SR 856: Homeschooling High School: Overcoming Fears and Thriving – Carrie De Francisco, Part 2 (Through the Years Series)

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The kids have so much extra time on their hands,

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but moms often think they’re not doing enough or their kids

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aren’t doing enough. They’re in that mindset of doing school at home

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instead of it being home education. Hey, everyone,

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this is Yvette Hampton. Welcome back to the Schoolhouse Rocked Podcast. I

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am back today with my friend Carrie De Francisco, and we’re talking

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about homeschooling high school. And this is part of our

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homeschooling through the years series. And if you missed Monday’s episode, go back

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and listen and you’ll hear, of course, if you missed that, that this whole series

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was inspired by Carrie because she was like, let’s talk about high school. I

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said, great. Let’s talk about all the grades. And so we’re having a good time.

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And high school is so precious. It’s just such a special time.

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And if you are battling those ideas and thoughts

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of maybe I’ll put my kids back in traditional school for high

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school, just put the brakes on and listen to our conversation this week with

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Carrie because I think she’s going to bring some great encouragement. We ended

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Monday’s episode talking about how she kind of ended up with her son,

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especially unschooling him through high school. And a lot of people

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frown upon that. But she’s going to explain what that actually meant and

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how her son went on to college. He went on to university. Her

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daughter went on to university as well. And so she’ll talk a little bit about

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that and not that university is the goal for every kid.

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I mean, not every child is meant to go to college, and that’s

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totally okay. It doesn’t mean that you have somehow failed as their homeschool

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teacher and as their mom. God has different plans for every one of our kids.

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And so the whole purpose is helping our kids and preparing them for what

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God’s plan is for them. So we’re going to talk through that today. But before

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we do, I want to say thank you again to our sponsor, BJU Press Homeschool

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need that are rooted in the solid biblical foundation you want.

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So check them out. Bjupresshomeschool.com.

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Well, Carrie, welcome back to the podcast. Let’s park for

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a little bit on this whole idea

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of unschooling, because what you don’t mean, I know, is that you

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let him sleep until 02:00 every afternoon. He had

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absolutely no responsibilities. He just played video games all day. And

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you did everything for him and served him hand and foot, and he had nothing

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to do with academics. That is not what you mean by

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unschooling. Explain to our audience what it looked like, and maybe talk about what homeschooling

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looked like for your daughter and then kind of for your son and.

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And just the difference between the two of them, because they’re two different people. Well,

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it’s funny, because everything you said, he’s a gym rat, and so

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he got up super early every morning just to go to the gym, and he

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cooked his own food. He’s such a great chef, so I didn’t have to

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feed him anything. And so. And he hates video games,

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so it’s only one he plays, and he plays it with his best

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bud. But other than that, he’s not a video game. So it’s kind of funny

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that you said all those things. Yeah. So when it comes to. And I hate

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the work, the term unschooling, because it has such a. A

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negative connotation, I guess the best way, or the

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new buzzword is interest led learning. So

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that would be more of basically what it is. But the

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idea behind unschooling is not, like you said, that they’re just sitting around doing

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absolutely nothing. Their interest is what leads

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them or their goals that they have is what leads them

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to what they learn and then how they learn it. And

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when they learn, it is also determined by what their

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needs are. So, yeah, my son did use a math

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curriculum because that served him best.

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He did his math at night because for some reason,

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his math brain clicked on at 06:00 at night instead of first thing in

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the morning. So, you know, you use curriculum if

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that’s what they need or want, or you take a class if that

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feeds their. Their needs. Right. Or in the areas

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that you don’t necessarily need a curriculum.

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Like, my son, he’s dyslexic, he’s dysgraphia. He has visual

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processing issues. He’s adhd. You know, he’s got all the

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letters. Right? And so YouTube was his

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buddy. He used YouTube a lot. So he watched a lot of

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lectures on YouTube. Like, one of the things he’s really into

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baseball. That’s really the only reason he went to college, because he wanted to play

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collegiate baseball. And so that was why he went, because

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he doesn’t need a college degree for what he wants to do. He wants to

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be a firefighter, but he wanted to play baseball as well. So he got a

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degree while he was playing baseball, but for

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one of his sciences, he’s just so much into baseball, and

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he wanted to become a better hitter. He watched so many

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youtubes on the physics of baseball that

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the kid got really good at the actual

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physics, and I can’t even tell you all the formulas and all that kind of

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stuff that went with it, to be a better hitter and a

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better runner and a better pitcher.

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So stuff like that. So when you hear interest led or

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unschooling, he learned an awful lot of physics,

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but he did it through YouTube and through

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the application of baseball as opposed to

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a traditional physics textbook.

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Right. So that was a lot of

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what he did. He did take a lot of classes with his friends,

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mainly because he was my last one and my daughter was already off

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at college and they were thick as thieves. And so it

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was just him and I, you know, when my husband wasn’t around, and so he

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didn’t have his sister to learn with and to hang out with and all

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that kind of stuff. So I did make more of an effort, his high

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school years to put him in more outside kind of co op

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classes, but just for that reason, because

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he was the extrovert and just kind of needed that. But

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that’s pretty much what we did. My daughter,

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she had a goal. She wanted to graduate early, and

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she wanted to start taking college classes her junior and senior year of

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high school. So that when she got to college, she had already

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done all of her general eds and she was

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already an upper class. And, you know, so she was on a completely

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different mindset. She wanted to, she knew she was going to have to get a

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master’s for what she wanted, possibly even a PhD. So

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when she charted her course of what her four years were going to look like

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in high school, they were very different than what my

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son needed and what he wanted to do for his four years.

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So I hope that kind of answers your question. Yeah, no, it does. And I

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love that every kid is so different and that their goals are different. You know,

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what I always fear is, I don’t want parents to hear, like, well, if my

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kid doesn’t get into college or university, you know, somehow I have

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failed, because God really does have a different plan for every one

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of our kids. You know, Brooklyn this year is taking a gap year, and people

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keep asking her, what are you going to do? What are you going to do?

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You’ve graduated. What are you going to do? And she’s like, please stop asking me.

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I don’t know what God has for me yet. You know, and that’s okay. We

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are totally, 100% comfortable with that and fine with her

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just working. And, you know, perhaps

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the Lord will have her as a wife and mom, which I think is the

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greatest career ever in the history of mankind,

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is being a wife and a mom. And so it’s okay to have a degree

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if you’re a wife and a mom, but it’s okay to not have a degree.

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I don’t have a degree, you know? And so, yeah, it’s. God just

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has a different plan for each one of our kids as they move forward into

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their adult years. So, as you were looking

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at those high school years, what did you find to be some of the greatest

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challenges? Me, I was the

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biggest challenge. I had to learn how to get out of the way.

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And so when a lot of, you know, friends

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or parents come up to me and say, oh, your kids are awesome, you

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did such a good job. And I always say, first of all, it’s the Lord.

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I was on my knees the whole time. But they

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learned, and they became the people they are, not because of

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me, but in spite of me. And so I literally had

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to learn how to get out of the way and trust the process,

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because the Lord created all of us to be creative, to be

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creators, and to learn. We’re learning machines. And so when I

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finally embraced that and realized that my

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kids were gonna learn, they may not learn what I thought

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they needed to learn on a particular timetable, but they were gonna

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learn, and they were gonna learn exactly what God needed them to learn in

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that moment in time. Right? So I think for me, that was

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the biggest challenge, was for me to trust the process

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and to get out of the way, and as a classroom teacher, to get out

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of that mindset, like you, that, you know, they don’t have

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to go to college. If they want to do a degree that

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requires. I mean, they want to do a profession that requires a

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degree, then, yeah, I love the book. Skip

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college. I love it because the first, like, one third of the

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book talks about how important college is for

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specific professions. And if that’s what you want to

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do, go to college. But the rest of the book, like, two thirds

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of it is all about, okay, these are the things you don’t need a

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degree for. These are the ways you can be successful

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without a college degree. Let’s look into these things and so I

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just love that book. I think every teen, every parent should read that book because

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it gives you lots of avenues and lots of different

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ways to look at your high school years, but also what it

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could look like when you’re all done. But I think that the other thing that

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was a big challenge, especially for moms who are new to this. And

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if they’re coming home from a traditional school, the kids have

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so much extra time on their hands, and

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it’s a gift that it’s a gift. But moms often think

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they’re not doing enough or their kids aren’t doing enough because they’re

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done with their schoolwork or their formal lessons in less than 3

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hours sometimes. And so they’re thinking, well, I gotta add stuff in. They’re not

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doing enough, but they’re in that mindset of doing school at

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home instead of it being home education, that

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everything is a lesson, but actually, because

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they’re doing school at home, they can get so much done

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because of the one on one. They don’t need all that extra busy

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work. And so that was another big challenge. I want to ask

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about trusting the process, because you talk about, you know, you just need to trust

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the process. Let’s talk about what the process is.

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today Apologia.com. we’re

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back with Carrie. Okay, so before the break, you talked about, just trust the process.

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Everything will work out. Just trust the process. What exactly do you mean

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by that? And what, what is the process for those moms who are like, I

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literally, Carrie, have no idea what it is that you’re talking about. What process are

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we supposed to trust and how do we do this process? What do you mean

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by that? Okay, well, first of all, kind of practically

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speaking, you just want to make sure that you

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ask yourself two questions before you even start homeschooling the

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high school years. So first of all, why are you

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homeschooling the high school years? Why have you chose to keep your kids

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home? Because the answer to that question is literally going

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to help you make all the important decisions. So what

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curriculum are you going to use, what activities they’re going to be in, all that

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kind of stuff. The second question you really need to ask your team

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is, where do you see yourself in five years or post graduation?

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What are your goals? Because the answer to that question

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will help you figure out what they’re going to learn and how they’re going to

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learn it and when they’re going to learn it. And that’s where the process comes

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in. And so once you ask those two questions, then you

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know why you’re doing it. It helps you make decisions. You know what they want

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to do, and so it helps you plan out what you’re going to do. You

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want to make sure that you go to homeschool legal Defense association, and you

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make sure that you are doing whatever your state

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requires them to do to earn a diploma. Right.

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But in my book, I talk about how to create a course of study, and

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I feel like that’s the most important thing. So you look at what either your

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state requires or if they’re college bound, what

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admission requirements are required for a particular university

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they want to go to. And you use that as your guideline

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of what they’re going to do for the next three or four

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years. But the beauty of it is you and your team get to

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decide how you’re going to be doing that. Yeah.

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So that’s pretty much the beginning of the

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process. Yeah. Okay. So let’s dig into

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that for a minute, because when Brooklyn was starting high school, I was

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like, and this was, I guess, probably, you know, her 8th grade year, I was

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like, oh, I don’t know what to do. I’m not exactly sure what I’m supposed

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to do here. And so I called HSLDA

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and I talked to one of their consultants, and she literally walked me through

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a course of study for high school. And it was so

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helpful. I was so thankful. And, I mean, I spent probably well over an hour

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on the phone with her. And then we’ve had other calls throughout the last couple

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of years going over her transcript, where they’ve

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walked me through exactly what her transcript needs to look like.

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And, okay, what am I missing? What do we need to do these last two

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years? How do we fill in these gaps and what really is needed? And so

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you’re right, every state has different requirements, so you have to know what your state

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requirements are. But HSLDA will help with that. Talk very

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briefly for those parents who they don’t know what a course of study is, what

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does that look like and how do you start to implement that in

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those early? Because you can even start implementing that in the middle school

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years depending on where your child is

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academically. What is a course of study look. Like

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for the most part, on average, it’s three to four years of

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English, but you get to decide what that English is going to

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look like. Composition or american lit or whatever. Usually

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it’s at least two years of science, biology and some sort of

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physical science. It’s usually two years or more of

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math, algebra one, and other stuff, depending on what

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their career minded is.

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Usually it has a couple of years here in California, you got to have

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PE or some sort of physical ed. And then

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usually it’s three years of some sort of history with american government

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and econ and then all the wonderful electives.

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So those are the bare minimum or

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the skeleton of what a course of study would look

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like. But then again, because you’re not in a traditional school

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system, you can decide with your teen. Nobody says you have to do

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biology your freshman year. I mean, if you want to start with, you

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know, astronomy, you can. Or if you want to start with physics, you can.

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If that’s their thing, right? So that’s the beauty of it. You know, you’ve

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got like an outline of the things they need to

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learn, but you can decide how and

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when all of that’s going to take place. And in my book, I’ve got

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chapters upon chapters of how to create a course of study. I

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have samples in the back and all that kind of stuff. Yes. Yeah. You’ve done

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a really good job in your book of laying out for

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parents. This is what it all looks like. And you just kind of walk parents

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step by step through how to do the course of study, how to create

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transcripts, all of that stuff. So. So you guys don’t even actually need to call

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HSLDA, just get Carrie’s book and she walks you through it. But, yeah,

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it’s so helpful to know how to do that because that’s, for me, that was

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the scary part of high school, was because I knew I would have

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the curriculum to teach, whether it was something that we were teaching here at home

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or it was being taught through a co op, or we had video lessons, you

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know, like, we’ve used apologia, you know, for science, their

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video lessons, and, you know, things like that. So that has made the

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academic part easier. But it was the, like all the,

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like, I don’t know, legal stuff that scared me, too. It was

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like, ah, when she gets to the end, how do I know that

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I’ve done all the things? Because you feel like once you get in those high

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school years, you feel like you’re, like, on the clock. Like, okay, we’re running

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out of time and we’ve got all these things still left to do. So you

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have to know, what’s the most important thing. What. What do we need to finish

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in order to get her to the very end? Have you. Well,

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I’m certain you’ve heard of this talk really quickly about,

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like, a fifth year senior. Super senior year. I know they’re called all

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sorts of different things, and I know that many kids now are taking that

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extended kind of a fifth year of high school. Talk about that for

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just a minute. I think it’s very beneficial for the

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student that either one really doesn’t know

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what they want to do, right. Or for the student who has

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specific goals post graduation, and they haven’t quite met

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those goals. So, like, for instance, a friend of my daughter’s, he

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really wanted to get into the specific school for cello,

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and he wanted to get a full ride scholarship for his cello. And he just

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felt like at the end of his senior year, he wasn’t quite there

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yet. And so he gave himself a second

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senior year so that he could literally spend almost 3 hours a

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day perfecting his cello, right. Because he had

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pretty much all the other stuff taken care of. So he worked,

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he volunteered and he worked on his cello. He took that extra year, and

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then he was able to meet all of his goals. So he got into the

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college he wanted with the scholarships he wanted in and all that kind of stuff.

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So I think it’s very beneficial if it meets the goals or

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the needs or the wants of the student. Yeah. Yeah, I think so, too. We

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have two friends here in the Tulsa area who they, they

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were going into their senior year, and then both of them, along with their parents,

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just decided, and they were both young seniors, so they would have been 17

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this year, graduating. They started school early, and so

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they just kind of, you know, made it through, and then, but they just had

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some other courses that they really wanted to get onto their transcripts that they hadn’t

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done yet. One of them, her family, went through a big move, and,

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you know, there was a lot of stuff going on with her family, and so

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she just missed some of those classes. And so their families just said, you know

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what? Let’s just extend their high school year into

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a kind of super senior year. And so they’re doing

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a fifth year of high school next year, but they’ll both be 18 when they

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graduate. But I know lots of kids are 19 when they graduate, and that’s not

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a big deal either. It’s like, that’s the beauty of homeschooling. Like, you

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do what works best for your family, and so

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it’s a beautiful thing. So we’ve talked a little bit about some of the

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fears of homeschooling. Um, and. And

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we talked about that. I think we talked about that on Monday. Right. Like, we

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all have these fears of I’m not enough, I’m not smart enough. You know, the

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high school years are just scary. I don’t know. It’s like Godzilla coming into our

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home and like, wow, so scary. What are some of the other fears

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that you’ve seen that parents have and reasons, maybe fears is not the right

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word. Some of the reasons that parents give for not wanting to homeschool through the

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high school years? Well, the biggest one, I think, for a lot of

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dads, is that they’re afraid that their kids aren’t going to be able to get

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into college if that’s what they want to do, or they’re not going to be

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able to get a job and support their family because they don’t

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have, you know, quote unquote, an accredited diploma or

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whatever. And all of that is just, it’s all

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lies from the enemy because you just, you don’t have

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to worry about those things. So you don’t have to worry about that. If

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kids want to go to college, they will get in as homeschoolers. Their transcripts

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will be accepted. Actually, colleges are

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looking for homeschoolers because they now see that

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they are fabulous students. And a huge

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advantage to their student body. So that’s not an

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issue. I think another thing that, especially for moms,

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especially if they had a great or

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wonderful high school experience, and I’m not talking about the academic

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side of it, I’m talking about the social side of it. And some of the

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moms, they kind of grieve having their kids do

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homeschool high school at home because they’re worried their kid’s going to

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miss out on prom or senior portraits or a

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graduation ceremony. But moms don’t have to worry about that because

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depending on where you live and how big or small your community is,

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you’re going to find those things. If your student wants to

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participate in those things, they have tons of them

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out there. And like I tell moms all the time, homeschool moms are great

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at, if we, if our kid needs something like, say, a high school

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graduation ceremony, we find one, right? And if we can’t find one,

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what do we do? We create one, right?

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So you don’t have to worry about those, those kind of fomo things. But

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I think the biggest fear is that there’s going to be holes in

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their education. And I don’t know about you, but when

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I graduated high school, I had a lot of holes. Oh, yeah. I

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didn’t know everything, right? We never finished any textbook when

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we were in high school. And I didn’t realize how dumb I was

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until I started homeschooling my kids. Then I was like, oh, my gosh,

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there are so many holes in my own education. And

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so just to put it out there, yes, moms, there will be

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holes in your students education. But

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that’s okay. Because if your goal, if one of

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your whys was that you want your student

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to love learning and to become a lifelong learner

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knows how to learn, how to teach themselves a skill that they need

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and how to find answers to things they don’t know the answer to,

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you’ve done your job and you’ve set them up well for

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adulthood. So when they get out there, if there’s something that they didn’t

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learn that you felt was important or that they needed to know

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for a particular college class or whatever,

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they know how to teach themselves. Find the

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answers. Find someone to teach it to them. That’s the beauty of

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it. And I don’t know about you, but I’m still learning an awful

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lot as a 50 something year old, so I never stopped

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learning, right. So we’re just constantly learning

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new things and so, and there are tons of books I’m so glad I didn’t

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read in high school. I’m glad I read as an adulthood. So don’t feel

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guilty that you don’t read every single book that was on your book

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list with your high schooler, too, because I’m sure he’s going to read

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it later on and probably appreciate it even more. Yeah. Yeah. The

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books aren’t going to, you know, go out of print or, I mean, some might

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go out of print, but you’ll still be able to find them. You know, books

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are always going to be around. Learning is always going to be around. That’s such

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a good point because, I mean, when I got to the end of my high

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school years and I talk about this in the movie, actually, I

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was like, I’m done. Like, I am so tired of school and

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academics, and I literally was like, I never have to learn again. And little

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did I know that God had a completely different plan. And I have learned

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so much more just like you, I have learned so much more in my adult

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years, and especially since I started homeschooling than I ever

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learned growing up in school because you care more about

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it as an adult and it’s harder to learn as an adult, I

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think. But you’re, because you have more of an interest

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in it. It’s more exciting to learn as an adult, and it’s really fun to

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learn alongside of our kids. That’s one of the greatest things about homeschooling, is

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getting to learn alongside of them and teaching them things. You know, it’s so much

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fun to teach your kids how to read. It’s so much fun to teach them

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those basic math skills, you know, counting blocks and doing those things

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like we talked about in the preschool episode. Like, those are just

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really fun parts of parenting is doing those things with our kids.

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And so, yeah, so good stuff. We are out of time, but we will be

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back tomorrow. We’ve got lots more to talk about still for the high school years.

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Carrie, tell our listeners, one more time, where they can find out more about you.

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You can just go to my website, coffeewithcarrie.org and everything about

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my books, Instagram, podcasts, it’s all there. Okay, sounds great. And

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again, her book is called Homeschool High School. It is A Handbook

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for Christian Education. And we, it’s, it is an excellent book.

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It’s kind of a, not a workbook, but you, you give some

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really practical resources in there on

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homeschooling through the years. So it’s, it’s kind of the relational,

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you know, I don’t know, emotional part of

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homeschooling high school, but also the really practical part of it. So you’ve done a

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really good job with it. Thank you. So, yeah. So we’ll put links to that

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in the show notes. And you guys, thank you so much for listening. Again, we

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are so grateful for you. If you’re watching this on YouTube, would you subscribe to

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our channel if you have not done that already? And then if you guys would

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do us a huge favor. This is big. Would you share this podcast with your

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00:26:11,548 –> 00:26:15,348
friends? If it’s a video, share the video. If it’s a audio podcast, share it

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00:26:15,364 –> 00:26:18,796
with your friends and give them the encouragement that they need to homeschool it.

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Summertime and everyone’s trying to figure out what, what we’re going to do. What, what

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is next year going to look like for our kids? This is the time to

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be encouraged. So share this with your friends. We would love it if

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you would do that. And again, you can find everything at our website,

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schoolhouserocked.com. stay tuned to the very end to hear a clip of what’s

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coming up next. And we will see you back here tomorrow. Bye.

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And I think it’s real important that they know

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that it’s okay to question as long as

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you always remember who you belong to,

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right? And that God is bigger than all of this and he can

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handle mock questions just like he can handle their

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questions. And so I think, first and foremost, they need to see

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us walking with the Lord, even in the hard

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times. Even more so in the hard times.