Homeschool Your Teenager

Aside from the often superior education homeschool students receive, here are some more reasons to homeschool your teenager:

Because homeschooling can be done at any time of the day and takes a lot less time than traditional school, many homeschooled teens can work part-time or full-time to earn money for college, their own spending money or car, or just to gain work experience. They can volunteer their time and skills during regular work hours when many agencies are open and need help. They can also spend more time learning life skills around the house and doing chores many teens just don’t have time to do.

Homeschooled students are less influenced by other teenagers and their sophomoric, cruel or even criminal behavior. Homeschooled teens are influenced much more by responsible adults and are held accountable to them. In school, a student can skate by on C’s and D’s and still go on to the next grade while goofing off. In a homeschool environment, parents can demand excellence in students’ studies and not allow them to pass if they don’t have an A or B level of understanding in a subject. My son soon learned he was better off doing something right the first time if he didn’t want to spend a bunch of time doing it over until I was satisfied with his work.

You can tailor a student’s curriculum to fit his or her specific needs and interests. If your child wants to pursue fashion design you can avoid teaching him or her three hard sciences and math beyond Algebra I and Geometry. Measurements relevant to the fashion industry can be taught instead. For example, sales and marketing could be taught instead of a third or fourth history course. To fill in any gaps in knowledge from not taking a class, the student can read a few books on a subject to get the main ideas. This is what we do as adults. When we need or want to learn something we get a book and read about it. An overview appreciation course could also be substituted for individual classes in subjects a student won’t use again. Someone going into the arts or business needs to know enough about science to be an informed citizen, but that knowledge could be covered in a physical science course about all the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, and astronomy) and one life sciences course covering biology, botany, earth and environmental science.

One of the biggest advantages of homeschooling is you can focus your teen on the three most important skills her or she will need:

• to read something and discuss it or write about it knowledgeably and well
• to find information quickly and independently
• basic and everyday math skills

If you can read and comprehend it, you can learn anything. If you have a great deal of skill and practice in basic math, you are equipped to learn more advanced math subjects.

I’m sure there are many more reasons to homeschool. Please speak your mind in the comments and share your ideas with us.

Sherri

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written by joubess \\ tags: advantages, homeschool, teenager

Hello and welcome to Homeschool Your Teenager!

This blog is going to be different from many homeschool sites on the web. Most homeschool sites I run across are targeted to families with elementary school age children. There are far fewer sites for middle and high school homeschool families.

A Bit About Us

I homeschool my thirteen-year-old son and have since he was eleven. I have a bachelor’s degree in chemistry, I spent 20 years in the chemistry industry, and now I tutor high school math and science. I’m in the position to be able to homeschool a high school student from an academic standpoint. I know most parents aren’t in the same position, or even anywhere close to it. That’s why I’m developing this site.

My son did really well in the school system in pre-kindergarten through 3rd grade in a math/science magnet program. After 3rd grade the system dropped the math/science program and substituted a visual and performing arts program. We tried it for a year and he was so stressed out that he was on the edge of a breakdown. He also failed the 4th grade achievement test and had to repeat 4th grade even though he passed the grade, just not the test. Students have to pass the test to advance to 5th grade. At that point he was also moved to our neighborhood school because failing the test kicked him out of the magnet program. I had to withdraw him or he was going to be expelled toward the end of 5th grade for sleeping in class and not paying attention. It was considered a disruption to the rest of the class.

I don’t plan to put him back into the traditional school system, public or private. He has bipolar disorder, several anxiety disorders, migraines, and a bit of ADD. He also has some anger management issues. Students with medical conditions of this nature can get a 504 plan written by their doctor or counselor and the Americans with Disabilities Act requires that it be followed if presented to a public school. Many private schools honor them as well to keep from losing students and their tuition dollars. In our experience, our school system doesn’t implement 504 plans for students unless it’s convenient for them to do so. This is part of the reason he failed the 4th grade test.

My son was miserable attending traditional school and they did a great job of destroying his self-esteem. He was on so much medication to keep him in school that if he had been an adult, the psychiatrist would have suggested finding another more suitable job or career.

I’ll be the first to admit it isn’t easy to homeschool a teenager, but it’s been worth it. He pursues his interests and likes learning again. We’ve been able to take him off most of the medication. The only ones left are to treat bipolar disorder and anxiety. His self-esteem is much better, although it still needs some work. It’s not easy to believe in yourself after 3 years of being told you don’t fit in, you’re not smart, or you’re a trouble-maker. Schools seem really quick to assign negative labels to children and then hammer them in until the student is severely effected in some negative way.

Why Fewer Homeschooled Teenagers?

I believe there are fewer homeschooled teens because many parents don’t feel comfortable teaching more advanced subjects, especially the hard sciences, literature and higher-level math. Parents may not have studied these subjects themselves in high school or college. This is completely understandable. How can a parent feel comfortable teaching a teen physics when the parent never studied it before?

High school can be about more than academics for many students. It can be rich in social activities such as working on the school newspaper, being in the honor society, working on the yearbook, prom, team sports, band, orchestra, choir, and various clubs to name several.

Another reason many parents don’t homeschool their teenagers is students don’t get a high school diploma. In many states if teens are homeschooled they must take the GED test and earn a GED instead of a diploma. Many people equate a GED with someone who couldn’t make it in high school and don’t want their children associated with that stigma, especially when homeschooling educates them far better than attending traditional schools. Parents may see the GED as a kick in the teeth or some sort of punishment for homeschooling their teenager.

The fact is a GED is treated the same as a high school diploma when applying for college and other post-high school programs. It is also viewed as equivalent by most employers of high school graduates. In fact, some employers would rather have a high school dropout who went back and got his or her GED because those teens likely started working full-time when they dropped out, and have work experience and drive to succeed. Going back to classes to study for the GED test is difficult because a student often has to go to evening classes after working full-time. That makes them an adult very quickly.

Academic success alone has never been a good measure of future success in the workplace or in life (thank goodness for those of us who didn’t have a high GPA in college!).

The diploma or GED just means the student finished high school. The diploma itself doesn’t reflect grades or the areas of study a student pursued. Higher education institutions look at what the student accomplished in their high school years of study, not just at the fact that they have a piece of paper. What the student learned is far more important and is what colleges and the rest of the world look at.

For college, knowledge is tested using the ACT or SAT tests. One doesn’t get a good score on either test unless he or she really learned something during their teenage years. Most community colleges and technical schools also require entrance exams. The entrance exam score is heavily weighted in the admissions process to universities, colleges and technical schools because a certain level of knowledge is required to succeed in their programs.

What This Site Offers

There are resources for parents of homeschooled teenagers to study advanced subjects without the parent having to understand them well or be able to teach them.

• Many local homeschool associations hold small classes in advanced subjects for homeschoolers.
• Some online schools provide advanced subjects and an online teacher the student works with directly.
• There are tutors available in every subject you can think of all over the country, and you can find one in your area with a little research. I suggest going to your local library and observing if there are tutors working with students at the tables scattered around. Just approach them and ask for a business card or phone number. Most tutors are always looking for more work or can get you in touch with a good tutor who has hours available in the subject or subjects you need.
• There are a few online forums where parents, students and others can go to get specific help with high school subjects. I believe this needs to change.
• There are some homeschool sites that help with constructing a college-ready transcript from your students’ homeschool work.
• There are many websites that contain free resources like worksheets for math, science project ideas and instructions, and book lists most high schoolers are supposed to read before college. I am collecting those sites and publishing them in lists in the sidebars.

Be sure to check the sidebars for links to resources on the web.

One of the things I have planned for this blog is a syllabus for each high school subject based on the “For Dummies” series of books. If you’ve never read any of them, I highly recommend that you pick one up from your local library in a subject you’re interested in and give it a read. This series of books is written by the experts in each field the books cover. I’ve learned so much from them myself that I wonder why I didn’t think of using them sooner. These books also make it much easier for your student to learn the subject with little assistance from a parent. They lend themselves well to independent study, one of the things colleges, universities and employers love about homeschooled students. Being motivated and able to learn independently are two of the most important skills anyone can possess.

Another thing I have planned in the near future (6-12 months) is a forum where parents, students, teachers, tutors and others can ask and answer questions about high school subjects. It will be sorted by subject area. Anyone can ask questions in the comments and I’ll do my best to answer them. I’m sure others who are knowledgeable will also provide answers in the comments.

Please browse the categories and pages and I hope you find many things you need to make homeschooling your teenager a successful endeavor. Please leave your thoughts and suggestions in the comments. I’d love to hear what’s on your mind.

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written by joubess \\ tags: homeschool, resources, teenager, welcome