intention is probably not benign, and that the "cooperation" will be unilateral. Homeschoolers should keep private what the law permits them to keep private! There are also situations into which homeschoolers may enter voluntarily that warrant caution. One such circumstance is participating in an independent study program (ISP) administered by a public school. In the process of enrolling, the local school district must be given otherwise private information about the enrolling family. Should the family later decide to homeschool privately, the family has made itself very visible and the school district can use that private family information in efforts to "encourage" the family to return to the public school (ISP or classroom). Also, in enrolling in the public school ISP, the family had to agree to permit home visits from teachers and/or administrators, thus waiving their 4th amendment protection from warrantless home entry. Those teachers and administrators are also mandatory reporters of child abuse or neglect, and must report anything that suggests the possibility of abuse or neglect. With the exception of the concerns about home entry, participation in public school sports programs presents similar risks to the homeschooling family - providing private family information to and being "visible" to the local school district.

As with all citizens, homeschoolers derive considerable protection from the government. Homeschoolers exercise their legal rights in ways peculiar to homeschooling. At the same time, it is prudent for homeschoolers to limit their dealings with the government and public schools.