| While many homeschoolers with teens report that the adolescent years passed by relatively smoothly, there are also those who face the typical struggles between generations, at this stage.
Parenting is not for ‘sissies’ – its hard work and its heart work!
We all start out as amateurs and so we have to learn on the job!
“My son and I recently have a lot of personal issues with our relationship. He challenges me constantly. It drives me nuts and then I lose my temper.
I'm now constantly in a bad mood and at the slightest thing he does - I go off.
Sometimes I think that maybe he’d be better off at school.
There is a lot of work pressure that I put on him, which is now affecting our relationship, so maybe I should send him. I know educationally this is a bad move. I strongly believe that homeschooling is the key to develop my kid at home...
But now we have drifted so far apart, that he doesn’t trust me and just wants to go to school to experience life and get his own identity.”
Some parents facing this dilemma do put their children into school. For some it goes well, for others, the children opt to return home and finish homeschooling. Since each family is unique, we respect that there is no one-size-fits-all solution, but as homeschooling advocates, we’d like to encourage you to persevere in times like these.
Consider the following 6 tips:
1. Cultivate Mutual Respect
At around age 13 it is quite common for teens to start coming into their own and trying to find their own identity. They start questioning who they are and they want to establish their 'independence' and ability to be themselves. They do not want to feel that they are being dictated to by Mommy all the time.
You need to tell your teens that you respect that they are becoming young men and women but that they still need to respect you as their parent/s. If possible, get Dad also to have a word with them about respecting their mother, especially when they disagree with you.
2. Develop Character and Life-skills
It’s a priceless life skill for teens learn to TALK things out instead of getting confrontational and challenging you in a negative way that upsets you. Imagine when it is their spouse one day - will they have developed the relationship skills they need to sort out tough issues? This is where they learn those kinds of skills and they won't learn them at school or from a text book. Only you have the love and the time to teach them this – to develop a relationship of mutual respect. Conflict forces you both to work on your characters!
When you see a child getting into that mode, that pattern of challenging you, you need to come up with an alternative way that he or she should handle the situation more responsibly.
3. Drop your own Agenda / Curriculum
Is your homeschool curriculum causing conflict that is destroying your relationship?
Is the curriculum you use too structured ? Is it worth it? Is it worth pursuing an academic course that destroys your relationship?
There is no deadline in life and no need to keep up with the grade levels of a school system if you are homeschooling. If something is not working well, change what you are doing.
You will know when your child is ready to get a school-leaving certificate and when he or she is ready for the next step on their life journey, so relax a little.
You have so few years left with your child at home. Don't spoil them with unnecessary or unwelcome school pressure if they are resisting it. This is the time to enjoy watching them come into their own as young adults and to be able to guide them and help them to find their talents and strengths and to pursue their goals for their lives. If the curriculum is the problem, drop it. It's not worth it, even if it cost you a lot of money. Your relationship with your teen is more precious than that.
4. Give More Autonomy
Tell your teen, that you would like her to take ownership of her home education so that YOU don't have to put pressure on her. Ask your teen what he wants to study or what he thinks he needs to study in order to be successful as an adult one day and then ONLY do those things that he has chosen to do. Ask him to find the resources that he needs to learn those skills. Let your teens research the options themselves. Negotiate how he or she would like you to be held accountable for what they have undertaken to do and negotiate in advance any future consequences if they slack off on their commitment. Support them but don’t police them too harshly! Let go the reigns if you have have been controlling them too tightly!
5. Choose your Battles Carefully
Give your teen some independence and responsibility on the smaller issues, but you have the final say in the big ones.
6. Model the Behaviour You Wish to See
This is the tough part. Show respect to your spouse, even when you are not in agreement.
Then with your teen, humbly apologise to him or her for the many times that you have blown it and seek forgiveness and restoration.
Tell your teen that you want to be partners in helping them learn, but you are still the parent and therefore have the final say...but you want to find a solution that works better for both of you.
Whatever choices you make, they should be made after there has been good talking and repentance on both sides and some reconciliation and restoration of the trust in the relationship. If a child goes to school to escape the conflict at home, the relationship still won't be fixed and the gap is likely to grow wider between you and him. He will seek out his peer group to meet the needs that are not being met at home. That will be like a 'cease fire' not restoration of peace and trust.
There won't be a quick fix and there will still be days when you both blow it, but perhaps this will give you and your teens a new perspective, a new strategy and new hope to persevere with homeschooling.
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