I’m sharing a creative solution for homeschool high school when life happens. Also, look at my page How to Homeschool High School.
This made homeschooling my second high school son, Mr. Awesome, not only meaningful but one that I am really treasuring.
Although I had my reservations at first.
Let me back up first because you have to understand what happened when homeschooling high school with Mr. Senior 2013 to understand how I came up with the solution, which I am going to share in just a minute.
When homeschooling Mr. Senior 2013, I had planned out all four years and probably like most new homeschooling high school parents had a bit of over planning involved too.
You CAN still Homeschool High School!
However, though I didn’t feel like this in the beginning of my homeschool journey (that is another topic), I also didn’t want to turn the teaching reins over to somebody else.
I had not schooled this long to come to the point in my teen’s life to let somebody else make significant decisions.
Some of the best times I have had are homeschooling high school though I was terrified when we started.
I won’t be victim to the idea that somebody else can give my kids better. In other words, I won’t make any decision based on fear though many times I didn’t feel so brave.
Then right in the middle of high school with Mr. Senior 2013 as I mentioned in my post Should I Let My Homeschooled Teen Graduate Early?, my hubby had a significant heart attack.
It was a set back for us in high school.
After we recuperated from that as a family, I realized that I had gotten behind on supervising some of the courses for Mr. Senior 2013.
However, we buried our noses in the books and he graduated on time and of course we had a huge celebration, Texas style.
The point I learned from what happened to my family was that I never wanted to be in that position again with Mr. Awesome of feeling helpless.
I also learned that instead of planning week by week with Mr. Senior 2013 (he preferred that over my 3 month suggestion of planning and I let him do it because I am teaching him to be responsible for his own methods of learning), that I could have planned out 3 months and still let Mr. Senior 2013 plan weekly.
This would have alleviated the stress and helplessness I felt then.
However, that is water under the bridge and there is no way either my oldest son or I had any control over what happened in our lives.
Are you still with me?
I had to share all of that because it always helps me to make better decisions in our homeschool when reading advice if I understand why the choices were made.
So without giving up my control as the homeschooling high school teacher, I came up with a creative solution to high school.
I have taken at least two years homeschooling Mr. Awesome with subjects we chose together AND he is also completing an online accredited high school program with Penn Foster.
I rejected the popular notion that I had to either do it ALL myself OR give it ALL to somebody else.
The criteria for me choosing an online high school program was that it had to be basic, easy and able to be completed within about a year and half or so.
Penn Foster, unlike for example, Keystone High School program I knew was a much lighter high school program.
With all the upcoming doctor’s visit, recovering time and upcoming care my husband needed, I wanted to have a back up to my courses.
Too, I wanted Mr. Awesome to focus on the courses I had selected, just like I had with Mr. Senior 2013 and to be able to customize high school for him and spend that one-to-one time I had given Mr. Senior 2013.
Of course, Mr. Awesome had to be on board with this because I didn’t want him to think that I was making him repeat courses either.
Abiding Homeschool High School
In helping many homeschoolers, I was familiar with a wide variety of high school programs and knew that Penn Foster has been around for a while and prided itself on covering basics, which obviously would be a good choice if our life took another unexpected turn during Mr. Awesome’s high school years.
It has given Mr. Awesome a framework and still has allowed me to flesh in with programs like North Star Geography, some of my Bible lessons I want him to have and do our unit studies.
Thankfully, the Mr. has had as good as health as he will have living with the effects of the heart attack and Mr. Awesome has hammered through both the subjects we chose and those of Penn Foster.
It will have taken him about a year and half to finish Penn Foster but it also had some unexpected benefits of using Penn Foster that I will explain in an upcoming post.
Out of struggling, though it may be stressful to go through, I feel, always comes empowerment.
I want each of my son’s homeschool high school experience to be unique and Mr. Awesome has certainly flourished with doing a combination of my subjects and ones we chose through Penn Foster.
Without giving up my goals of being able to give my second son a personal and unique high school experience, it called for creativity not compromise.
I am hoping by sharing this today, that if life throws you an unexpected curve, you will not give up but find a creative solution.
The end doesn’t always turn out as planned, sometimes it is better.
Also check out these other articles:
Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 1
Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 2
Accreditation Removing the Shroud of Mystery
Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School?
Homeschool High School How To Prepare THE Transcript + Editable High School Transcript
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