Having recently explored the nuances of homeschooling through high school, Laura Kooistra, an experienced homeschooling parent, reflects on her journey and imparts valuable insights. In this blog post, she shares three crucial tips for making the homeschooling experience through high school more manageable and rewarding.
If I’d Known Then What I Know Now: 3Tips for Homeschooling Through High School
In our expansive family library, some picture books stand out as personal family classics. One of our favorites is Reeve Lindbergh’s, If I’d Known Then What I Know Now. Written in rhyme, it chronicles one family’s mixed-up life as Dad struggles with the finer points of plumbing, carpentry, and animal care. The family bumbles their way through examples like stoves that are cold and refrigerators that are warm. The story concludes with the heartwarming awareness that they wouldn’t have it any other way.
Their unique story and their unique dad were perfect for them.
Having now launched several humans into the adult sphere, here are some “If I’d known then what I know now” words of advice for you.
I hope these three tips will help make homeschooling through high school doable!
1. Give Attention to Older Children
Give your older children the same and possibly more attention than you give your youngers.
“What?! But, my younger kids have so many more needs!”
Do they? Sure, they may still be wearing diapers, and it’s likely that some of them cannot yet read or quickly recite multiplication facts. You’re in the trenches of teaching basic skills, keeping them safe, driving them all the places, and generally facilitating nearly every aspect of their experiences. But there’s a quiet math problem that accompanies every bedtime story, a load of dirty laundry, and an orthodontist appointment.
Your time with your older student is “less than” what remains for your younger child.
It’s easy to get swept away in the physical, immediate, and often noisy demands of younger children. They require a lot. Can I get an “amen”!?
And, it’s likely that your older student is behaving independently and responsibly and perhaps even eased up on the perceived involvement required from you. Frankly, many of the Classical Conversations Challenge students I’ve met are great kids who are handling themselves with poise and increasing autonomy.
But they’ve never been (fill in the blank) age before.
Balancing Independence and Support
Here’s my personal example: I’ve raised five of six kids, and only a 16-year-old remains as my dependent. She’s a good egg, a normal teen, and although courageous and optimistic, she has never navigated the waters of increasing responsibility and independence that are the current of her life right now.
Yes, she passed her driver’s test. But she still wants me in the car when she knows she must navigate a difficult traffic pattern or a particularly busy parking lot.
She’s applied for and holds a part-time job. But she still needs assistance confirming that she’s handling her banking and taxes and has budgeted enough gas money.
She’s learning how to answer questions at her annual physical, but there are still blanks in her knowledge, and she learns from me when I partner with her during her exam. When I sign a HIPPA form, I make sure she’s looking over my shoulder, or I might hand her the form and coach her as she fills in the blanks.
She loves Jesus, participates willingly in church, faithfully attends youth group, and has meaningful friendships with fellow Christians. But she frequently poses huge questions of faith like, “How can I know my salvation is secure?.”
Those questions don’t typically surface when we’re grinding at the dining table on her upcoming Lincoln Douglas debate. Those questions come when she’s unloading the dishwasher (fill in any kind of mundane or routine part of the day), and I’m nearby.
Although administrative details like applying for financial aid, arranging college visits, and keeping up with a transcript take an increased timeshare, I spend just as much time helping her weigh what kind of future she is aiming for.
She may not even need a transcript, given her current aspirations, so while I will be attentive to what administrative details demand my attention, I do not want to “give away” time that could be better spent connecting with my girl.
In case you missed it—she’s interested in technical certification related to a service profession. We shall see if we need that transcript or not!
Sibling Dynamics
Not to belabor the issue, but I’ll share just one more personal example related to this point.
When my youngest daughter was born, her oldest sibling was fifteen. It was his time to fly, so to speak, and in the first four years of her life, while she was taking naps and learning to toddle around, he was rapidly expanding his world beyond the boundaries of his boyhood bunkbed!
He journeyed to the other side of the world for a month-long mission trip. He moved away from home for an extended internship before returning clearer on what he didn’t want to dedicate his future to! He dated and then grew up through the eventual break-up with his first girlfriend. He bought his first car, struggled through online university classes, picked up a long-lasting hobby, explored online gaming, and began to take hold of what remains a personal code of honor rooted in virtue.
Most importantly, he confirmed his faith in Christ and began to anchor himself in spiritual disciplines, the local church, and his personal relationship with the Savior.
So you see, while she cuddled kittens, chased fireflies, and participated in her share of “time-outs,” he launched his adult life. Both are essential, and one is not more important than the other. But we enjoyed the gift of her slow childhood while her brother rocketed toward final independence. We had more time left with her, and we purposed not to miss the fleeting time that remained with him.
2. Take the Long View
Take the long view. Nobody can do it all.
There’s a temptation to orient homeschooling through high school from a to-do perspective.
As future stakes regarding the possibility of college, the options for a career, and the certainty of adulting are high, it’s all too easy to panic about getting your student ready. It makes sense that parents pay increasing attention to what is required for a high school diploma, and to require more and more output from your student.
But, each day has only 24 hours and each year only 365 days. You won’t get it all done. Either you just breathed a sigh of relief since you already know that and were sorta holding your breath until such time as you could let yourself off the hook. Or, your panic just increased, justified by the myriad of inescapable action items before you order your student’s cap and gown. Either reaction makes perfect sense.
The Relay Race
We must remember that we are raising our children to live full, flourishing, and faithful to their training lives. It’s like a relay race. We have our turn running, but the objective of our turn around the track is to hand off the baton. The high school years can feel like that final stretch, where your legs burn, your eyes blur, your lungs cry for mercy—and still, you press on. In so doing, it’s tempting to focus on only your stretch of pavement.
We easily forget that once we hand off the baton, there’s a lifetime of learning and becoming ahead for our students. There’s no way we’ll equip them with everything they could possibly ever, in every circumstance, need to do, have, or be. So, rather than focusing singularly on the finish line (graduation), we all need to learn and remember that it’s about equipping them to stay in the race.
3. Raise Resilient Kids
Raise resilient kids. Show them how to be self-controlled, gritty, and relatable.
Our modern world and culture are increasingly fragile with issues, insecurities, and insurmountable complexities. And until we come to the end of the days numbered for us, the effects of our broken world will only compound and complicate. We must disciple our children toward the hope of the gospel and train them to have grit and gumption.
Culture and Ted Talks will convince us of our shortcomings, necessary quick fixes, and how to 10x (again . . . fill in the blank). But the enduring work of raising resilient kids can’t come from a YouTube short or an influencer who masquerades as an expert. Parent—you are the current expert on your child. And you are training them to take over as self-aware, self-controlled, resilient experts on themselves.
A List of Skills to Cover
Some important topics to cover include:
- Emotional processing and resiliency
- Identity
- Boundaries
- Conflict skills
- Spiritual disciplines
- Habits (deliberate practices)
- Healthy relationship skills
- Romance and intimacy
- Health and wellness
- Financial planning
- Career readiness
Although the list could continue, you’ve noticed that the work of homeschooling through high school exceeds what you’ll capture on a transcript.
Show Up for Your Teenager
I realize that most of you are already aware of these broad areas of personal development, and you probably aren’t looking at a curriculum or a program to fill these buckets. Rather, the danger I’ve had to confront is that it’s easier to talk about homework than it is to sit in whatever teenage struggle my 16-year-old brings to me today.
Sometimes, I do it well, and other times, I leave skin on the pavement, but the tip is this: Show up for your teenager as a parent, mentor, and compassionate but principled adult. Respect their struggles. Have patience with their shortcomings. Affirm their victories. Encourage their development. Remind them and convince yourself that learning and acquiring skills is a lifelong pursuit.
Show them how to be self-controlled, resilient, gritty, and relatable humans!
Becoming a virtuous, resilient human through the high school homeschool years is much like sailing; sometimes, you’re becalmed, and sometimes, you’re overtaken by storms. Most frequently, though, you tack back and forth to catch the prevailing wind while you steer toward your destination.
If I’d Known Then
Humor me to conclude with what could be a picture book rhyme. I thought I knew it then; turns out I see more now.
Homeschooling through high school is more than it looks,
The lessons and values far surpassed what we found in books.
We learned that time together was the graduation key,
Me learning from you and you learning from me.
Curriculum aside and to-do’s less important than I knew,
In spite of what I didn’t know, still, up you grew.
Hindsight’s 20/20, and there’s probably some things I’d change,
But sailing this sea with you is one thing I’d never exchange.
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