What About High School?

A lot of people enjoy homeschooling when their kids are younger, but do not consider homeschooling for high school. There are a lot of reasons—concern about making sure they get a solid education and are prepared for college. Concern about the traditional “high school experiences” the child will miss out on. The list goes on and on. I personally did not plan on homeschooling through high school. (That makes sense because I did not actually plan on home schooling at all!) When we got to that point though, the pieces just seemed to fall into place. It felt right and ended up being a lot of fun. I want to talk about some of the advantages we saw as a result of homeschooling through my children’s teenage years, as well addressing potential drawbacks.

Besides concern over the academic rigor of homeschool verses “real” high school, common concerns often revolve around the social experience children might miss out on—proms, friends, sports, extra-curricular activities, leadership experiences, learning to jump through a teacher’s hoops and being able to handle the structure of a higher education setting. Those are valid concerns, but meeting those needs is often not as difficult as it might seem. In many communities, there are opportunities for participation in sports, community theater, musical groups and most other extra-curricular activities that might interest your child. We found plenty of leadership and service opportunities.  It was not uncommon for people in our area to get together and organize non-school sponsored proms, which were attended by public school and homeschool kids alike. As we met together for co-op classes, our teens developed close friendships with other peers. They took concurrent classes at the junior college which gave them valuable experience negotiating formal school settings and meeting teacher expectations.

If you are considering doing high school at home, make sure to check out the opportunities in your community. Creating opportunities for your high schooler may take some effort on your part, but it can also be very rewarding. Doing high school at home also has some tremendous advantages. Here are a few:

• Time. There is a lot of wasted time in traditional school. Our children were able to complete the necessary coursework and still had the majority of their day free to pursue other activities. This left more time for extra-curriculars, hobbies, social activities, reading, earning money and most importantly, time to be a part of the family. Our family life did not have to revolve around their crazy schedules.

• Flexibility: Our children were able to adjust and adapt their schedules to accommodate their life. Several of my children were serious musicians. During competition season, they were able to practice 3-5 hours in the morning, do schoolwork in the afternoon and then still had time for the other community and church activities they enjoyed with their peers. Because of their flexible schedules, they were able to hold jobs that would never be available to a student in public school. This not only gave them great experience and looked good on their college applications, but also enabled them to fund most or all of college by themselves.

• Strong Family Connection: During a time when most teens spend the bulk of their day away from home and connected with everyone except family, our children had time at home—time to talk, time to enjoy each other, time to work together on projects and time to do things as a family that many of their peers missed out on. At a stage where most teens were detaching from home, we were able to strengthen connections and become closer friends.

• More Academic Options: Some of my children would have excelled whether they were at home or in public school, but some of them had personalities or learning challenges that made success in public school unlikely. I doubt that some of my children would have gotten accepted to a good university had they attended public school. Because we had complete control over their high school experience, we were able to customize it in a way that made success for them more likely. Things that would have ruined their transcripts before they finished 10^th grade could be shifted until they had a bit more maturity behind them. We could take time to make sure they had a solid foundation in place before starting each course. In the end, they all accomplished what was expected of a college bound student and got great grades in classes they took at the junior college. However, having flexibility in how we made that happen provided a tremendous advantage.

• Social Well-Being: For all the worry people have about home-schooled children not being well socialized, it is interesting that we found homeschooling to actually have tremendous social advantages. For one thing, we had a lot more control over the influences they encountered. The kids were not thrown into situations where peer pressure was greater than their readiness to deal with it, or put in situations where they were belittled or bullied. Some might think that not having to deal with peer pressure and negative influences early on might result in children who were socially backward and less resilient when they finally encountered it. In real life, we found that our children had much more confidence in standing up for themselves and their values. Our home became a hub of social activity. The kids hosted lots of parties, activities and group events, which helped them develop leadership skills. Most importantly, their socialization was not limited to their immediate age group. They were comfortable around much younger children and had close friends of all ages, including adults.

There is a lot we will talk about concerning the “how” of homeschooling through high school, but first it is important to consider the “why.” Not only is homeschooling through high school a very viable option, but there are significant benefits that deserve serious consideration when determining which option is best for you.