5 Important Ways Homeschooling Develops Your High Schooler

The public school environment is one of the biggest reasons many parents decide to homeschool their children, and since the concerns of COVID-19, the number of parents who are home-educating has continued to rise. However, even with homeschooling on the rise, many parents have voiced fear and dread about the high school years.

High schoolers are stereotyped as being rebellious, argumentative, and lazy; thus, when it comes to high school, many parents send their teenagers into the school system, so they do not have to fight with them. Sadly, this causes high schoolers to lose many opportunities that homeschooling could have afforded them.

If you are a home educator who has a child approaching high school, I urge you to remember that high school is one of the most formative times in your child’s life. Homeschooling gives your student many opportunities that cannot be found in the government school system.

1. Homeschooling Allows You to Teach Truth

High school is the time when many people begin to question their beliefs and when they begin to form lasting habits. Proverbs 22:6 says, "Train up a child in the way he should go; even when he is old, he will not depart from it." Many people consider this verse to mean that if they train their child in truth, that child will not depart from the truth. However, let us look at this verse in a different light. If you as a parent were to never discipline, correct, or speak truth to your children, would they become men or women of God? Would they be a strong leader and warrior for Christ? Probably not. Rather, they would grow in their own ways and would refuse to depart from the way of the world.

Homeschooling your high schooler is incredibly important as it gives you the time to talk with him or her about the wiles of the world. Public high schools and even Christian high schools too often sway the formative minds of high schoolers with worldly thinking, but at home, you can combat the world’s lies with the truth of the Bible.

2. Homeschooling Gives Students Opportunities to Seek Internships and Jobs

Unfortunately, hard workers are lacking in much of society today because many people have not been taught the importance of working hard. Students in public schools often spend so much time at school or doing homework that they do not have time for much else. Homeschooling gives high schoolers the flexibility they need to find jobs or internships in which they can learn to develop a work ethic. Home educating your child also allows your child to see your work ethic and learn from that.

3. Homeschooling Allows You to Teach Practical Skills

If your students spend their days at school only to come home and work on homework until bedtime, they will not have the time to learn practical skills such as cooking and cleaning and budgeting and home maintenance—skills that they will need when they launch on their own. Homeschooling your high schooler, however, allows you to teach your child hands-on skills that they will use for the rest of their lives.

4. Homeschooling Allows Your High Schooler to Pursue Interests

Eighteen is the seemingly magical age when most students graduate and go off to college. But choosing a major is often an extremely difficult choice to make because the public high

school does not have time to help students develop their interests in preparation for making this decision. Homeschooling enables you and your child to customize a school curriculum to pursue different interests and better prepare for college and life after college.

5. Homeschooling Allows You to Bond with Your Teenager

So many high schoolers do not have good relationships with their parents. But a rebellious attitude and disagreements do not have to be the norm. Home educating your children provides an opportunity for them to get to know you and for you to get to know them, which helps you learn how to best communicate and interact.

Entering high school is not the end of the homeschooling journey. Rather, it is the start of a deep and lasting relationship between you and your teenager.

Copyright 2022, The Old Schoolhouse®. Used with permission. All rights reserved by the author. Originally appeared in the Summer 2022 issue of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, the trade publication for homeschool moms. Read The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine free at www.TOSMagazine.com, or download the free reader apps at www.TOSApps.com for mobile devices. Read the STORY of The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine and how it came to be.

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