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Homeschooling Stubborn Teens: Not for the Faint of Heart

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

While homeschooling through the years we confront with dogged determination many scenarios which makes us weak at the knees or makes our heart skip a beat. But, nothing comes even close to the enemy in our own midst – our sweet child turned stubborn, unmotivated, and seemingly lazy teen. Homeschooling stubborn teens is not for the faint of heart.

I’ve learned that although it’s easier to blame my teens for everything that went wrong, I too had to learn how to parent differently. As each of my sons reached the teen years, I’ve had to become more resourceful and creative in how I homeschool them.

I've learned that although it's easier to blame my teens for everything that went wrong, I too had to learn how to parent differently. As each of my sons reached the teen years, I've had to become more resourceful and creative in how I homeschool them. Click here to grab these SUPER helpful tips!

Avoiding drama in your house is not all together impossible, but you can curb it and cope with it by learning from my mistakes.

3 PARENTING TECHNIQUES FOR HOMESCHOOLING STUBBORN TEENS

Whether your teen has been homeschooled from the beginning, came willing to homeschool after many years in public school or had no choice, he wants choices now.

One/ Focus on the teen, not the school.

However, before you can get to choices, the number one mistake made by many homeschooling families is to focus on homeschool. Yep, wrong focus right now.

The teacher in us is ready to go, but the mom in us should lead right now. Problems, whether academic or developmental, signal something is wrong.

Although a teen can now vocalize that he hates math or writing and is seen as unmotivated, that’s only the result of what is going on inside.

Before assuming it’s a lack of motivation, step back, and deschool. You can’t move forward until you and your teen are both ready.

Coming into adulthood takes a toll daily on your teen and he needs you now more than ever.

Two/ Deschool now before it’s too late.

Look at ways you can step back, deschool, and focus. Move forward by stepping back instead of butting heads:

  • If he hates math, ask him which subjects he does like. Use that knowledge to plan a routine. For example, get the worst subjects out of the way at his peak time and in a place he chooses. Explain to him that he can make those choices, however, if he is not doing his math because he decided to lie down on his bed, then it’ll have to change. I had one son that just because he could sit on his bed, he was in the right mindset to do math which was a subject he hated. He did well and eventually later in high school, he moved to the table. Give him some choice. BUT, first take time to not do school while you question him (few questions in the beginning) about subjects he likes and doesn’t like. Help him to make a routine for the day he loves while satisfying your requirements.
  • Next, do something he wants to do. For us, it was skateboarding, bicycling and watching movies. I told my teens to not do school for a few days while they played. My teens praised me as the best homeschooling mom ever (ha, but I had a motive). Like all smart moms who want their sons to do well in academics, I knew that they had to see first that I was reasonable. After they played for a few days and I could see it winding down, I discussed with each one how to work in what they liked doing while balancing their academic load. It worked. They knew I was reasonable, but had expectations. Including them in the discussion gave them the control they wanted.
  • Focus on when the rebellion occurs. For example, I knew our problem was an over scheduling problem with one of my teens. The rest of the day he was pretty compliant barring a few bad moods. Over all, the sulking and back talking happened only during school. Stepping back and allowing my teen to rest gave me time to understand how many credits I wanted for middle or high school teen. I reworked his schedule. However, if your teen is complaining pretty much the whole day, then it’s a parenting or rebellious issue and homeschooling is getting a bum rap.

Three/ Over ambitious homeschooling can backfire.

It’s easy to say when your child is five or six years old what he will and will not do as a teen, but it’s quite a different thing scheduling for him at 15 or 16 years old.

While it may be true that a teen doesn’t have to love learning because work places or colleges don’t care if he does, it never worked when I told them that.

I’ve never made progress with my sons when I vented and I normally had nothing helpful to say when I lost it.

Pushing my sons to do college courses early while in high school, having them take jobs too early, and do heavier maths because they were hardworking could’ve backfired.

Stepping back to reaffirm that heart schooling was just as important as academics helped me to solidify the fact that homeschooling is a lifestyle. I want my sons to homeschool their sons because I believe it’s the best way to teach a child.

HOMESCHOOLING TEENS WITH THE FUTURE IN MIND

Homeschooling with a future generation in mind helped me realize that I wholeheartedly believe learning is a privilege.

Curbing my desire to sock it to my boys with their academic load while being teens helped us to not only lap up the precious teen years, but love every minute of it.

Sometimes the solution to a problem was to just stop. And remembering each teen is different helped me to see problems from each kid’s perspective. Can you relate?

What kind of problems are you trying to overcome with your teen?

When your teens are grown and look back at how you didn’t give up on them, all of the hard times will be memories. You’ll only see the beautiful man or woman thanking you. Your knees will then be weak for another reason – overwhelming happy emotion.

I've learned that although it's easier to blame my teens for everything that went wrong, I too had to learn how to parent differently. As each of my sons reached the teen years, I've had to become more resourceful and creative in how I homeschool them. Click here to grab these SUPER helpful tips!

Also, you’ll find these other articles super helpful. Don’t give up now. You’re almost there.

Hugs and love ya,

What You Must Know to Teach High School Unit Studies

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

Until my sons reached high school, I didn’t know if my unit study approach would meld with tracking credits and courses. Check out my how to homeschool high school page for awesome tips.

Also, there didn’t really seem an abundance of prepared high school unit studies.

Between determining if unit studies were a good fit for high school and understanding record keeping, it was a lot to wrap my mind around.

Until my sons reached high school, I didn't know if my unit study approach would meld with tracking credits and courses. Also, there didn't really seem an abundance of prepared high school unit studies. Click here to read these 3 must know tips!

Sorting out myths from truth, I hope these 3 tips will help you to easily homeschool high school with unit studies. Or at least give you a beginning place.

3 Tips for Teaching High School Unit Studies

ONE/ Understand first that high school is just a continuation of the lowers grades – really!

Yes, it’s true that you’ll need to track credits and courses, but before stressing out about them, plan high school subjects like you’ve done in the lower grades.

That’s right. Begin with what you know.

In my article How to Choose the BEST Homeschool Lesson Planning Pages for THIS Year, I not only give you tips on how to do that, but each lesson plan form lists subjects by general categories; math, language arts, science, history and electives are the framework of well-rounded out high school courses.

It’s not hard to plan when you understand that you’re covering the same basic subjects albeit in more depth analyzing views instead of just a question answer format like your child did in younger grades.

TWO/ Look for resources which teach 2:1 or two-fer resources.

A two-fer resource is another secret tip to homeschooling teens.

Using a resource which teaches two subjects is vital when your child enters high school.

You don’t want your time wasted and neither do teens.

More important though is the reason that unit studies rocked in the younger grades is the same reason which holds true for high school.

Learning makes more sense when subjects are tied together instead of studied as separate subjects. Additionally, unit studies have always been a research-based approach.

This is a skill which is needed on into adulthood.

Living Books for Unit Studies

Resist giving up your unit study approach because it may require a bit more time to put together.

Sure, it’s easy to assign a text book and move on, but you and I know that high school is just hard sometimes. It’s a challenge to plan but still doable.

Begin again with something you know. Look at these things you may already know how and are doing with your kids in the younger grades.

  • Reading history living books and having your child choose writing topics based on history.
  • Reading science living books and choosing writing topics based on science.
  • Reading math living books and having your child choose writing topics based on math.

Now that you understand that high school courses fall into general categories and understand to look for two-fer resources, here are some examples of how to put it together.

We love the book Undaunted Courage.

Just a side note here.

When I look at a book which can serve as a springboard for high school unit studies, I note 3 things:

  • that it’s a living book,
  • that it’s high school level so that I can legally note on my high school transcript that it’s a high school level resource,
  • and I mull over how hard it will be to add external resources to enrich the study.

Not only is your teen covering part of his credit toward history when reading Undaunted Courage , but he is covering credits for literature too. Writing is part of a literature credit.

So your teen is covering 2–3 subjects at once depending on what credits you’ve lined out for the year.

Because covering literature in high school means more than just reading, you’ll want to have a variety of resources for analyzing literature and for guiding your teen how to write well.

A literature-based unit study which has a history setting has been the easiest to start off with at the high school level.

For example, I find it a challenge to round out a history book with literature analysis than a great book suited for literature analysis.

How to Put Together High School Unit Studies

It’s been easier to add history and science of a time period to a great read.

One super helpful resource we only discovered this year and that is the Thrift Study Editions by Dover. 

Not only are the books for high school level, but each one comes with a study guide in the back. 

For example, while reading A Tale of Two Cities, we studied about the culture of France and England and learned about the issues of the French Revolution.

With a resource like that, doing unit studies are a cinch at the high school level. This brings me to the third point you want to know.

THREE/ Fill your teacher nook with specialized how-two books for you and your teen.

Tackling how to teach a subject with out a curriculum can be daunting, but you can go from research to reward if you choose specialized teaching books.

Here are a few of my favorite resources. You don’t need all of them, but I’ve used them at one time or another to round out our unit studies.

Literature Unit Studies

  • The Design-A-Study series are timeless. This series of books about science, history, and composition gives an overview of what to cover in each grade.  Instead of giving you subjects, it’s helpful because it gives you the big picture of what your child needs to know from K-12. A resource like this is especially helpful if you want to cover a skill or topic that your highschooler may have struggled with in the earlier grades.
  • Warriner’s English Complete Course. This set of books have been around for years and helps to hone writing. Christine Miller of Classical Christian said, “This excellent reference can be used throughout all three years of the dialectic to teach writing. It thoroughly covers grammar in detail, which provides a nice review for those children that need it, or for those children that missed some grammar instruction in the grammar stage. It also covers writing in detail, with a complete section on writing mechanics, usage, writing correct and clear sentences, paragraphs, and papers, the research paper, using references, and even public speaking.” Read the rest of her review here. Before we started using Rod and Staff high school levels, we used Warriner’s. Rod and Staff’s Communicating Effectively I liked one year because I felt like it was more streamlined. It helps to.understand that I used Rod and Staff in the younger grades and their grammar is very rigorous and by 8th grade formal grammar is completed. When you click the link above you can see the sample of their English and what is covered in the high school years.
  • Home Learning Year by Year: How to Design a Homeschool Curriculum from Preschool Through High School. Don’t get overwhelmed by this book. There is no need to have to read all of it. Focus only on the grade level for this year. Having a handy reference like this will guide you to subjects for each grade.

In an upcoming post, I’ll show you how I plan credits now that you can see how easy it is to satisfy two to three subjects using carefully selected resources.

What You Must Know to Teach High School Unit Studies. Click here to grab the tips!

Also, check out Diving into Homeschool Unit Studies: The Dos and Don’ts and 10 Days of Diving Into Unit Studies by Creating a Unit Study Together and Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School.

Hugs and love ya,

3 Ways to Choose the BEST Writing Curriculum (for a Growing Homeschool Family)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

It’s a scary feeling choosing a writing curriculum when you don’t have a professional background in education. Also, look at my page The Dynamics of How to Homeschool Easily and Smarter.

Knowing that thousands of parents embark on teaching their children each year, I too made the leap to choosing the perfect writing curriculum.

But you and I both know that perfect writing curriculum doesn’t exist, or does it?

3 Ways to Choose the BEST Writing Curriculum (for a Growing Homeschool Family)

Looking back now that two of my sons are graduated, there were some things I did right although I didn’t feel that way at the time.

WRITING CURRICULUM

Hoping to spare you the same agony I went through because of my aversion to teaching writing, I learned 3 ways to choose the best writing curriculum for a growing homeschool family.

1. There is a right way to teach writing. No smoke and mirrors are involved.

A writing program needs to give you and your children structure and sentence variety.

Short and compound sentences are only two sentence types, but a beginner writer needs plenty of practice developing them.

Moving from basic sentence writing to a paragraph is foundational to strong writing skills.

As your child matures, he widens out in his ability to write creatively, but the foundation is first.

Does your writing curriculum give numerous subject topics, practice with sentence variety and instructions to the non-professional educator?

2. As the moods of your children change, your writing environment can’t.

When it comes to scheduling, I could easily be known as a Nazi mama.

I’ve been hard on myself through the years so that I don’t push too hard.

But years later, I’ve learned my structured environment was key to my boys learning how to write well.

I fully appreciate now that relaxed homeschooling is not lazy homeschooling. Finding balance is key to being a good writing teacher.

A well-rounded writing curriculum should give you guidance through each step of the writing process and tips to accommodate your kids changing needs and moods.

For several years, my sons needed to write about boy topics.

Easy Writing Curriculum Tips

Getting them in touch with their warm and fuzzy feelings didn’t work for them. An excellent writing curriculum really needs to serve the needs of both girls and boys.

In my inexperience, I learned a valuable nugget which is that a structured writing environment nurtures creativity. It worked opposite of how I thought it would be in the beginning.

Instead of focusing on the grade level, a writing curriculum needs to give you a clear picture of the process.

For example, does it move from planning, prewriting, drafting, revising to editing/publish? Does it help you to teach each step clearly?

If the writing curriculum is written for multiple ages, then you can teach to the writing ability for each child.

It’s a costly mistake to buy a writing curriculum that does not give you abundant teaching tips at each stage of the writing process.

For example, just because a child is in middle school doesn’t mean he is ready to write high school essays. After all essays are just a lot of practice in paragraph writing combined to make a lengthy paper.

Practice in paragraph writing can span many grades and it’s more about maturity than age.

When you’re given clear short-term goals and long-term goals of the writing process, your child can advance based on his maturity or simmer at one level for a while.

Again, teaching writing from the novice to the accomplished is about giving kids a structured environment which should be one of the important details in your program.

Writing, like math, is a skill that needs to be practiced each day. Skipping writing for numerous days and then asking your kids to write 5 paragraphs in one setting is pure torture.

Like other skill subjects, writing quickly becomes boring if a child is not writing about what interests him.

Does your writing curriculum give you writing prompts or ideas, encourages your child to write about topics that interest him and remind you to give praise for your child’s good communication skills? It should.

3. Lessons must be geared toward ensuring writing success.

Writing programs aim for writing success, but many miss the mark.

Not having a teaching background makes me require more of a writing program than just telling me about the writing process.

Look at these key bullet points to help you gauge a top-notch writing program.

Writing Structure Gives Kids a Strong Edge

  • Equipping teachers with scripted lessons is the start to creative writing. Like cooking, not everybody needs a recipe but sometimes you need exact measurements. However, in the beginning an inexperienced cook starts with a pattern or recipe and adjusts a recipe as she hones her skill. She adjusts a recipes to fit her family’s needs. Teaching writing is similar. Learn from seasoned writers by carefully following a script and then adjust it to meet your family’s needs.
  • Providing detailed instructions for budding writers is an essential component. New writers seem to have no fear when it comes to ideas. They need structure and guidance daily. The challenges are quite different for a more mature writer.
  • A program should ensure writing success for older writers who have more experience in life but may have experienced many writing failures. They may lack confidence. If a writing program fails to ensure that each writing adventure is a success, why would you choose it?
  • Ample ideas for editing, revising and giving feedback are necessary. My boys never responded to the red pen marks on their paper. It didn’t take many times for me to do that until I realized that writing is very personal. Tips in my curriculum like discussing topics beforehand, having my child explain his thoughts to me prior to writing and having my child listen and watch me as I thought outloud while writing were key teaching points I learned.

Teaching Kids to Write Clearly and Creatively Without Crushing Them

One year when one of my sons was in middle school, I thought he was a very creative writer. At least more so than I was at his age. What I was helped to appreciate from teaching writing was that my son needed to make a point with his writing while entertaining readers.

Having eight pages of words which sparked his imagination was beautiful and creative, but honing it for meaning is equally important.

As a mom of bright boys, I refused to believe that just because boys came later to the writing table that it meant they were delayed.

They were not, they just needed more entertaining than girls. A boy’s need to wiggle, move, and use up their energy had to be incorporated into the lesson plan.

I’m not telling you that teaching writing is easy, but it can be less intimidating when you choose the best writing curriculum. Take your time choosing one and ask a lot of questions.

3 Ways to Choose the BEST Writing Curriculum (for a Growing Homeschool Family)

What is working and not working for you right now?

More Writing Curriculum Tips

Also, look at how to teach writing with these other tips.

It’s a scary feeling to choose a writing curriculum when you don’t have a professional background in education. Knowing that thousands of parents embark on teaching their children each year, I too made the leap to choosing the perfect writing curriculum. But you and I both know that perfect writing curriculum doesn’t exist, or does it? Looking back now that two of my sons are graduated, there were some things I did right although I didn’t feel that way at the time. Click here to grab the 3 tips on how to choose the BEST writing curriculum.

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

Teach Your Homeschooled Teen the Art of Studying (without nagging)

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

How to Teach Your Homeschooled Teen the Art of Studying (without nagging) @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

Teaching your homeschooled teen the art of studying is a bit like not having a parent’s manual that comes with your kids when they enter the world. Well – almost.

Resources exist overwhelmingly for teaching teens study skills in public schools, but teaching our kids at home can give us a slight edge.

However, it only becomes an advantage if we tap into teaching them how to study along the way. Teaching a teen study skills can be frustrating if you don’t begin when they are young.

How to Spoon-Feed a Homeschooled Teen

Learning should be active and not passive. Spoon-feeding and hovering over our teens won’t propel them to learn the art of studying.

Look at 3 things I learned when teaching a teen to study.

One/ Self-instruction is a must.

Many kids do not do well in public school because they feel trapped with confinements on what they should learn. Avoiding the popular notion that teens need a lot of supervision gives teens a chance to experience independence.

Raising independent and self-taught learners means bucking the current system period.

I learned as I have homeschooled longer to give up the control while supervising them. It begins with self-instruction in what your child is interested in.

Starting out, this doesn’t mean a child guides himself completely because not all children are inclined to even attempt learning the boring things.

Many days teaching my three teens has been more difficult and mentally taxing then when they were toddlers because you have to talk with them not at them as they learn self-governing independence.

And yes there should be sanctions when a teen is not self-studying and is wasting time. But there is a reason a teen is wasting time and it’s called unmotivated.

Two/ Motivation is a GREAT incentive.

Motivation for studying what interests a teen comes first, then self-instruction, not the other way around.

In other words, you can’t expect a teen to be self-taught and independent without him having a compelling reason to be. You can’t just heap subjects onto him, like when he was in elementary grades and then expect him to do them. That was your job then, but it’s not when he is a teen.

Micromanaging in the teen years breeds rebellion and you may end up having an adult child that won’t speak to you. Don’t let that happen.

And don’t make the mistake of swinging to the other end of the pendulum and give him total self-governing.

Teen Study Skills

Don’t stress over it, but look at these sanity-saving tips to gradually dole out independence, which then teaches your teen the art of studying.

  • Choose a topic in a subject. As soon as your child demonstrates a bit of independence, recognize it by allowing him to choose a topic in a subject that you require. Don’t ask him to cover science, but require it. But give him the choice, for example, of studying about rocks, magnets or a bird. For us this happened close to second grade for one child, close to sixth grade for another and closer to middle school for another son.
  • Then, choose subjects. After you have exposed your child to well-rounded out subjects, then give him the choices of which subjects to cover. This normally happens around middle and high school.
  • Give him checklists, organize drawers and student planners to gauge progress. Give him a checklist or some way of knowing what he is doing for the day and when he is finished. The art of how to study can be diminished when your expectations are not clear. Not only are you giving your child clear expectations, but you are doing something VERY important lasting him on into adulthood, which is teaching him how to create expectations, goals and standards for himself. How to study includes setting incremental goals and meeting them. He needs accountability to you first, then next to himself. Early on I set up drawers for each child and in the order I chose for him to cover the subject. That model morphed into choices they made later on as to which subjects they wanted to cover first. I also created student planners and my oldest son enjoyed that the most. My youngest son enjoys taking notes on his iPad. And another son likes picture doodling and part words as he note takes. Each child is different.

organized-drawers-promotes-self-teaching-and-independence-tinas-dynamic-homeschool-plus

  • Listen. More importantly, teens want to be heard. Listen and back him up by letting him try his idea. The best place and time to fail from an idea he had is while he is living with you so he can learn.
  • Take him with you to choose curriculum. My boys made a trip with me to the convention fair each year. If they didn’t have a preference in curriculum, they got a chance to look it over anyway.
  • Teach him his learning style and then help him learn that way. Don’t push your way of learning. I know, I’m probably one of the caring pushiest moms ever, but not all of my boys learn the way I do. Use color coding markers, use a written planner, use an online planner, use an iPad, music in the background works for one son (not me), quiet space for another son, flashcards, index cards and writing in a book (yes allowed). Be willing to move from your comfort zone to the learning zone your child works best in.

Teach Consequences But Evaluate Consequence Too

Three/ Consequences is a must.

Learning how to learn means that your child needs consequences, both bad and good for his habits. Shielding our child or always telling them everything not matter how well-intended can turn to nagging.

When I was a teen, I did learn by example. Not all teens learn that way and some have to experience pain.

Teaching my boys that learning by example is more preferable than learning always by experience was important to me, but my boys have to be willing to accept that mindset.

Teaching teens is not always a two-way street, so be prepared for times when they have to suffer bad consequences.

A bad grade worked for one son, but it didn’t for another one.

Telling my son to think about what others will think about him and the example he set worked for another son. He didn’t want to hear my opinion, but teaching him to evaluate what he was going to do or not do when applying himself to how he studied made him think how he would appear to others.

I’ve found that clear consequences, even writing them down has been a useful guide in prodding my teens in the right direction.

After all, college, life and career are full of on the job rules, regulations and earning respect. Don’t forget to teach them at home.

This is the tip of the iceberg of things I’ve learned as two of my sons have now entered the adulthood.

And when your adult sons tell you often how much they deeply value what you taught them about how to study, you won’t be able to hold back tears.

When you take time to teach your teens how to study, you teach them for a lifetime.

Grab my Free Student Planner, 3 Unique Things a Homeschooled Teen Learns From a Teacher’s Manual and I found this book, The Art of Self-Directed Learning: 23 Tips For Giving Yourself an Unconventional Education very inspirational.

Hugs and love ya,

Signature T

Don’t forget to follow BOTH of my Pinterest accounts for AWESOME pins.

Visit Tina Robertson’s profile on Pinterest.


Visit Tinas Dynamic Homeschool ‘s profile on Pinterest.

3 Unique Things a Homeschooled Teen Learns From a Teacher’s Manual

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This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, please see my full disclosure policy.

3 Unique Things a Homeschooled Teen Learns From a Teacher's Manual @ Tina's Dynamic Homeschool Plus

When your kids are middle school or high school level, beginning to homeschool can be tough. For many years they have been away from you and have been conditioned to learn one way.

And though homeschool moms who’ve homeschooled their teens from the beginning may find it easier to hand over the teacher’s manual to their teens because they know what standard they have set day to day, they can still find it challenging to teach study skills.

Regardless of whether you’ve homeschooled from the beginning or jumped into homeschooling with teens, there are 3 things a homeschooled teen learns by you handing over the teacher’s manual.

One/ A teen learns that you won’t control them. This may not seem important to you, but to a maturing teen it’s everything.

This is not as paramount as they grow older, but in the early teen years with my boys, it was important for them to see me as a confident, not controlling teacher.

Hear my whisper and feel my gentle nudge, failure is a good teacher for your teens. More on that in a minute.

As my sons grew older and became more confident, we didn’t clash about control. However, when they were entering the teen years, I tried to not it let it get to that point. I simply handed over the teacher’s manual so they could dig in it on their own.

Giving them the teacher’s manual is not about a power struggle, but empowering them to learn.

Two/ Forget independent learning skills, they need to learn how to study first.

I’m not against independent learning skills, but at this time in their life is when a teen learns how to study. In the rush to prepare our teens for adulthood, we expect independent learning skills without teaching them how to to do it.

You can’t expect your teens to be independent until they have practiced how to study or have a few trial runs.

Now, I know you may be thinking that your teens will look straight at the answers and write them down without studying. They may.

Lessons I Learned From My Homeschooled Teen

My teens tried it a few times with some problems they couldn’t solve in math and language arts.

Let them think they are getting away with something if that is how they feel. However, here is the secret!

They have to be able to tell you back what they learned.

If a teen can’t tell you back what he has learned without looking at the book or the material he has studied, he hasn’t mastered his material.

So if my boys chose to look at the answers first and work back from that how to solve it, I didn’t care.

At first, I was apprehensive letting them have that freedom, but too I have never spoon-fed my boys or thought the only way to learn was a question answer format. I’ve always allowed them to learn, even in reverse if necessary.

I learned that if they were to be independent learners, I had to quit being the teacher and be the coach to guide them.

Three/ Problem solving skills are learned in middle school or high school where they should be and not in college or on the job.

Whether your teen chooses a college or career track, the ability to solve problems when an answer isn’t correct is critical to flourishing in the real world.

It can be easy to identify a problem, but solving it is another skill set.

Learning how to attack a problem with a plan or order for determining importance, finding the right and wrong assumptions and then determining a solution is something that even adults struggle with.

Here and now when your child is a teen is when they learn such a valuable skill that will boost their college or career track.

I mentioned before failure is a good teacher. Your mom voice doesn’t have to be brittle or harsh when your teens don’t want to listen to you. I’m not talking about tolerating a disrespectful attitude but allowing your teen to disagree with the way you teach.

You have nothing to prove.

Give your teen the manual and if he can’t explain back what he learns without constantly opening the book, then the material needs to be reviewed. Learning is that simple.

Don’t try to be confrontational. If they don’t get the point that they have to redo the material if they don’t understand it, then encouraging them to do it again with the teacher’s manual teaches them to not give up.

After a few times of doing it that way, my boys would work many times without cracking open the teacher’s manual. After they completed their work, they self-graded and reviewed from the teacher’s manual.

How to Stay Motivated While Homeschooling Teens

They can surprise you too when you gently guide them. My boys, without my prompting, would rework their problems or redo their work to be sure they understood it.

They need to understand that this is their education and they have the right to learn in a way that benefits them the most.

Fast forward many years now, I recently asked Mr. Senior 2013 if that was the right thing to let him have the teacher’s manual. He absolutely agreed and added that if he didn’t get the problem correct after checking the teacher’s manual, it made him rethink how he solved his problem. I loved what he said because that it was what every homeschool parent wants – to equip their child for the real world.

Do you have a teen that you’re butting heads with? Try this and let me know if he or she flourishes.

Also, look at these other helpful articles. Homeschool High School–How to Log Hours for High School, Homeschool High School Readiness and Homeschool High School The Must Cover Subjects Part 2.

Hugs and love ya,

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