Raising Our Expectations: Homeschooling the High School Years

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Homeschooling and parenting teens is a time of great challenges and joys. It’s such an encouragement to hear from homeschool moms who have gone ahead of us who can share the insights they’ve gained along the way! One question we often have as parents is what we ought to expect from the teens and young adults in our home. Veteran homeschooler Carrie De Francisco brings a guest post today that may challenge our assumptions!

Table Of Contents

Raising Our Expectations: The High School Years
What is adolescence?
What’s wrong with the typical view of the American teen?
The problem with low expectations for our teens
Advantages of homeschooling high school
- Homeschool parents: move out of your comfort zone!
Skip the teenage years and help your child transition into adulthood
More homeschooling high school resources

Raising Our Expectations Homeschooling the High School Years

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Raising Our Expectations: The High School Years

By Carrie De Francisco

Are you homeschooling a “typical teenage girl” or a young lady? How you view the term adolescence will determine how you answer the question posed. Did you know the word “teenager” did not exist before the 1920s? Compare the entries in Webster’s Second (1934) and Third (1961) editions; only after World War II does the adjective “teen-age” become the noun, “teenager.” Before child labor and compulsory education laws, teen boys and girls were referred to as “young men” and “young ladies.” Before the Industrial Revolution and urbanization over a century ago, you were either a child or an adult. The Bible never referred to young David or Daniel as a teenager. Moses was a child until he became a young man.

What is adolescence?

In America, the adolescent years look very different than they do in other countries around the world. According to Epstein in his revolutionary book, The Case Against Adolescence, “For most of human history, young people worked alongside adults as soon as they were able. Shortly after puberty, young people would gain all the rights and responsibilities of adulthood as they transitioned into these roles.”

Some of you might be thinking, there is no way my sixteen-year-old son is responsible enough to get a real job or my fifteen-year-old daughter can’t even decide what she wants to wear today, much less what she wants to do with the rest of her life! Yet in countries around the world, youth in their teens are starting their own businesses, raising their own families, and mastering needed skills to make a living all while supporting themselves and their immediate families.

Epstein’s book revolutionized the way I viewed adolescence and my own teens’ capabilities as they transitioned from childhood to adulthood. The pages of this book are littered with research studies and real-world experiences of how teens in other countries successfully shoulder important tasks and responsibilities and do it without teenage rebellion, addiction epidemics, climbing suicide rates, and social media overload.

What’s wrong with the typical view of the American teen?

What makes the American teen different? Dare I say it is society’s (and our own) expectations of them! In the book, Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, written by teenage brothers, Alex and Brett Harris, they share the teen years of George Washington, Clara Barton, and David Farragut. Washington, Barton, and Farragut each had done extraordinary, courageous, responsible, and hard things before the age of nineteen!

In comparison, what expectations do most modern-day mothers have for their teens: keep a clean room, do at least one chore a day, and keep the gas tank full. What a difference! David Farragut was commanding a naval ship and keeping an enemy captain under his control at age fourteen. When my son was fourteen years old, he had a closet that perpetually vomited a mess of clean, dirty, and “I’m not quite sure what they are” clothes out of its doors!

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The problem with low expectations for our teens

What’s the difference? What has changed? Dare I say it again: Perhaps it is our expectations of teens! Society expects them to goof off at this age. Society views the teenage years as prep for the real world without giving them the opportunity to live and work in the real world.

“Helicopter parents” swoop in to fix every problem their children face. Many parents reason their teens are too young and immature to handle certain responsibilities. Epstein argues teens can’t handle the responsibilities because we have taken responsibilities away from them (2006). I argue teens don’t rise up because we don’t expect them to!

God has called our teens to a life of purpose (Ps 139: 14). He created them to do mighty things in the kingdom of God (Ephesians 2:10). 1 Timothy 4:12 should be our teen’s battle cry: “Don’t let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for the believers in speech, in conduct, in love, in faith, and in purity.”

Advantages of homeschooling high school

Homeschooling through the high school years offers opportunities that traditional schools do not. Even if your teen aspires to attend the most prestigious of colleges, don’t try to “do school at home” during the high school years. Take advantage of the time God has given you with your teen-aged son or daughter. Take this time to fuel their passions. Expect greatness. Press them to do hard things. Push them out of their comfort zone. Set them up for success but let them fail!

Why can’t your teen son head up a local governor’s election campaign like the Harris brothers did? Why not help your teenage daughter start her own non-profit organization like Julia Schemmer did? Why not encourage your teen to travel or do missionary work at the ripe old age of fourteen?

As my son and I were learning about George Washington, he commented, “You know mom. Even if I wanted to be like George Washington, I can’t nowadays. If I wanted to wander around the wilderness practicing my shooting aim, you wouldn’t let me. You’re afraid I would get hurt. My friends can’t skip school to work with their uncle who’s a lawyer to learn paralegal skills because the law requires them to be in school all day. Even when I volunteer at a Sunday school, I don’t get to teach. I just pass out papers. They don’t trust me enough to plan, prep, and teach kids like Laura Ingalls Wilder did. Didn’t you say she was a full-fledged teacher by age sixteen?”

Homeschool parents: move out of your comfort zone!

My boy had a point! Even if we expect more responsibilities from our teens, we need to be able to move out of our comfort zone to allow them to do more responsible and challenging things!

Homeschooling the high school years should be more than Biology with a lab and AP Geometry classes. Yes, make sure you follow your state’s graduation requirements, but the beauty of homeschooling is the flexibility of meeting those requirements while meeting the needs of your teen and fueling their passions.

Why not encourage your teen to read their way through history or intern or volunteer at local campaign headquarters for US Civics. Let them learn business math and personal finance by starting their own business (or taking over part of your family’s business). Allow them to work at an animal shelter or train to be a docent at the local aquarium for Biology. Let them travel with groups like People to People or World Strides or go on mission trips with your church to learn about history and geography. Give them time (and expect them) to compose original music, create video games (instead of playing them), write and film movies, or maintain their own youtube channel. Encourage them to take a few college classes and/or work a full-time job. Encourage them to start their own teen bible study.

Why not? Think out of the box. Do hard things. Expect more!

Skip the teenage years and help your child transition into adulthood

I challenge you to remove the word teenager and all of its negative connotations and societal expectations from your vernacular and remove it from your homeschool “curriculum” too. Dare to skip the teenage years and help your child transition straight into adulthood.

I purposefully homeschooled a young lady, not a typical teenage girl. My boy may have had a teenage-sized appetite, but I refused to homeschool a typical “teenage” boy. It was a privilege to home educate (and mentor) a young man; a man after God’s own heart. It was a gift to homeschool (and guide) a young lady; a daughter of the King.

So go ahead. Kick those teenagers out of your house and to the curb! Then welcome into your home the young man and young woman God has given you to raise, educate, guide and mentor. Trust me, the expectations might be high but the rewards will be great!

Carrie De Francisco homeschooling igh school head shot

Carrie De Francisco is a wife and “retired” homeschooling mom of two homeschool graduates living and learning in Southern CA. She is the host of the popular podcast, Coffee With Carrie Homeschool Help, speaker, author of several books including, Just Breathe (and Take a Sip of Coffee): Homeschool in Step With God and Homeschool High School: A Handbook for Christian Education. Through her homeschool coaching services, books, blog articles, and podcast, she helps moms simplify their homeschooling one step at a time, one day at a time, and one cup of coffee at a time. Carrie is an out-of-the-box thinker which is probably why she was an outside-of-the-curriculum-box homeschooler. She can be found drinking her favorite latte, walking in nature, reading her Bible, cooking a batch of homemade beignets, and laughing at herself (and crazy ideas). Connect with Carrie at coffeewithcarrie.org, on IG @coffeewithcarrieconsultant or by email at coffeewithcarriehomeschool@gmail.com.