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We want a homeschool teen’s perspective on homeschooling high school, following interests, socialization, unschooling a classical education, and pursuing her life’s passions.
Madelyn is a dancer, a chef, a scientist, and a kind, nurturing heart (oh, and a just-graduated homeschooled teen).
Introducing one of my homeschool teens…
If a homeschool teen is interested in something, they’ll do it. If you don’t love something, you won’t do it. So, it’s almost not even a choice. You’ll do it if you want to and you won’t do it if you don’t want to.
Madelyn Wiedrick
Homeschool teens can follow their interests, no matter where it takes them.
- Homeschool teens can have as much social time as they want.
- They can pursue academics in whatever form they prefer.
- And they can go on to do whatever they want later too.
This homeschool teen assumes she can do anything.
If I asked her to build a rocket ship, she’d head to Google, willing to please. After an hour, she’d have a wrinkle above her nose and a tear in her eye, realizing that no matter how much she wants to please and how talented she is, she can’t do this today (no rocket ships, yet, but she can do almost everything else).
She follows directions.
Cooking with cookbooks, considering the ideas of her parents, estimating times of arrival, and deciding when mom should leave the house so she won’t be late.
Madelyn’s got her math workbook finished before her siblings are awake and downstairs. She has her Daytimer filled with plans for her physics class, so she doesn’t miss a beat.
She has a zest for life.
This homeschool teen makes a cheese soufflé with Julia Child verve, animating and dialoguing her way through her cooking show, and worked her way through that cookbook on her own blog.
She wants to be a marine biologist and obstetrician, and when she’s done with that, a science teacher (and she’ll do cooking school in the evenings).
She has the work ethic of a medical resident.
Her physician dad bought her a needle driver and at sixteen, she’s been practicing surgical stitches. She’s learning medical procedures on an app until she finishes high school, then she wonders if she’ll eventually start a science degree so she can work towards an actual medical program.
She puts her hand hard on the task and doesn’t let up until it’s completed as expected. Her hard work and tenacity will pay one day…maybe in dollars, definitely in reputation, and certainly in achieving what she wants.
She is our homeschool teen, Madelyn.
I don’t think you’re going to have a great time trying to get a kid to do something they don’t want to do. Because, surprise, surprise, they’re not gonna do it. Yes, they can do a page of math and actually do that, but if they don’t want to learn it, they won’t learn it.
Madelyn Wiedrick
Madelyn’s Advice for Homeschool Parents:
- Be open.
- Listen to what they want.
- Spin their interests so you can give them the math and the English that they need, but do it in a way that they can receive and engage it.
Considering high school for your homeschool teens?
- Homeschool High School: Grade 8 & 9, the Churning
- Having a High School Homeschooler at Home
- High School Options & Post-Secondary School
- How to Include Your Children & Their Interests in your Homeschool
You can find Madelyn online at:
- About Madelyn
- Madelyn’s cooking blog, Capturing the Charmed Kitchen
- How to Enable Cooking in the Kitchen
- Encourage Kids to Develop their Passions in the Kitchen
- How to Create a Weekly Menu Plan
- The Wiedrick Family Travel Adventures
- YouTube Cooking Shows with Madelyn
- Mini-Medical Residency, Schoolhouse Magazine
- Madelyn’s Graduation Photos
Call to Adventure by Kevin MacLeod
Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/3470-call-to-adventure
License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
