WEBVTT 00:02.397 --> 00:09.360 [SPEAKER_00]: Christian parenting, so many parents are scared of homeschooling the high school years. 00:09.960 --> 00:18.324 [SPEAKER_00]: I have even spoken to parents who have a five-year-old and they say I can't homeschool because I can't do high school and I'm like, hold up, but let's not even think about that. 00:18.904 --> 00:20.265 [SPEAKER_00]: Can you homeschool a five-year-old? 00:20.685 --> 00:21.286 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, yeah. 00:21.546 --> 00:22.949 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, then homeschool off five year old. 00:22.969 --> 00:35.407 [SPEAKER_00]: You're not homeschooling a 17 year old because your child is five, but I promise you that your feelings will do a 180 degree turn when the homeschooling is all done. 00:36.148 --> 01:01.110 [SPEAKER_00]: Many of you listeners have been listening for a while when I started this podcast four and a half years ago and you started off with young children and I did hear in there some podcast episodes about high school years but a lot of you didn't listen because you're like my child is younger but I'm hearing from more and more of you saying I've been listening for a couple of years and we are either now in the high school years or we are about there it's it's coming up soon 01:03.652 --> 01:10.017 [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm excited that I've been able to be along on the journey with you, maybe you're listening, and right now you just have younger children. 01:10.277 --> 01:15.821 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm glad that you're listening to this episode to help you kind of like reframe your mind to think about it differently. 01:16.221 --> 01:18.623 [SPEAKER_00]: You might do things like I did or maybe not. 01:18.863 --> 01:23.746 [SPEAKER_00]: You have years to learn how you want to approach high school if you have young kids. 01:23.886 --> 01:26.228 [SPEAKER_00]: And even if your kids are now in the high school, 01:26.608 --> 01:27.849 [SPEAKER_00]: It's never too late. 01:27.989 --> 01:28.669 [SPEAKER_00]: I promise you. 01:29.010 --> 01:33.232 [SPEAKER_00]: So today I'm going to talk about what my approach was to the high school years. 01:33.472 --> 01:36.594 [SPEAKER_00]: Now that all of mine are done and graduated from home school. 01:36.674 --> 01:39.056 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to Little by Little Home School podcast. 01:39.156 --> 01:40.577 [SPEAKER_00]: I am your host, Lee Nguyen. 01:40.777 --> 01:44.339 [SPEAKER_00]: And once again, blessed to have you listening to this episode. 01:44.799 --> 01:47.401 [SPEAKER_00]: As I mentioned, I've been doing this for four and a half years. 01:47.441 --> 01:48.842 [SPEAKER_00]: It's actually will be five years. 01:49.682 --> 01:54.506 [SPEAKER_00]: After the new year, which I can't believe I'm saying that, but all three of mine have graduated. 01:54.786 --> 01:58.249 [SPEAKER_00]: I now have a, some of them have had some birthdays recently. 01:58.329 --> 02:02.233 [SPEAKER_00]: So 24, 22, and 18. 02:02.633 --> 02:03.414 [SPEAKER_00]: There were ups and downs. 02:03.554 --> 02:04.074 [SPEAKER_00]: There was good days. 02:04.114 --> 02:05.215 [SPEAKER_00]: It was bad days, but you know what? 02:05.315 --> 02:06.236 [SPEAKER_00]: It all bounces out. 02:06.456 --> 02:10.159 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you listen to last weeks episode, you know that I will tell you it's 100% worth it. 02:11.080 --> 02:26.344 [SPEAKER_00]: So let's get into this topic today and first I want to share with you my approach to the high school years and then I'm going to follow that up with what I learned through homeschooling those three all the way through high school and 02:26.644 --> 02:35.032 [SPEAKER_00]: Maybe a little bit of what I would maybe do differently or just how my mind changed and shifted and that's a little hint as to what's coming. 02:35.112 --> 02:39.456 [SPEAKER_00]: Now I currently live in a state with high regulations when it comes to home school. 02:39.877 --> 02:44.581 [SPEAKER_00]: I have lived in two of the four highest regulated states 02:45.542 --> 02:48.344 [SPEAKER_00]: and so I've kind of seen how it can be. 02:48.484 --> 03:00.954 [SPEAKER_00]: I honestly have no idea what it would be like to homeschool in a state that it's kind of a little bit of a free for all, but I know that if there's four that are highly regulated, that means that there are more that are not highly regulated. 03:01.094 --> 03:11.182 [SPEAKER_00]: In other words, most likely you listening to this episode right now are not in a highly regulated homeschool state and so therefore you're feeling a little bit nervous and you're saying, 03:12.104 --> 03:12.907 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know what to do. 03:12.947 --> 03:15.195 [SPEAKER_00]: There's really no guidelines for high school. 03:15.255 --> 03:17.443 [SPEAKER_00]: Let me throw this suggestion out to you. 03:18.335 --> 03:22.137 [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to go ahead over to the HSLDA website. 03:22.438 --> 03:23.618 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm pretty sure let me look here. 03:23.658 --> 03:24.739 [SPEAKER_00]: I just did have a poll. 03:24.759 --> 03:28.921 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, it's HSLDA.org ORG. 03:29.502 --> 03:35.645 [SPEAKER_00]: And if you go into their menu, or you can just put a slash and legal, that is going to pull up then the states. 03:35.966 --> 03:36.806 [SPEAKER_00]: And their color coded. 03:37.146 --> 03:38.727 [SPEAKER_00]: There are four red ones. 03:38.887 --> 03:44.411 [SPEAKER_00]: The red ones are the highly regulated states that is New York, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. 03:44.651 --> 03:45.812 [SPEAKER_00]: Do you notice anything about those? 03:46.092 --> 03:47.593 [SPEAKER_00]: Yes, they're all in the Northeast. 03:48.173 --> 03:52.774 [SPEAKER_00]: those of you that live in the Northeast, it's very different living than if you live somewhere else. 03:52.834 --> 03:58.596 [SPEAKER_00]: So it should come as no surprise to you that the four top regulated states are all in the Northeast. 03:59.096 --> 04:12.000 [SPEAKER_00]: But go ahead and take a look at the regulations for those states and HSLDA has it laid out and you can even go a step further and you can look up the actual code and you can read through that. 04:12.520 --> 04:20.349 [SPEAKER_00]: And so if you take a look at those, it'll give you an idea as to what you should be doing possibly with your homeschooler in the high school years. 04:20.810 --> 04:31.221 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, if doing that and you are still nervous, I'm going to encourage you to contact some possible colleges that might be in the future for your child or children. 04:31.882 --> 04:50.391 [SPEAKER_00]: Take a look at the local community college, maybe contact some of the state schools, contact some private colleges, talk to some trade schools that are maybe local or something that you think they might be interested in, and also maybe do some investigation into some possible future careers for your child or children. 04:50.792 --> 04:51.032 [SPEAKER_00]: And then, 04:51.572 --> 04:58.898 [SPEAKER_00]: Ask those colleges, those trade schools, those possible careers, what do you want to see from the high school years? 04:58.998 --> 05:01.159 [SPEAKER_00]: What kind of classes do you want them to take? 05:01.179 --> 05:11.347 [SPEAKER_00]: What kind of knowledge and what kind of experiences would really benefit them to possibly get into your program or get into your college or to follow this certain career path? 05:11.627 --> 05:36.880 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, so if you're nervous about the kind of layout of it, I mean, also think back to what you did in high school and some of us are like I can't even remember I can remember bits and pieces but that all the details so if you can't remember the details go and look at what are some of the regulations in some of the different highly regulated states and then contacts and possible colleges trade schools that kind of stuff so now let's dive into what I did what my approach was. 05:37.940 --> 05:42.402 [SPEAKER_00]: with my oldest who is now 24 as she was getting down to graduate eighth grade. 05:42.822 --> 05:56.687 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know many, I guess at that point, yes, we did know some high schoolers, but up until a couple years before that, I didn't know any homeschoolers who had graduated their kids from homeschool and I didn't know anybody with older kids. 05:56.707 --> 05:57.748 [SPEAKER_00]: It was like everybody was 05:58.509 --> 06:13.787 [SPEAKER_00]: Younger my kids were literally the oldest and maybe my youngest was like in the pack of the young of the older of the young kids, and so my were pretty much like the babysitters We would all get together with the other homeschool families, but then we moved states and God really was so 06:14.728 --> 06:22.695 [SPEAKER_00]: gracious and caring and connected us with homeschoolers that were in the similar season, but also homeschool families that were in a season just ahead. 06:22.896 --> 06:26.859 [SPEAKER_00]: And some of those women are such good in dear friends of mine even today. 06:27.260 --> 06:30.543 [SPEAKER_00]: I just a couple of weeks ago had lunch with two homeschool moms who 06:31.063 --> 06:32.244 [SPEAKER_00]: are done with their homeschoolers. 06:32.444 --> 06:36.868 [SPEAKER_00]: One who's telling us about her son's wedding and it was just it was so good. 06:36.888 --> 06:39.770 [SPEAKER_00]: I just looked at them and I was like we've known each other for a while. 06:39.810 --> 06:44.954 [SPEAKER_00]: We were like in the thick of middle school and high school years together and just feel so blessed. 06:44.974 --> 06:49.278 [SPEAKER_00]: So I pray that you're able to connect also with homeschool moms and just pray. 06:49.398 --> 06:55.723 [SPEAKER_00]: Ask God to help you to connect with those that will be a good mentor and some also just to kind of like link arms with and walk alongside with. 06:55.763 --> 06:57.905 [SPEAKER_00]: So when it came to planning for ninth grade, 06:58.565 --> 07:03.130 [SPEAKER_00]: I took a look at our homeschool regulations and I just wrote them all down. 07:03.510 --> 07:10.157 [SPEAKER_00]: How many, how many years are state calls it units, which is basically you can kind of think of as credits. 07:10.497 --> 07:13.960 [SPEAKER_00]: And a unit or credit is an entire high school year. 07:14.100 --> 07:17.744 [SPEAKER_00]: So it would not necessarily a college semester, but a high school year. 07:17.764 --> 07:22.549 [SPEAKER_00]: So one unit or one credit, same thing, and it equals an entire high school year. 07:23.049 --> 07:27.832 [SPEAKER_00]: So I took a look and figured which ones we needed to do for how many years. 07:28.272 --> 07:32.294 [SPEAKER_00]: There was only one that required all four years and that was English. 07:32.414 --> 07:33.335 [SPEAKER_00]: And so then I took a look. 07:33.375 --> 07:35.496 [SPEAKER_00]: Okay, math, mathematics, we're going to need two. 07:35.576 --> 07:38.397 [SPEAKER_00]: History, which I don't think they called it history that they've just called it social studies. 07:38.438 --> 07:39.118 [SPEAKER_00]: We need two. 07:39.798 --> 07:42.440 [SPEAKER_00]: There was government and there was some that required. 07:43.646 --> 08:01.009 [SPEAKER_00]: half of a unit, something that was just like one unit and then somewhere two and so I just laid it all out and then what I took a look at was just looking at what we would need to do to cover those entire four years so take a look just at the big picture and do not let this get you be overwhelmed. 08:01.710 --> 08:28.595 [SPEAKER_00]: How do you, what does, I don't know why people say this, it's kind of a silly thing like how do you eat an elephant you just one bite at a time how do you homeschool you just homeschool one year at a time and I know that sometimes often I will say don't even look at the entire year, but when it comes to high school take a look and say we want to get X amount of credits done this year therefore this is what the entire year is going to look like these are the subject are going to do this is the curriculum we're going to use in order to achieve. 08:29.115 --> 08:36.600 [SPEAKER_00]: That goal and so I created a plan and then basically all I had to do was follow the plan That does not mean the plan doesn't go off course. 08:36.620 --> 08:47.707 [SPEAKER_00]: It doesn't mean that if I set things up and it was too heavy And too much in some years and some semesters because some of those were just half a unit that we had to do then that didn't mean I didn't lay off I could lay off we can adjust 08:48.527 --> 08:51.788 [SPEAKER_00]: But if everything is going smoothly, all you have to do is follow the plan. 08:52.148 --> 08:59.691 [SPEAKER_00]: Come up with the plan is what I did that probably towards the end of eighth grade, because there's a lot of curriculum sales and things that are going on in the spring. 08:59.711 --> 09:04.312 [SPEAKER_00]: So I wanted to be your beeper paired and know what I wanted to get, be able to get that stuff and then go into the summer. 09:04.632 --> 09:08.694 [SPEAKER_00]: Not have to think about it because I would have everything all laid out for their ninth grade here. 09:09.294 --> 09:12.096 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to just tell you my approach when it came to laying it out. 09:12.396 --> 09:19.520 [SPEAKER_00]: This might not be for everybody, and there were some things that I definitely learned, and if I was going to do it again, what I do things differently, absolutely. 09:19.620 --> 09:20.961 [SPEAKER_00]: I think that goes with anything in life. 09:21.822 --> 09:27.826 [SPEAKER_00]: My decision was to go really heavy on the credits in 9th and 10th grade. 09:28.406 --> 09:29.647 [SPEAKER_00]: It was pretty intense. 09:30.287 --> 09:31.508 [SPEAKER_00]: There were a lot of classes. 09:31.848 --> 09:38.074 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you might have a child that you need to spread things out a little bit more, but I'm this episode is all about my approach. 09:38.174 --> 09:48.485 [SPEAKER_00]: And so you can take it or leave it, you can take parts of it, you can take all of it, however, however you want to, but don't feel any pressure that if how I laid things out is not going to work for your child, you know them. 09:49.165 --> 09:53.206 [SPEAKER_00]: listen, there's nuance and there's caveats and there's just like all these situations. 09:53.366 --> 09:54.506 [SPEAKER_00]: You know your situation. 09:55.047 --> 09:57.027 [SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, you need to do what you need to do. 09:57.347 --> 10:01.428 [SPEAKER_00]: I knew my situation and this is what I did and this is what worked for my situation. 10:01.488 --> 10:05.750 [SPEAKER_00]: And so ninth grade, we focused on getting as many credits as possible done. 10:06.070 --> 10:07.270 [SPEAKER_00]: There was definitely the English. 10:07.610 --> 10:11.871 [SPEAKER_00]: So some of the credits that were required or so say social studies or math. 10:11.951 --> 10:12.611 [SPEAKER_00]: Let's just go with the math. 10:12.631 --> 10:14.452 [SPEAKER_00]: There was only two units. 10:14.492 --> 10:14.792 [SPEAKER_00]: Therefore, 10:18.793 --> 10:23.396 [SPEAKER_00]: We definitely did that, 9th and 10th grade, same with the social studies, 9th and 10th grade. 10:23.756 --> 10:29.179 [SPEAKER_00]: Does that mean that we didn't go on and do other social studies or other math, depending upon what their interests were? 10:29.419 --> 10:36.643 [SPEAKER_00]: No, we still would have added on and there was just simply what had been then titled possibly electives or I could say that we did three years of mathematics. 10:37.243 --> 10:54.473 [SPEAKER_00]: But I would all those that maybe just required to like they were done in 9th and 10th grade and I do know that there was a conversation that I had with each one of my kids at some point in their 9th and 10th grade years when they were a little weary, but I knew that I wasn't pushing them beyond what they could do. 10:54.973 --> 10:56.894 [SPEAKER_00]: And I just said to them, can you please trust me? 10:57.374 --> 10:58.694 [SPEAKER_00]: I know that this is a lot. 10:58.814 --> 10:59.595 [SPEAKER_00]: It can be intense. 10:59.615 --> 11:02.996 [SPEAKER_00]: There's a lot of classes, a lot of curriculum to go through. 11:03.336 --> 11:06.497 [SPEAKER_00]: And there's a lot for us to focus on during these two years. 11:06.537 --> 11:09.838 [SPEAKER_00]: But I promise you that it's going to be worth it. 11:10.238 --> 11:10.959 [SPEAKER_00]: can you trust me?" 11:11.139 --> 11:19.327 [SPEAKER_00]: They said, yes, I trust you and I'm going to tell you that we got past those ninth and tenth grade years with all three of them and they were like, okay, now I can breathe. 11:19.827 --> 11:30.598 [SPEAKER_00]: But I was just said, I want to just do as much as we can and get a lot of those requirements just checked off and done so that then we can go and have a lot more freedom to do what we want to do with our time. 11:30.898 --> 11:38.079 [SPEAKER_00]: So then obviously after 10th grade comes 11th grade and there was less of the requirements to do. 11:38.379 --> 11:45.401 [SPEAKER_00]: I did break down some of those and we did a bit more during the 11th grade years of the ones that required half of a unit. 11:45.721 --> 11:49.421 [SPEAKER_00]: I think there was some type of economics we had to do and it was just half a unit. 11:49.441 --> 11:54.322 [SPEAKER_00]: So therefore a half of a year and we did that in 11th grade and then the other half of the 11:58.003 --> 12:02.167 [SPEAKER_00]: and then the rest of the classes and courses that they took were electives. 12:02.688 --> 12:06.832 [SPEAKER_00]: And we started to do a lot more intense future exploring. 12:07.292 --> 12:09.955 [SPEAKER_00]: We would take tours of colleges at this time. 12:09.995 --> 12:11.276 [SPEAKER_00]: We would go to trade schools. 12:11.737 --> 12:15.140 [SPEAKER_00]: I would have them watch videos about things that maybe I possibly thought that they 12:15.901 --> 12:24.506 [SPEAKER_00]: would be interested in and we just had a lot of conversations and a lot of exploration about what they could do and just did a lot of that 11th grade. 12:24.526 --> 12:26.428 [SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't mean you can't do it in 9th and 10th grade. 12:26.568 --> 12:28.809 [SPEAKER_00]: You can and we did do that in 9th and 10th grade. 12:29.549 --> 12:35.233 [SPEAKER_00]: But it took until about 11th grade for each of my kids to start to think a little bit more about their future. 12:35.413 --> 12:39.096 [SPEAKER_00]: They were still young, and their maturity was still lower in 9th and 10th grade. 12:39.556 --> 12:40.517 [SPEAKER_00]: We come 11th grade. 12:40.877 --> 12:47.942 [SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to have jobs, and they were driving cars, and they just wanted that ability. 12:48.062 --> 12:52.085 [SPEAKER_00]: Well, I guess they had they had grown in maturity enough to say, you know what? 12:52.105 --> 12:54.127 [SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm going to take this a little bit more seriously. 12:54.507 --> 12:57.089 [SPEAKER_00]: And so they then also were taking it a bit more seriously. 12:57.129 --> 13:01.412 [SPEAKER_00]: So 11th grade was less of the requirements because we 13:05.415 --> 13:10.841 [SPEAKER_00]: So then we move on to 12th grade, obviously, and I do have to say that only two of my kids got to 12th grade. 13:11.301 --> 13:13.744 [SPEAKER_00]: That does not mean the other one flunked out of school. 13:14.284 --> 13:17.507 [SPEAKER_00]: My middle child, we graduated him after 11th grade. 13:18.148 --> 13:27.638 [SPEAKER_00]: We found out that you could get two of those units there for two credits, two years of English done by taking two college Englishes. 13:28.058 --> 13:31.481 [SPEAKER_00]: so he took an English 101 and an English 102. 13:31.842 --> 13:36.085 [SPEAKER_00]: At that point we were taking courses dual enrollment through Liberty University online. 13:36.446 --> 13:42.752 [SPEAKER_00]: So he did those two and by doing that he was able to get two of his years done of the high school. 13:43.232 --> 13:48.056 [SPEAKER_00]: Therefore he was done pretty much in the fall with that requirement. 13:48.076 --> 13:50.238 [SPEAKER_00]: That was at that point that was the only 13:51.259 --> 13:53.340 [SPEAKER_00]: legal requirement that he had to do possibly. 13:54.000 --> 13:55.781 [SPEAKER_00]: I guess maybe some electives maybe he had to do. 13:55.801 --> 13:56.461 [SPEAKER_00]: We did accounting. 13:56.481 --> 14:00.182 [SPEAKER_00]: We did suffer business because he was entrepreneurial minded. 14:00.362 --> 14:03.963 [SPEAKER_00]: So taking those two online courses then he did that. 14:04.443 --> 14:05.404 [SPEAKER_00]: There are probably each. 14:05.424 --> 14:06.164 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know. 14:06.544 --> 14:12.106 [SPEAKER_00]: I don't remember exactly four or five six weeks long and so say they're both six weeks long within 12 weeks. 14:12.126 --> 14:16.047 [SPEAKER_00]: He had those two done as opposed to using an entire year to get it done. 14:16.407 --> 14:17.487 [SPEAKER_00]: I was like he's done. 14:17.507 --> 14:25.570 [SPEAKER_00]: He's he's he's he's ready to move on and I don't want to hold him back and do 12th grade just for an English when we could do this online. 14:26.352 --> 14:49.651 [SPEAKER_00]: So do you want to say that only two of mine got to 12th grade but that's because we graduated one a year early so that's definitely an option so check it out if that is something that you think will work for one of your kids but we really focused on the 12th grade year on electives again if they didn't do an online dual enrollment for English then there was one English requirement in order to do that year but everything else was electives. 14:50.071 --> 14:55.552 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, these weren't always book electives either, just last homeschool year with my youngest. 14:55.592 --> 14:59.653 [SPEAKER_00]: He's really into videography and photography and technology. 14:59.993 --> 15:03.674 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, I created courses, found resources, pulled things together. 15:03.694 --> 15:06.274 [SPEAKER_00]: Plus, he was just literally doing the videography. 15:06.334 --> 15:08.675 [SPEAKER_00]: He started doing weddings the summer before. 15:08.815 --> 15:10.715 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, he was doing this as well. 15:11.055 --> 15:12.015 [SPEAKER_00]: And so, I created courses. 15:12.075 --> 15:15.436 [SPEAKER_00]: One of them was something like storytelling through videography. 15:15.536 --> 15:16.836 [SPEAKER_00]: So, that was one of his electives. 15:16.916 --> 15:19.297 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was what he was doing already. 15:19.757 --> 15:33.203 [SPEAKER_00]: So the 12th grade year is just all electives and possibly doing their next step or their career or whatever their aspirations are and any studying is what they're most interested in. 15:33.897 --> 15:37.139 [SPEAKER_00]: And then really, the rest of the time is just living life. 15:38.120 --> 15:42.403 [SPEAKER_00]: My kids all graduated high school and it wasn't any big thing. 15:42.423 --> 15:45.545 [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't like a huge 180 shift in their life. 15:46.006 --> 15:47.247 [SPEAKER_00]: They were already doing the thing. 15:47.587 --> 15:51.590 [SPEAKER_00]: They were all kind of like, oh, it feels a little bit less romantic than we thought it was gonna be. 15:51.630 --> 15:55.653 [SPEAKER_00]: We still did a graduation party, we did a little ceremony for it and everything. 15:56.073 --> 15:58.134 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was still an occasion. 15:58.194 --> 16:00.334 [SPEAKER_00]: But I noticed that there wasn't a huge shift in their life. 16:00.354 --> 16:01.215 [SPEAKER_00]: Like there was for me. 16:01.715 --> 16:02.875 [SPEAKER_00]: I had graduated high school. 16:03.095 --> 16:05.936 [SPEAKER_00]: And it was a big shift as to what was going on. 16:05.976 --> 16:07.017 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, yes, I wanted to college. 16:07.037 --> 16:09.517 [SPEAKER_00]: So kind of things shifted only so much. 16:09.597 --> 16:17.020 [SPEAKER_00]: And then you graduate from, so think about, like, if you went to college, when you graduated college and suddenly you're out in the world, you're like, wow, this is a lot different than being in. 16:17.960 --> 16:20.324 [SPEAKER_00]: educational setting at all times in the school setting. 16:20.704 --> 16:23.828 [SPEAKER_00]: And so for my kids it was just kind of like, oh, okay, I'm already doing this. 16:23.888 --> 16:25.290 [SPEAKER_00]: So that was the focus of 12th grade. 16:25.591 --> 16:31.699 [SPEAKER_00]: So let me quick wrap this up and tell you some things that I learned through the years of homeschooling three kids through high school. 16:32.240 --> 16:32.600 [SPEAKER_00]: Guess what? 16:33.001 --> 16:34.102 [SPEAKER_00]: It's okay to change your mind. 16:34.723 --> 16:56.941 [SPEAKER_00]: Now, you could change your mind about the way you have things set up, you could look at it from the very beginning and say we're going to do the certain curriculum and you might change your mind about things, you might change your approach about it, you might go into it very heavy handed with a lot of curriculum and courses and say you know what I think we're going to kind of do a little bit of a shift and we're going to do a little bit more unschooling and it doesn't matter what it is just know that it is okay to change your mind. 16:57.923 --> 17:10.066 [SPEAKER_00]: second thing I learned is that it is okay to homeschool each of your children, whether that is two children or ten children, but you can homeschool high school, each of them differently. 17:10.606 --> 17:21.628 [SPEAKER_00]: We know we can do that during the younger years, but you can also do it during the teenage years, and you can even use different curriculum for different kids for the same exact subject. 17:22.128 --> 17:39.736 [SPEAKER_00]: You could find that one math curriculum works really great for one child and it just doesn't work for the next one so obviously you can do a different one you know this from the younger years it also applies to the teenage years home school the teen right in front of you next thing I learned was that you have to work together. 17:40.656 --> 17:41.497 [SPEAKER_00]: And guess what? 17:42.177 --> 17:52.225 [SPEAKER_00]: They might act like they know what all their options are when it comes to their homeschool curriculum and the different courses and their next future steps, their career paths or whatever they're going to be doing next. 17:52.766 --> 17:58.910 [SPEAKER_00]: They kind of seem to act like they know exactly what it all is or whether they pretend that they do or they just don't know. 17:58.930 --> 18:02.053 [SPEAKER_00]: I came to find out as that we are exploring things like, oh. 18:02.493 --> 18:03.333 [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know I could do that. 18:03.573 --> 18:04.694 [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you can't do that. 18:04.994 --> 18:06.154 [SPEAKER_00]: And I would just open door. 18:06.174 --> 18:15.558 [SPEAKER_00]: So I would just say work together and be the person who is opening the doors, which leads me into this next one, the last two years of their homeschool. 18:15.958 --> 18:18.199 [SPEAKER_00]: I learned to let my kids choose. 18:18.859 --> 18:32.909 [SPEAKER_00]: choose the curriculum that they're going to use for maybe their requirements, choose their electives, work with them on their electives and guess what, when they make those choices and when they make those choices about possibly maybe going to a trade school or going to college or let's talk about gap years. 18:33.329 --> 18:36.271 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm going to put a link in the show notes for a gap year episode. 18:36.291 --> 18:37.032 [SPEAKER_00]: I want you to listen to. 18:37.732 --> 18:42.256 [SPEAKER_00]: when they decide maybe a gap year program they want to do, whatever it is, let them decide. 18:42.676 --> 18:51.063 [SPEAKER_00]: And as long as it is not something that is going to take them down a wrong path, something that is unbiblical, something that is sinful, you have to go along with it. 18:51.163 --> 18:51.804 [SPEAKER_00]: That's what I learned. 18:52.064 --> 18:52.785 [SPEAKER_00]: Go along with it. 18:53.245 --> 18:54.706 [SPEAKER_00]: We have to respect their decisions. 18:55.207 --> 19:00.951 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the fact that there is going to be consequence is good and bad to every single decision and we have to let them decide that. 19:01.051 --> 19:03.613 [SPEAKER_00]: Again, unless they're going completely off course or doing 19:06.238 --> 19:15.845 [SPEAKER_00]: just give them all the information, allow them to make some a decision of very, give them informed consent, let them choose, make this decision with all the information. 19:16.906 --> 19:19.728 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the last thing I want to say is, keep up the connection. 19:19.908 --> 19:20.889 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't just let them go. 19:21.249 --> 19:22.751 [SPEAKER_00]: Don't just say, well, they're doing their high school. 19:22.771 --> 19:27.995 [SPEAKER_00]: They're in their room and they're doing it completely online and just let them kind of insulate themselves. 19:28.115 --> 19:29.816 [SPEAKER_00]: No, let them still be a part of the family. 19:30.216 --> 19:33.799 [SPEAKER_00]: I still did morning time all the way through the high school years with them. 19:33.899 --> 19:35.981 [SPEAKER_00]: And I use that time as connection. 19:36.081 --> 19:39.244 [SPEAKER_00]: We did some amazing books and read some really great things. 19:39.264 --> 19:41.886 [SPEAKER_00]: A lot of these were books that are for adults. 19:42.086 --> 19:43.807 [SPEAKER_00]: And obviously appropriate. 19:43.828 --> 19:45.589 [SPEAKER_00]: But like they could have been theology books. 19:45.609 --> 19:49.412 [SPEAKER_00]: And we just dove in so deep and really connected through a lot of different resources. 19:49.452 --> 19:51.934 [SPEAKER_00]: So I highly recommend continuing to do morning time. 19:52.255 --> 19:53.155 [SPEAKER_00]: So there you go. 19:53.496 --> 19:55.457 [SPEAKER_00]: That was my approach to the high school years. 19:55.578 --> 19:58.840 [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm gonna tell you right now, high school can be fun. 19:59.761 --> 20:01.502 [SPEAKER_00]: Tell yourself that it is fun. 20:01.642 --> 20:02.862 [SPEAKER_00]: And guess what, it will be fun. 20:02.882 --> 20:08.564 [SPEAKER_00]: I promise that if you are nervous about it in a few years when you're done, you're going to look back and you're going to say, I was I nervous. 20:08.604 --> 20:09.785 [SPEAKER_00]: That was a really good time. 20:09.805 --> 20:14.567 [SPEAKER_00]: You guys really get to connect through this time with education and again, like I said there. 20:15.387 --> 20:18.929 [SPEAKER_00]: Focus on the connection, maintain that connection, and really towards the end. 20:19.190 --> 20:25.314 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got to give a lot of it over to them and be there as a more of a guidance counselor and a coach. 20:25.454 --> 20:28.636 [SPEAKER_00]: If you have any other questions about high school, I would be more than happy to answer. 20:28.656 --> 20:31.017 [SPEAKER_00]: You can go ahead and send me an email. 20:31.458 --> 20:35.520 [SPEAKER_00]: Best place to email me would be Hello at littlebylittlehomeschool.com. 20:35.640 --> 20:39.423 [SPEAKER_00]: So I hope that this episode is blessed you, and we'll see you back here in a week.