Calming Your Concerns About Homeschooling Middle and High School

Summary:

Have you ever wondered what homeschooling through the crucial middle and high school years entails? Today, Erin and Joe delve into the different approaches parents take, from mimicking traditional education to embracing individualized and interest-led learning. They also share valuable insights on finding extracurricular activities, resources, and building a high school transcript that prepares your child for various educational pathways. Whether you're new to homeschooling or transitioning into these grade levels, this episode offers practical guidance to alleviate your anxieties and help you navigate the exciting journey ahead.

Resources and Links:

HSLDA, www.hslda.org
Cristy Stebelton, Podcast Editor, www.podcastwithfaith.com

Connect with Erin and Joe at Show Me Homeschool:
Show Me Homeschool Website
On Instagram, @show.me.homeschool
On Pinterest, @showmehomeschool

Be sure to leave a rating and review, and subscribe so you never miss an episode! For questions or comments email us: info@showmehomeschool.com

Transcript:

[00:00:00] Joe: Hi, and welcome back to The Show Me Homeschool podcast. Today we're gonna be talking about the myths, the fears, the concerns, the anxieties around middle school and especially high school. I know we talk with homeschool families, whether they have been homeschooling for a while, they're on the cusp of it, or they haven't homeschooled at all.

[00:00:22] Joe: There's a lot of fears and anxieties. A lot of unknowns about what is this gonna look like? I don't think I can do this. We hear that a lot.

[00:00:33] Erin: I'm Erin, and I'm Joe. We are the hosts of the Show Me Homeschool podcast, where we guide parents through the wilderness of home education. Each weekly episode will focus on supporting and encouraging homeschool moms and dads through conversational interviews with like-minded Christian leaders in the homeschool community.

[00:00:51] Joe: In our experience, we've seen the lack of resources and support. Available for homeschool dads. So we want to address that by covering relevant topics concerning husbands and fathers as they lead their families. Through this lifestyle of home

[00:01:03] Erin: education, we understand the need for creating connections and building authentic relationships to sustain a healthy homeschool environment for yourself and your children.

[00:01:13] Joe: Our goal is not to show you how to replicate our homeschool, but to show you how you can create a home learning lifestyle that is sustainable for your family.

[00:01:21] Erin: Show me homeschool is here to come alongside you. When I talk to a lot of homeschool moms or dads, they fall into a couple different camps.

[00:01:34] Erin: There's the people who are just interested in homeschooling through elementary school. Maybe they'll take it year by year. They don't think that this is something they're gonna do through high school or middle school. It's really just that they wanna lay a foundation. They're not quite ready to send their child off, or their child isn't ready to go, or they've got other things going on developmentally that they just choose to do things that way.

[00:01:58] Erin: Then there's also the parent who. Comes into it and says, you know, I'm gonna homeschool through middle school, but by the time they get to high school, our local public school has a great tech program, or they've got a great career center, or my kid wants to get scholarships for sports and that's why they are interested in sending them to high school.

[00:02:20] Erin: Now, I don't know about where you live, but where we live outside of Kansas City, there is a booming homeschool community, and I know that. Not everywhere has all of the opportunities that we have, but there are more and more happening as more and more people are choosing home education.

[00:02:40] Joe: So talk more about, uh, those different types of people and maybe just kind of in general, what are the fears that go into, maybe start with middle school a little bit.

[00:02:51] Joe: But I know the bigger one is probably high school, but there are some people that are pretty nervous when sixth, seventh, eighth grade hits.

[00:02:58] Erin: Well, I think you have to jump over that first hurdle, which for most moms or dads or both, the concern is how am I gonna teach a child to read? And once they get over that hump and homeschooling, then they feel like those early years are the fun years.

[00:03:15] Erin: We get to do read alouds on the couch. We're doing field trips to the zoo. It's not quite serious yet, uh, but what we're doing is fun. It's like fun school and a lot of hands-on things and, you know, it's, it's a little bit slower paced. There's not as much pressure to perform at that age. And so what I see happening is moms get concerned that, well, you know, it can't look like that going into middle or high school.

[00:03:44] Erin: We have to get more serious. We have to spend more time doing things. And that is true. There is a weight of responsibility and I think a healthy. Concern that you're doing the best by your child is a good thing. We wanna have that as parents. As a homeschool mom or dad, that's a really good feeling when you look at it in perspective.

[00:04:04] Erin: If that means you really care about the education of your child and providing something better than you maybe you had growing up or better than you think they would get doing any other option. Because really, what's the point of homeschooling if you don't feel like you're going to give them? A worthwhile education at home and it is just gonna look different.

[00:04:24] Erin: So to dispel the first myth of, I don't know what I would do, come middle school, really what I tell parents that I talk to is, what you need is. Just to do what you did when you first started, you're gonna research what classes that you're interested in your child taking. You're gonna seek input from the child on what they're interested in learning, because if there's buy-in, especially at that middle school age, on the topics that you're discussing, the classes that they're taking, the activities they're participating in, you're gonna feel.

[00:04:58] Erin: Much more at peace and they're gonna feel much more at peace. And you know, if you have a child, maybe that you're homeschooling in middle school, or maybe you brought that child home in fifth grade, or maybe you brought them home from public or private school because there was something going on at school that.

[00:05:15] Erin: Was not okay with you or whatever the situation is, that you've made a different choice in education, that's the time that you're really gonna need to seek your child's input. And I think sometimes as parents, it's easy to forget, at least. I've talked to some moms that really were like, oh, I didn't think to ask.

[00:05:33] Erin: You know, it's just something that they'd forgotten about or maybe they've made all the decisions and their child that they've homeschooled since the beginning.

[00:05:41] Joe: So what I hear you saying is that, What we hear, and especially what you hear from moms, is there's sometimes a temptation to think that as you get to middle school and especially high school, that you have to more so mimic the public school system or maybe even like starting to get them used to, uh, you know, college, university type setups.

[00:06:04] Joe: Is that what might be underneath some of that?

[00:06:07] Erin: Definitely. I think especially once kids start talking to their peers or counterparts that do attend a public or private school, and it is more structured, you know, you do this. History in seventh grade and then you progress to this history and then this math or whatever.

[00:06:25] Erin: You know, math is pretty sequential. You're wanting to probably keep it pretty aligned with what is happening generally. But things like history and different sciences and even reading abilities or programs that you may choose, you might cover different things at different times, and I think that that's the fear is that when a parent does something that's so off the beaten path.

[00:06:48] Erin: Than the traditional school model. If they were to ever have to enter it back into that model, they wouldn't feel like their child is at grade level or prepared. Or that child might feel embarrassed that they don't know something, or the parent might be told by the teachers that they didn't do a good enough job.

[00:07:09] Erin: You know, I've talked to people in public education that have said, you know, it's really hard whenever we do take a homeschooled student into middle or high school because. That is the case. A lot of times homeschoolers don't follow the traditional educational path that's laid out through the public or private education system.

[00:07:27] Erin: And so when that child comes in and the mom's like, here's the transcript. That school has to verify that that child is at the appropriate grade level so that they can be successful, because of course, the school, most schools would probably want the children there to be successful. And plus, if you're sending them then at that high school or middle school level, especially high school, They're gonna have to be the one signing off on that transcript, and it's really on them to make sure that that child has the education needed to actually graduate with the credits.

[00:07:57] Joe: And there's, I think some public schools or maybe even private schools have some concern over liability or taking responsibility that if they say yes to those transcripts or classes, that they are then taking on that liability to say, oh yeah, everything that. You, the parent, put in this transcript or you've done up to this point.

[00:08:19] Joe: We sign off on and are now a part of our record, public record. I think that's makes some administrators or schools nervous to do right?

[00:08:29] Erin: And I think rightly so, but that's not a concern that parents really need to have. Big picture. If you want to homeschool through high school. I just, I really want you to hear me say that.

[00:08:44] Erin: You can do it and there are plenty of resources out there. Yeah. If you are concerned, I mean, my advice, and this might be silly advice to some, but it's just if you're really concerned that at some point your child might go back to public school in middle or high school, then. Look at the education department's website and see what the typical course of study would be, and then just find classes that follow along that path.

[00:09:08] Erin: I mean, there's nothing wrong with that. You as the parent, have the right to choose the way that your children learn that the curriculum that you pick is, is on you. So ask your child, okay, well, in whatever grade they usually study, whatever this topic is. So how would you like to learn about that? And.

[00:09:29] Erin: They might have some ideas, maybe they don't. Maybe you talk to a friend at your co-op who's using a similar curriculum for that subject or you reach out. Um, there's plenty of Facebook pages, there's, you know, we have a Facebook page if you're interested in asking that question there. It's just there are ways to go about finding that information.

[00:09:46] Erin: If it makes you feel better as a homeschool parent to follow closely what the public school is learning because you either think that your child is college bound or may return to public school. I would say there's nothing wrong with that. Some people might think that, you know, never follow what the public school's doing.

[00:10:02] Erin: That's the freedom of homeschooling and it is the freedom if you feel comfortable doing it, but. You truly don't have freedom if you're living in fear that your child won't be prepared, right? So anything that we can do, even if it kind of mimics what they're doing, you don't have to do it in the same style.

[00:10:18] Erin: There's freedom within that as well.

[00:10:21] Joe: So that all makes a lot of sense.

[00:10:28] Erin: I definitely want to pause for a second and just say a big, big thank you to Cristy Stebelton of Podcast with Faith. She was our editor and guru on our previous podcast, Goat Homeschooling, and she's been so gracious to help us launch this podcast. So thank you to Cristy. We will link all of her contact information and her website. If you have podcast needs in your life and you would like to, um, look into her services, we will link all that in the show notes.

[00:11:02] Joe: You've kind of touched on it some about sports, uh, extracurricular. Stuff like, um, choir, band arts, things that are usually out of the house require other people to perform or whatever. I know when we talk with parents that. Especially ones that maybe aren't homeschooling right now or um, are about to again, get into these ages of middle school and high school.

[00:11:28] Joe: There's a lot of concern for, my kids really want these opportunities and I feel like they're not gonna be there for us if we homeschool. We're gonna be completely cut off from that. There's no way that we can provide that for our children. What would you say to that?

[00:11:44] Erin: Well, I would say, That this time to be homeschooling is wonderful because so many of those opportunities are provided by the homeschool community locally.

[00:11:57] Erin: Now, again, I know that not everybody is in an area. Maybe you're more rural or homeschooling in your state is not something that the laws are tough to homeschool. So maybe there's not as many homeschoolers, but I would say. Search the Facebook pages, search the local or state homeschool group that you have to see, because usually there's a list of local resources on those pages.

[00:12:22] Erin: H S L D A would be another source of information for maybe. Hooking up, connecting locally. So those would be my first places to look. And then I search, maybe there's a local parent magazine or publication. I looked in the newspaper for field trip opportunities, any kind of local business. I mean, if your kid's interested in how do you make chocolate?

[00:12:46] Erin: Well, maybe there's a chocolate factory. There's one close by in Kansas City, and that's a popular field trip because not only do they get to see how the fudge or chocolate is made, they then get to taste it, you know, and it's a hands-on experience. If your kid's interested in cake decorating, maybe the local grocery store offers a class.

[00:13:02] Erin: Like there's places that you may not think are. An opportunity that you could, you know, research, but think outside the box if there's a local place. I say local a lot because typically small business owners are, you know, very proud of the work that they're doing. They want to build relationship within the community and maybe they'll offer something for your group, um, an opportunity to come in and watch how they make the thing that they make or do the thing that they do, or, you know, whatever.

[00:13:33] Erin: It could be an opportunity for. Your child to learn a, a skill. Another place, local museums. Uh, we have some great museums near us that are free or very cheap, and they offer homeschool days. A lot of places now offer homeschool day or homeschool week, and you might find that maybe you drive an hour and you get to meet up with some people.

[00:13:55] Erin: Another place to look into is local homeschool sports teams. We have several places that offer homeschool sports, or sometimes even private schools will allow homeschoolers to participate in their sports because they need more players for their teams. So you might check there, just doing quick searches for local homeschool teams might pop up something that you hadn't thought of.

[00:14:20] Erin: Again, I, I feel like I source a lot through, uh, Facebook posts and Facebook homeschool groups that I'm in, um, that are specific to my city or area. Our county has a couple of. Pages that are available where people ask questions. Um, and if you don't find something, which may be the case, maybe you have a couple of homeschool friends and you wanna put together a team, or maybe you put together a group that's, uh, singing a choir.

[00:14:45] Erin: Um, there's a local choir that's popped up that way and then it just grows. But as the word gets out,

[00:14:50] Joe: right, that's what I was gonna suggest is that if you end up not funding anything that suits you, it may be on you and, and some of the communities that you've created to. Create it.

[00:15:00] Erin: Yeah. And we'll do another podcast episode that tells you some ideas of how to get those things started.

[00:15:06] Erin: Like co-ops or sports teams and that kind of thing.

[00:15:10] Joe: Right. And just like our message with homeschooling in general, don't be, you know, scared to start something new. Don't be thinking that it's this huge task that's all consuming and is gonna be a full-time job. It, it's not, it, it's, mm-hmm. Amazing how, especially if you get just a few other people that are, Interested in doing it?

[00:15:29] Joe: Mm-hmm. How quickly it can get off the ground and just,

[00:15:32] Erin: The dance studio that my youngest goes to was actually started by a homeschooler when she was 16, and she was just telling me this story. Um, she is now a homeschool mom herself, and the studio started in someone's basement because they're like, oh, you take dance.

[00:15:47] Erin: Why don't you teach some dance classes? And so she started teaching dance to a handful of girls. Now it's this whole studio that she has built over the, the years, and they do a huge performance every other year. They do showcases every year. They have many opportunities within the community,

[00:16:04] Joe: and it's professional. It is, yeah. I don't wanna just say like, we want to,

[00:16:08] Erin: it's not homeschool quality, if you know what I'm talking about. You know, there's homeschool and then there's homeschool, and this is homeschool stuff. Like this is good stuff.

[00:16:17] Joe: Right? Right. Mm-hmm. It's, it's really a moving, uh, professional. Performance every,

[00:16:23] Erin: every other year.

[00:16:24] Erin: Yeah. Well, and I think that's the thing is that's a miss to be dispelled in and of itself, that there's no good homeschool stuff. You know? It's just like we're not in the 1980s anymore. There's enough opportunity. There's enough people homeschooling. I mean, YouTube, the internet, we have all these resources at our disposal.

[00:16:42] Erin: If you can't find an in-person class, I mean, COVID brought about all of these booming internet classes or zooms that you can do, um, for your student. I mean, you can take piano over the internet now. You can find things on YouTube, art classes that you can learn, drawing skills or painting skills. There's no shortage of opportunity if you're looking for it.

[00:17:05] Joe: Our son just started his soccer season and it's pretty much a homeschool team. I don't know that it's exactly labeled that, but that's what most of the people are. It's all homeschoolers. It's all homeschoolers. Okay. But it's legit. They're really good. I mean, they're smoking the other teams right now and they're, and they're not all homeschool teams either.

[00:17:27] Joe: We're talking private school. Teams, you know, Christian schools that are, have legit programs that have been around for years and we're killing it. And they have professional uniforms, they have great coaches, they have very good scheduling. So, like you said, it can be 1980s homeschool quality.

[00:17:47] Erin: You know, we're not knocking that for sure.

[00:17:49] Erin: We're not. Don't hear that. It's just that back then there weren't the things that we have and the opportunities that we have. So it was just parents who I'm talking with, the stereotype throwing thing together. Yes, the stereotype. The stereotype. Mm-hmm.

[00:18:00] Joe: We owe a tremendous amount to the people that fought back then.

[00:18:04] Joe: Mm-hmm. Establish the laws and mm-hmm. The traditions and stuff that we have now, it's just a joke. It's tongue in cheek, but my point is that there's some really legitimate stuff and you just have to look for it. Think, like you said, is you have to think outside the box. I think once you get to the middle school and high school level, similar to what we've seen as far as support for homeschool parents, is that it seems like those things are not as obvious.

[00:18:32] Joe: Mm-hmm. You have to kind of go look for them, and I think that's what is gonna happen with these

[00:18:37] Erin: activities. Well, and the same thing I think happens with. Co-ops, you know, there's a lot of co-ops out there and they're tailored to the K through third crowd. You know, it's all the moms who have little ones and have littler little ones that are not even preschool age, and it's playgroup time, or it's, you know, very loosely structured, or it's a hiking group and.

[00:18:59] Erin: I'm not knocking that at all. I think those are very beneficial things. That's how we started getting involved. Right. But as you reach the middle and high school levels, those things, like you said, drop off because so many parents are abandoning, homeschooling for. Public or private school. When you hear us talk, obviously we're very pro homeschool.

[00:19:17] Erin: We have a whole business. We were starting on this, we have a podcast about it. We wanna help other people continue. We believe that. To make, yeah, to make that decision. So let's talk then about creating a homeschool economy. Yes. Based on we're homeschoolers. While we may, you know, maybe you are that parent that feels more confident homeschooling, following a more traditional schedule with your classes.

[00:19:40] Erin: Awesome. That's great. You have the freedom to do that. Yep. Now, maybe you're the parent who has done this a while and you've realized I have so much freedom here. Doing things our own way. Maybe you're more unschool or interest learning, um, styles. Maybe that's what makes your family tick. And your kids are not ever going to follow a traditional path towards, you know, the, the same classes that they would've taken had they chosen a different, you know, public school or private school where it's, you take these four sciences, you take these four maths, you know, maybe they're not interested.

[00:20:14] Erin: Those things at all. And you're really tailoring their education. And that's the beauty of homeschooling is that it is an individual education plan for each of your children. And if you're able to do that and then having that freedom where you're choosing some wonky classes that. Or on nobody's radar.

[00:20:33] Erin: But here your kid is thriving in that. That's wonderful. And you know, I always tell people too, if you think your kid may be college bound at some point, colleges are, they want your money. So regardless of what your transcript looks like, you know, I told my kids I took algebra in high school, belonged it big time.

[00:20:50] Erin: What did I take my first year of college Algebra. Because they wanted my money and I needed a remedial class for that, and they offered it, and yes, I paid for it. And I guess that's the tradeoff. You either do what, you know, they're, they're gonna require you to take in college or you say, here's my transcript.

[00:21:07] Erin: What do, do you need? And. You know, obviously that device isn't great. If your kid has a very specific thing like archeology and they need specific classes for that, you know, then find out what your kid's specialty is and you tailor what classes maybe you're taking archeology.

[00:21:24] Joe: So I think we've provided a decent look at, you know, what could be out there, what, how to, how to maybe go find it, try to dispel some myths.

[00:21:34] Joe: You know, we're, show me homeschool. So show me or tell me how do we structure our older kids as they've gone through middle school and now into high school. We've graduated one. Not that we are trying to give a formula, but mm-hmm. Share, you know, what our experience has been, what our plan was or is and

[00:21:57] Erin: why.

[00:21:58] Erin: Mm-hmm. Yeah, so our oldest, we fostered and adopted, and so she actually went to public school until seventh grade when we pulled her to homeschool. So she was very much used to the traditional. Public school education. And so when I tried to incorporate her in our very couch school, read alouds, hands-on, stuff like that, didn't make her feel like she was learning, you know, as much as I would've loved for her to be a participant in that.

[00:22:29] Erin: So what we ended up doing was an online curriculum where I was more of a facilitator than the primary teacher, and that really worked for her. That wasn't my idea of what homeschooling looked like. It wasn't what we had done with our other children. So, um, that's a whole other topic. But we did model her high school education very similarly to the course of study that she would've taken at a public high school because that's what she sought the education needed to look like, and that worked for her.

[00:22:59] Erin: She was very good at. Taking the list of things I gave her to do and checking off that list and, and that was also her personality? Yes. It was her personality. It worked for her. So that's very much how we modeled her high school.

[00:23:11] Joe: And you may have children that still need that, regardless of ever having gone into public school.

[00:23:16] Joe: There are some kids that thrive on lists

[00:23:18] Erin: and textbooks. Yeah. Learning and yeah, that was just what worked for her. Now, for our two boys who are now in high school, We have done things a little bit differently. They have a lot of time throughout the day for interest led learning. I do have them taking, you know, the typical history classes.

[00:23:36] Erin: They're taking typical math classes that you would take. So that's something that we do. But they have a lot of time. Both of them are interested in, you know, one's really into coding and has spent hours upon hours. Coding amazing things for his friends or for games that he likes to play and modifying, things like that.

[00:23:56] Erin: And then the other one is really interested in three D printing. And so he's had a lot of time to investigate different models and formatting them and. Saved up money and bought his own three D printer.

[00:24:07] Joe: He's done it from the ground up. He figured out he did all the research on everything. Yes. And that was part of it is we set him loose to say, okay, you're interested in this.

[00:24:15] Joe: If you get absolutely stuck, I'll help you out. But re do all the research, got the thing, set it all up, which he did. Mm-hmm. And then he's learned to use all of the software programs and everything for modeling and bringing abstract things into real life. Mm-hmm. It's really incredible.

[00:24:32] Erin: Mm-hmm. So each kid's different.

[00:24:35] Erin: Each need is different that they have. I just wanna encourage any homeschool mom or dad that's nervous about homeschooling through middle or high school. You know, maybe you, you do. Just look at what's right in front of you. What did they learn this year? What are their interests? And tailoring that to what you want for your homeschool. What is the feel that you want for your, the atmosphere of your home?

[00:24:58] Joe: You've also though, in case they would wanna pursue tech school or college, even community college, is that you have tried to tailor their transcript to get as many of those classes in, or subjects in as you can.

[00:25:14] Erin: Right. It's a balance, I feel like.

[00:25:16] Erin: Right. Having that balance of preparing them for college. If they choose to go right, which none of mine have at this point expressed interest in that. But if they were, they would have a transcript that would be readable and probably get them into a school that they would wanna go to. So if you have any questions, if you want us to cover anything else, you can email us anytime at info@showmehomeschool.com.

[00:25:40] Erin: We really appreciate you listening. If you find what we've shared, helpful or encouraging, please share with your friends, um, so they can be encouraged too. Next lot

[00:25:51] Erin: to learn more about booking one-on-one or group homeschool coaching sessions with us upcoming events, see our speaking schedule, or to get access to more resources, be sure to check out our website www.showmehomeschool.com and sign up for our weekly newsletter. You can also follow us on Instagram at. Me dot homeschool on Pinterest at Show Me Homeschool.

[00:26:15] Erin: Or email us at info@showmehomeschool.com.