Part 1-Home Schooling High Schoolers

Why I’m Glad I Homeschooled Through High School

We now have graduated 11 children from high school. This month, I am going to share about homeschooling through high school. I thought I'd start out by sharing some of the reasons I am so glad we made the decision to home school through high school.

1. Close Family Relationships

This is personally my favorite reason for home educating .It is one of my biggest joys to have kids who are each other's best friends!

Relationships that are built strong now last for a lifetime!!

I’ve seen it happen in our family and it can happen in yours too! Sure, as the kids were growing up there were plenty of times that I wondered if they would ever get along. Some days it seemed that I was playing referee to the constant squabbles. I would have to remind myself that God's Word is what changes attitudes and I just needed to be faithful to teaching them the right things. Those hours of character training really paid off!

I now have 11 children that I have graduated from high school and only three left that I am still schooling!

Looking back the time went so quickly although day-by-day sometimes seemed to go slowly.

When you raise your kids to have a spirit of cooperation instead of a spirit of competition, they will learn to appreciate each other’s strengths and be patient with each other’s weaknesses, realizing God has a plan for each one and it’s a unique plan for every person.

Our job is to get to really know each of our children by studying them and watching for God-given interests to crop up. Then we can begin plugging them into opportunities, supplies, etc. to help them to learn more about what God has created them to accomplish and be involved in.

When I once asked my kids if they were glad they were homeschooled and why, my son Matt said one of the reasons he’s glad he was homeschooled was that he got to really know his family instead of just meeting up with them in the evening. I second that!!

I don’t believe our family could have accomplished this level of closeness without the advantage of hours of time spent together building those relationships, helping each other, and learning to view it as our responsibility to pitch in to help make the others successful in their chosen pursuits.

At our house, every Friday night is family night. We all get together at our house (26 OF US in all, soon to be 27) and each household brings one part of the meal. Interaction of the family is great!

2. Lots of Important Life-long impacting Decisions are made during this time

I have a sister who was a public school teacher for years. Once my husband asked her if she would ever consider teaching her kids at home. She replied, “OH NO, they would never listen to me”. She was teaching hundreds of other kids but her own wouldn’t listen to her? There is truth in that statement. When we turn our children over to “professionals” for years, they come to look at those “professionals” as the most qualified to help them. When we send our children out of our home for 6-7 hrs or sometimes more daily, their allegiance is transferred in part anyway to their mentors that have their ear for so many of their waking hours.

My niece recently was sharing with me the folly of listening to her guidance counselor’s advice in high school. She was a brilliant student and her counselor highly recommended she go the very “best” colleges as she had the brains for it. She took his advice and graduated from 5 years with a master’s degree in social services and piles of debt!! She says she could have obtained the same degree at community college for a fraction of the debt, not to mention the indoctrination that she was subjected to and accepted for many years.

Colleges try to chip away at the values you’ve worked for years to inculcate in your children’s lives. I’m not saying never go to college, but realize that it’s happening and if college is right for your particular child, then prepare them, and I mean spiritually and Biblically, to withstand the attacks they will be under.

If you have a child who is pursuing a career where they must have college, like being a doctor, for instance, and you are afraid you can’t prepare them for it academically, relax. Lots of helps are out there. Community colleges, online courses where they can learn right at home, private tutors, etc. It is possible.

You can do it better at home with creativity than having to sacrifice this crucial time of your high schooler’s life. They NEED you now even more than when they were in first grade!! It is at this time of life when your children begin to evaluate your values and question your beliefs sometimes. This is a normal part of the process in learning to adopt those values for themselves.

Some of the best talks I’ve had with my teens has been after 11 pm when everyone else is in bed. I might see one of them kind of hanging around, and that was my cue that something was on their mind. Your kids need to be able to talk things out and throw ideas around and bounce things off of you.

They don’t just automatically adopt your values for life without thinking it all through and that is a very healthy thing. Be careful not to feel threatened if it seems like they are challenging some of your core beliefs. In my experience they were trying to make sense of it all and needed the freedom to talk it out. We assume sometimes our kids just know why we do what we do, but often we just haven’t taken the time to explain it to them.

It is during these crucial years that your teen will have questions on mission in life, career choice, life direction, life partner, etc. YOU need to be their primary mentor at this time of life more than ever!!

3. It is during these crucial teen years that respect is earned by the parent

Communication takes time and time invested builds respect.

Parenting isn’t something that can be thrown in at the end of a busy day and made to work right. If your child were in school they would have given the best waking hours and energy to other relationships. Don’t fool yourself. If you send your child to high school it will affect their relationship with their family. I’m not saying no one can ever raise godly kids if they send them to school, but I know I want the absolute best for my kids and that requires sacrifice on my part.

You have to really get to know your child and learn what makes them tick, what godly desires they have and help them to visualize God’s plan for their lives.

Parenting requires time and often setting aside your plans to help them !

more next week...

~Marilyn