A few months ago, I noticed that my kids were asking for changes. They did not want to continue homeschooling the same way anymore. They both had goals and ideas of their own that meant we had to dramatically change what we were doing.
I said to myself, I am not ready for this sort of thing. I know how to track lessons and worksheet answers. Now all that has disappeared. Oh, Lord. I said to myself. Now what should I do. They are changing.
As your kids get older, have you noticed that their achievements are not so much about which books they read or how many chemistry experiments they can do in a school year. All of a sudden achievements are the milestones of adult life.
Getting a job. Setting goals and making a plan to get there. Getting a group of people together and managing them towards a common goal. Making plans and seeing them through. Expanding interests and hobbies, learning to lead, and knowing when to follow.
These are the achievements that really matter now that my kids are teens. If you homeschool your kids from the time they are little, you will discover that by the time they are in high school, most of their coursework is done before high school is over. My kids did not get through everything at the same time. And not all the coursework they need for a high school degree is complete yet, but we still have a few years yet.
That is why we relaxed our homeschool. Once I realized how fast my kids were learning, I reached out for advice. I even talked with the HSLDA counselors. No one could answer my question: What do I do if my kids finish Calculus before they start high school? How do I record 4 years of math or English if they learned it already? My biggest fear was that if they kept up the pace they were on, we would have nothing to do for high school.
Maybe you don’t think you will every have this problem. I admit my kids are in the gifted side of things, but I know plenty of homeschooled kids who are in the same boat. One subject that really interests them is complete. They are done with it. It might be something they love and so they continue to study, but it is beyond high school level.
The hard part is deciding what to do now. Well, it hit me from above a few months ago – let my kids decide for themselves. I have one child who already has racked up so much education they could test out of a college degree, without a desire to attend one. That child will spend the next years of highschool exploring interests in a self-directed way. My other child wants a plan to round out a classical education that you would get from a few years at somewhere like St. Johns. And so for that kid, I have an intensive, organized plan that still leaves time to augment with self-directed learning.
But overall, my focus for them is no longer on what they learn. It is on who they become. Will they be self-directed with a purpose that propels them through life? Will they be thoughtful and kind? Will they be fierce defenders of the weak? Basically, will they be good people? That is what matters.
Nothing else.
