Our family has been a part of the homeschooling world since 2006.
A lot has changed.
For starters, there has been a significant increase in families homeschooling. The latest data has homeschoolers making up 6-6.3% of the school age population. This is up from 2.9% when we joined the party.
With this rise, there are more resources, classes, activitities, co-ops, and mircoschools for families to choose from.
What hasn’t changed, as best as I can tell, is parental anxiety and worry about homeschooling during the teen years.
The teen years are when even the most philosophically solid unschooling parents tend to get twitchy.
I did.
Others I know did, too.
And I’ve heard from plenty more homeschooling and unschooling families that the teen years “make them nervous”.
It’s not the teens themselves, exactly that make parents nervous. It’s the parental self- talk that goes something like this:
“Are we really doing enough?”
“What if I’ve dropped the ball on their education?”
“Maybe we need to get more serious. Grown up life is staring us in the face.”
As if all the childhood play wasn’t serious work. (It was.)
As if everything your child has been building, learning, and engaging with up to the teen years somehow doesn’t count as education. (It does.)
As if continuing to embrace self-directed education won’t lead to important grown up choices. (It will.)
What if the questions are coming up because you actually are in tune with your teen and sense a shift is needed in how you show up?
What if you sat still with your worry and asked,
“Worry, what are you trying to teach me?”
What would it say?
The Paradox of Parenting Teens
What worked beautifully when our children were younger, lots of open ended play time, exploration, and parent-led or organized adventures does not have to disappear completely, but it does need to morph.
Your teens will likely take the lead on their plan making. You may even find out about events after the fact! This doesn’t mean they do not need you, it simply means they need you differently.
And this is where the paradox shows up: our teens still need us to lean in and give a gentle push…and at the very same time, they need us to lean back and give them space.
The push and pull of this season is a real tension and it is exactly what Erin of @_everlearning_ and I will be unpacking together on an upcoming Zoom call.
We’d love to have you join us!
We’ll talk about:
What our role actually is during the teen years if we’re committed to self‑directed, relationship‑centered learning
Connecting the dots—how what they love, enjoy, and are interested in can be connected and/or lead to job, career, etc.
Offering guidance, structure, and opportunities without slipping into control
Practical ways to stay connected, be honest, and support real growing‑up without doom‑predicting or clamping down
Reflecting their abilities and skills back to them
What makes these gatherings so meaningful is the variety of ideas and voices contributing and the wonderful community being created. See you there!
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