High school-age kids can be particularly difficult to handle on a normal basis, even when you’re homeschooling. Any home school parent can struggle from time to time when they’re dealing with teenagers., but there are many ways to make that struggle a lot easier on parents and teens dealing with home school. Here are some helpful tips to improve high school homeschooling.
Tips to Improve High School Homeschooling
Give Them Space
When you’re transitioning from elementary to high school age homeschooling, there’s a shift in the need for your involvement. Teenagers are more developed and should be given more responsibilities in their life and learning. Give them a little space, let them do projects or assignments on their own or come up with their own ideas for them to give you. This will help learning come more easily and positively to your teen.
Plan Together
Planning is important for any age of homeschooling. You do need to understand and follow state requirements, curriculum needs, and so on. The difference is that as kids are growing up, they may want to be involved in that and doing so can benefit you both greatly. Sit down with your teenager and talk to them about what is required for the year as well as work together to plan for what you want to work into the curriculum. Learn how to utilise the library for resources or ideas on what they would like to study. If you do have a homeschool budget, let them know and they can help you meet this budget, which is a great learning tool for the future.
Integrate Life Skills
Even traditional schools are beginning to lose sight of life skills or home skills in curriculum, so being at home gives you the advantage to add those back into learning. Things your kid may need to know in life such as cooking, technological skills, creating a resume, financial responsibilities or anything else you can think of are great options to add to your home school curriculum here and there to break up harder learning and benefit kids.
Talk About School
An important part of keeping your teen interested and involved in homeschooling is talking with them about it. Ask them what goals they have in mind and let them know what goals you have for their year, curriculum plans, options for hands-on lessons, online classes they could take, or anything else you consider adding to their plans for each year. It gives you both a respect and understanding for each other through this process.
Add Variety
Teens can often get bored or tired of constant paperwork or the same assignments over and over. Variety is just as important as your kids grow older as when they’re younger. Maybe add lessons or curriculum focusing on their interests, try some online classes, get outdoors more, increase or add volunteer work, or anything else you can think of that will make school less monotonous.
Keep the “After” in Mind
There’s going to come a time after graduation when your child either moves on to further education, travel, work, or anything else. Don’t ignore that until the last minute. Research college or after high school planning options ahead of time and keep open communication about that topic throughout high school. Make sure your teen is thinking about it and knows you’re there to offer ideas and resources.
Hopefully, some or all of these tips come in handy for anyone trying to or soon to try to high school homeschooling. There are going to be a lot of ups and downs in the process, no matter how hard you try or how much help you have along the way, so remember to be patient.
To help with planning, try these printable daily or weekly planners!
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