Stick With It

I was pleasantly surprised by how well our last years of homeschooling ended up being. In previous years, I was extra nervous as I looked ahead knowing that the intensity of our schooling was going to go up dramatically.

I wasn’t sure if they would rise to the challenge or if our lives would become mass chaos trying to juggle everything.

Even though the difficulty level definitely went up, I was impressed with how my sons handled their increased workload. One of my sons who used to struggle with writing anything down began writing papers which were several pages long and eventually went on to write a book!

This son who would read for hours but struggled to spell even the easiest words could suddenly take his spelling tests with hardly any practice. He studied for and aced science tests that I would have a hard time taking (even though we’re studying the material together.)

He began having deep conversations about logical fallacies. He enjoyed debating with people to defend his faith.

He loved filming movies and editing them on the computer. He even became proficient at giving speeches!

I marveled with my husband at how much our son had matured, how enjoyable school had become, and how I was so glad we had stuck with homeschooling during the difficult years so that we could now enjoy the fruit of our labor.

Then I realized many people don’t continue homeschooling past the elementary years. I personally know several homeschoolers who put their kids into either a private or a public school for high school.

In talking with people, they seem much more willing to accept that we will homeschool our children while they are young. A smaller percentage of people understand why we would continue homeschooling through the high school years.

Why do they choose not to stick with it?

I think this is very sad. I started homeschooling my boys when they were toddlers, just to be sure I could figure out what to do with them. I did tons of research and jumped in with both feet.

I worked with my boys during the preschool years, teaching them how to count and to read. We transitioned to more book learning in the elementary grades and I saw them blossom.

We had many frustrating days, yes, but we worked through the tough times and went on to see brighter days. Once my boys were maturing and learning was coming easier for them, why would I want to enroll them in school and miss out on the brightest years of all?

Some parents don’t feel capable of teaching their children high school level subjects. Let me reassure you that it is not up to you to be able to come up with the material on your own.

Just like in younger grades, there is curriculum available for high school as well. One change is that we may have been able to get away with not purchasing teacher’s manuals, tests, or solution manuals when our children were younger. I would highly recommend we purchase these items as the subjects become more advanced.

My son took Apologia General Science along with several of their other courses and without their solutions manuals, I would have been hard pressed to know whether some of his answers were correct or not. With it, however, we did just fine.

There are many other solutions, as well, if you feel seriously intimidated by a subject.

You may decide to hire a tutor, enroll him in an online class, buy an online class, buy teaching DVDs, or join a co-op. We used Mr. D Math classes for Algebra and beyond and that was an excellent choice for my younger son.

Feel free to farm out a class or two if it is way above your comfort level. Don’t feel that if one subject is too much that you have to give up on homeschooling altogether.

If you’ve been homeschooling your child all along, you should be able to help your child with most of their coursework.

One of the main goals of homeschooling is to teach children to be independent learners. As your child matures, you will want to do what you can to help guide your child into this type of learning.

Help them to set their own schedules, let them read the materials and only help them as they have questions, let them help decide which courses they would like to take each year in order to reach their own goals, etc.

The more your child takes ownership of their learning, the better prepared they will be to do high school coursework – and college level classes as well, for that matter. If possible, you will want to try to read ahead in at least some of their books so that you can have intelligent conversations with them about what they are learning.

Another possibility is to team up with other homeschool families and have your children reading the same books and using the same coursework for a subject so that they can discuss what they’re learning with each other.

Book clubs are a great way for kids to learn the art of discussing serious subjects with their peers. There are great resources out there which contain questions you can ask them to facilitate their discussions.

Progeny Press Guides are a great way to help your child study a book in depth.

One of the most important goals of homeschooling isn’t even related to their schoolwork. It is our desire to raise our children to have solid, moral character.

It is much easier to influence our child in this way if we are with them all day long. When children attend school for the majority of their day, they are influenced more deeply by their peers than they are by their parents.

This starts very quickly in children. Kindergarten and first grade students have a desire to fit in just as much as do older children. They begin to request designer clothing, to mock children who are being mocked by their friends, to value the things their teachers or their friends value.

Young children even begin to look for “boyfriend” and “girlfriend” relationships at way too young of an age.

By the time kids reach middle school and high school, they have been surrounded by peers long enough to have developed some very undesirable habits. In my opinion, it is the opposite atmosphere in which we want to place our children.

We’ve worked so hard to mould and shape our children when they are young. Why would be want to drop them into this type of hostile environment when we are mere yards away from the finish line?

Some who read this may be thinking that I plan to keep my children with me forever, protected in a sheltered cocoon so that they never have to experience life. That is certainly not the case. I am raising my sons to leave the nest, to be productive citizens, to be godly young men, to be faithful husbands and engaged fathers.

One day, they will be ready to enter the world and to fulfill their purpose in life. The world can be a cruel place – but I would contend that it is nowhere near as cruel as the artificially created world that is school.

If you are bullied in the workplace, you can quit your job. It’s much harder to get away from bullying when you are in school. You can choose your work environment, at least to some degree. You don’t have that luxury in school.

It is easier to avoid the pressures of sex, drugs, and alcohol at your job than it is at school. If I have done my job correctly, my children will stick out like a sore thumb at school. They should fit in much better in many work environments, as long as they make good career choices.

So, as you think ahead to the latter years of educating your children, please don’t feel pressured to reinsert them into a traditional school. You can do it!

You and your child can both rise to the occasion. And as you are able to experience your child maturing, learning, and growing, you will be blessed… if you just stick with it!

 Question: Are you planning to stick with it and homeschool through high school? I would love to hear from you! Please leave a comment below.