Tips for Homeschooling Your High School Student

Give your high-school age kids latitude in planning their homeschool schedule, and support them in their interests.Tatyana Vyc/Shutterstock

When we began homeschooling our daughter in kindergarten, our plan was to take things year by year. Then our son joined two years later; we fell in love with learning at home and immersed ourselves in the many and varied freedoms of homeschooling. We officially became known as Countryside Academy, and so the plan to homeschool through high school was set in motion.

Homeschooling your high school kids may seem daunting, but as someone who navigated that path for both a college-bound and a workforce-bound student, I want to remind you that you’re well-equipped.

Begin Planning Early

It’s never too soon to think about career exploration. In fact, it’s advantageous to sit down with your middle school kids and discuss the ways that their current interests can translate into a future career. Reassure your child that this is just a simple conversation and that you fully understand that their interests may change, multiple times even, and that’s OK. Curiosity is the path to discovery.

If your child is receptive, discuss the pros and cons of the college-bound, workforce-bound, and even entrepreneurial-bound paths, and if possible, help your child determine which path best fits his or her strengths and visions for the future.

Talk to veteran homeschoolers who’ve successfully guided their kids through high school. They’ll be able to recommend favorite resources, offer advice, and reassure you that you can do this. Also, talk to their kids. Kids are transparent with a capital T and will undoubtedly jump at the chance to share their likes and dislikes.

Begin to cultivate independent learning if you haven’t already. Model a love for learning and always encourage your kids to dig deeper into topics of interest. Ask your kids open-ended questions such as how and why questions. Demonstrate how to conduct thorough research using multiple sources and how to evaluate those sources for quality and accuracy.

Believe me, you’ll be giddy with thankfulness later when your high school daughter wants to take Latin, as ours did. And, yes, I did learn along with her for the first couple of months, if that, until she soared way past me.

Read everything you can about homeschooling high school. Some excellent resources are the Let’s Homeschool High School and It’s Not That Hard to Homeschool websites, the Ultimate Guide to Homeschooling High School by the Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers, tips from the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), and the book “Home-Designed High School” by Diana Johnson.

Personalize the High School Learning Experience

Whether or not your child has decided on a post-graduation path, encourage him or her to be an active participant in the planning process. Give your son as much freedom as possible to create a personalized schedule, even if he’s a night owl and prefers to sleep in and work on assignments later in the afternoon. Also allow your daughter to work and study where she feels most comfortable, whether that’s all spread out in the sunroom, in the middle of it all at the kitchen table, or at a specially designed workstation in her bedroom.

This is the time for your high school kids to embrace their passions. Help your teens turn their passions into classes. When our daughter was in high school, I created a child development course to go along with her volunteer work at our church’s preschool. And when our son developed an interest in horses, he signed up to volunteer at a local farm, feeding and caring for a variety of livestock, so I designed an animal behavior and an agricultural course. You may think this sounds much too complicated, but I assure you, it really isn’t. Work together to make a reading list and plan a project or two.

Let them manage their time, but if you notice any red flags such as fatigue, anxiousness, or that something about your child just doesn’t feel right, do step in and offer guidance.

Take Advantage of All Credit-Earning Opportunities

When you’re homeschooling, remember that everything your high school student participates in is instrumental when creating a high school transcript. Volunteer work, sports, jobs, clubs, and even your kid’s interests can all count as academic credit. For instance, both of our kids volunteered at the circulation desk in our local library for years, beginning in middle school. In addition to learning the computer software system for checking books in and out, they shelved books according to the Dewey Decimal System, answered patrons’ questions, kept track of the number of visitors on a checklist, handled phone calls, and more.

In order to count as course credit, be sure to write up a description of the activity, a list of appropriate skills, and any books and materials used, and log the required number of hours needed to comply with your state homeschool law.

Explore Options for Tackling the Advanced Courses

You don’t need to be an expert in every subject in order to successfully guide your kids through high school. In fact, you may not need to “teach” much at all once your students become masterful independent learners.

If your kids do need help though, don’t be afraid to seek outside assistance. Some possible options include co-op and online classes, and/or dual-credit college courses. For example, our son was very technically savvy, so he enrolled in an online computer game design class and our daughter took American Sign Language—beginner through advanced— at the local community college.

And oftentimes, a simple phone call to a friend or a relative can be the solution. When we were homeschooling, we enjoyed the blessings of several very special mentors. A college admissions secretary regularly gave my kids stamps from around the world for their collection, an older teen volunteered to help our daughter learn to play the clarinet, and a lovely older gentleman from our church shared numerous stories from his childhood and life on the farm, which brought deeper meaning to our history lessons.

Nurture Quality Time Together

Sometimes the busyness of life and homeschooling can easily distract you from the heart of it all—your relationships with your kids. This is a special and important time in their lives, and they still need you close by even though the soon-to-be-adult voice in their heads may not let them admit it.

Have conversations over coffee or invite your teen out for a lunch or dinner date, check in on how life is going with both academics and life itself, and reassure them that they’re not alone even though they’re managing more and more of their own time. If you share an interest with your teens, try to make more time to do it together. Or even just sitting together on the couch and watching a favorite movie can do wonders.