10 Reasons to Homeschool in High School

If you’re wondering about homeschooling in high school and you’re saying to yourself, ‘Can I (or should I) keep homeschooling in High school? Will my child be able to enter college if they’re home educated?’ the answer is, ‘Yes – easily!’ We’re going to look at nine reasons to keep (or start) home educating high school. 

In particular, we’ll look at:

• Ten reasons home education is good for high schoolers
• My Parents Experience in Deciding to Homeschool in High School
• Is it easy to enter college after home educating?

Let’s dive in and take a look!

HDIH is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Ten Reasons to Homeschool in High School

Primary years tend to be a popular time to homeschool. Some parents do so as they’re not willing to part with their children when that time of the year comes around. Others realize their children are not emotionally, physically, socially or spiritually ready to enter the school world. Indeed, it seems that most parents start home educating due to the negative aspects of school.

As they begin homeschooling, however, they realize it has a lot to offer – benefits you just can’t find in a school. Elizabeth Smith, the wife of HSLDA President, J. Michael Smith, outlined these benefits, saying home educating through the latter years is better because it:

1. cements teenagers’ relationships within the family, so they last a lifetime. Smith says homeschooling is as useful in high school as in junior school. The same reasons to homeschool apply to older teens as they do to younger children.
2. helps stop teenagers from becoming confused as they must serve ‘two masters’ when at school: parents and the school/peers.
3. lets you do one-on-one teaching which is the most efficient way to learn. This education is only provided at home.
4. lets teenagers choose what interests them with a personalized curriculum. Personalized curricula make learning easier and more interesting.
5. allows teenagers to skip high school and continue to tertiary education through higher education institutes (discussed below).
6. means parents can influence peer relationships more and oversee the amount of time spent in and outside the family.
7. allows parents to protect children from the need to conform, by keeping them in an environment where they’re free to think about things without having to accept a bloated and politically correct agenda (i.e. Safe Schools or gender-bending).
8. gives you more flexibility than schools have.
9. provides children with a safer environment (i.e. drugs, smoking, alcohol, sex)
10. (my reason) gives children an opportunity to consider other options instead of college (i.e. homeschool entrepreneur ventures)

Home is also a great environment for teenagers as they can:

• Become entrepreneurs with plenty of time on their hands (read about this amazing homeschool entrepreneur here).
• Work on projects uninterrupted.
• Serve their community better with more time and fewer time commitments.
• Have room to slowly meditate on the things that matter in life and carefully consider their beliefs.
• Discover and connect with nature deeply.
• Have time to read book tomes (where else do you get time to do this).
• Study finances (unashamed affiliate link to the Barefoot investor – BEST book on finances by far!) and carefully plan their future.

There are so many great reasons to homeschool, but I believe the above reasons are an exciting glimpse into how home education in high school can be different (and more exciting) to that in school.

My Parents Experience in Deciding to Homeschool in High School

While some may wonder how to do it, there are many homeschool graduates who stand testament to the fact that you can home educate for the high school years and still successfully enter college. Sadly, many parents believe they can no longer teach their children at home as tutoring has become too difficult.

Even my own parents doubted their abilities. They toyed with the idea of sending us to school for high school. After realizing they could no longer keep up with learning all the material we needed to learn before we studied it (up to high school, my father had been learning all the math lessons before we learned them so he could teach them to us), they thought they had no other choice but to enroll us in a school. They also had questions about how we would transition to college without a high school completion certificate.

My parents eventually decided to keep homeschooling us when we strongly (and tearfully) objected to school. This is what my Dad, Bill thought:

“I really believed my children would be ditch diggers or checkout chicks if we homeschooled them. I didn’t care – I just wanted them to know the LORD – something they weren’t learning in their Christian school. God really blessed us and all three are following the LORD and have done remarkably well in their academics.”

————————————————————————–

This Homechooling Article brought to you by the Publishers of ALPHA-PHONICS a systematic phonics reading instruction program used by Parents to Teach their OWN children to read  for over 36 years. At the end of the article please find full information about ALPHA-phonics

——————————————————————–

After this decision was made, my parents hunted down appropriate information and resources that allowed us to continue homeschooling. They began the process by asking other homeschooling friends who had just begun home educating in high school. They enrolled us in distance education which allowed us to continue learning at home.

While they had to revise their approach to homeschooling to accommodate our growing interests, changing to a new style was mostly scary for them, rather than hard.

After this, we all easily entered tertiary education (two of us earlier than schoolchildren do) through different pathways which you can read about here. (We also discuss this further down the page in detail.)

Did their choice pay dividends?

While this article isn’t intended to be a brag about our success, I’d like to show you that we’re not ‘ditch diggers and checkout chicks’ as my father colloquially put it.

• My older brother did a Masters of Architecture and worked for one of the best firms in Sydney. He’s now training to become a pastor.
• My younger brother did a double degree in Arts/Law. He’s now headed to become a partner in his law firm.
• I have a diploma in Nursing, a Degree in Medical Science and studied Medical School for one year before meeting my husband and deciding there were other priorities in life…

We are all married, and we all have children. More importantly, by the abundant grace of God, we’re all walking closely with Christ. This is a huge priority in all our lives. I believe my parent’s reliance on God and their decision to keep homeschooling in high school played a big part in the success we experienced down the road.

Was it easy to Enter College after Home Educating in the Later Years?

After homeschooling in high school, we didn’t have a problem entering tertiary education. In fact, my two brothers and I all studied in tertiary institutions, but we all took completely different pathways to get there!

My older brother finished his High School Certificate and entered the way a traditionally schooled student might. My younger brother finished Year 10 and studied in a college by distance education when he was just 15 years old.

I finished Year 11 when I was 15. (I did Year 10 and 11 in a single year …homeschoolers can speed their way through material when they home educate more easily than school children who must keep to the pace of their peers). Then I studied a Certificate of Nursing which allowed me to work in Nursing homes. After this, I did a one-year Diploma, which allowed me to work as a nurse in hospitals.

Armed with this portfolio, I showed the colleges and they let me to do a bridging course to enter college as a  20-year-old mature aged student. (I’d worked full-time for a couple of years beforehand.)

These pathways were traversed more than 10-years-ago. In comparison to 2008, the options for homeschoolers to enter tertiary education today are generous.

Conclusion

If you’re wondering, ‘Should I keep homeschooling in high school?’, the answer is yes! It’s not as hard as you might think and it comes with a host of rewards you won’t often find if your children attend school.  If you’re feeling snowed under, remember there is a plethora of resources out there to help you navigate your teenager’s later years of education. The homeschooling community will often point you in the right direction so you can easily keep educating at home. So, if you’re feeling lost now, why not email a trusted homeschool friend

ALPHA-PHONICS has been used by Homeschooling Families for a very long time because it has proven to be easy to teach, is very successful in creating excellent readers and only takes a few minutes a day.  Get all the details at the LINKS below:

HOME PAGE    TESTIMONIALS    REVIEWS    AWARDS    HOW TO ORDER