Finished Homeschooling: Would you change anything?

A friend of mine's oldest child just went to college this year after being homeschooled with her four siblings. I asked my friend what she found was most important and what she might have done differently. This is the friend, by the way, that gave me the great advice: If you are in angst or want to buy a new curriculum, wait 24 hours before making a decision or spending any money. This has saved me much worry and money over the years.

Here is her response when I asked her if she would change anything about her homeschooling with her graduated daughter. Just one family's experience.

The biggest benefit for our homeschooling high school didn't have much to do with academics. Not that they weren't important. Without them, UST wouldn't have even considered her. BTW, they fully accepted my transcript. I did as Cafi Cohen wrote - and created a "super transcript" that incorporated the grades she earned through our American School, and then included her other subjects.

But, hands down, I believe the biggest benefit to her was that she was allowed time to just think, to not have the pressure from peers in a high school setting. She wasn't so overrun with activities that she couldn't begin to discover her likes and dislikes. And for me, to have had the chance to really be part of her day. My heart really does ache for parents who see their kids maybe only 4 hours a day. At one time I was hired to tutor a girl. She started her school day at 6 am! That mean she left home by 5:15. Her time at school did not end until 7:00 pm and 2 nights until 9:00 pm. I kid you not! My recommendation to the mom was to have her daughter quit some extra-curricular activities and not be in such a rush to get her out of the house. As you can imagine, that was met with stony silence. Live and learn.

But, it was so sad. The mother had never spoken to the girl about the difficulties she was having with her studies. It was all through teachers, and tutors like me. They were totally disconnected with each other.

The other good decision was that we did go with an independent school for the core curriculum. The girls are learning about responsibility for their work, and that even if they "meant" to write something -- if that wasn't what was written they didn't get the grade. We've had a few tears around here when a hurried test is returned with a less than stellar grade. Better to learn that now then when we're paying college tuition.

They still have plenty of time for drama, music, reading classics, planning events. That alone is the biggest seller of homeschooling teens, imho. They have time to be kids. And they still are a very important part of the family. The general respect for family and parents is much higher, too. And that, in part, is because we know each other! We aren't relying on an expert's report card to tell us who our children are. We know their weaknesses, their shortcomings... but we also know their strengths and potential. In the process we are also learning so much about ourselves ..

Don't you find that to be true? There are so many interests I now have, in part because I've had time to do some of my own thinking and learning.

We are casual in our learning ... that is my style. I don't really know if there is a huge benefit in knowing how to conjugate Latin verbs, lol. It might help with the SAT -- but that is only a key into college. I don't know that being purely academic spells success.

Much that can throw a college freshman wasn't part of L's experience. Even though she was viewed as protected, she had a better sense of the good, true and beautiful than her contemporaries. She is still very young and will make mistakes. But at least she knows how the adult world functions. She has not been cut off from the realities of life ... how to bank, hold a job, interact with difficult people, etc. Much of the current high school thinking only pretends to prepare the kids for the outside world. I don't know how many kids she met this past semester who did not know how to do laundry, or cook, or exist without a cell phone!

Well, I'm quite certain this is more than you were wanting to know :-D I hope it makes some sense and answers your original question.

High School is a big question. And beyond to college is an even bigger one. Sometimes we can spend so much time and anxiety in trying to be perfect we forget that our first calling is to simply be a parent.