Seven Tips to Help Home Schooled Students Fit Into Public Schools


In many homeschooling families, there comes a time when the parents decide to enroll their children in the public school system. This can happen because the mother does not feel confident enough to teach high school classes, or because the public schools offer team sports or some other course that a home school would have a difficult time providing, or because a loss of income requires the homeschooling mother to return to the workplace. In some cases, there may have been a learning disability that the family could not handle on its own, or possibly a conflict of personalities. Whatever the reason, home schooled students may feel like they will not fit in with public school students. Here are seven tips to ease those worries

1. Listen to popular music on the radio. This goes against the grain of many conservative homeschooling families, but if home schooled students will begin to listen to Top 40 music stations and learn some of the lyrics, they will have something in common with their public school peers.

2. Watch current movies. This is not quite as essential as listening to current musical artists, but it helps students to pick up the attitudes of most American teens. Parents can watch the movies along with their children to help them with sensitive topics such as sex and values that are different from theirs.

3. Join clubs, organizations, and teams which are not affiliated with church or home education. This gives the home schooled student opportunities to meet people who are not "like-minded."

4. Read lots of "secular" books. While reading the Bible and character-building books are excellent, it is extremely important for home schooled students to have been exposed to as many different philosophies and literary themes as possible.

5. Go to the mall. Look at what young people are wearing. Go to the big name teen fashion stores and look at the display windows. Go into the stores and see what the store clerks are wearing. This will tell home schooled students what the current fashions and hairstyles are. Watch fashion, hair, and makeup videos on YouTube to discover how to wear these styles. Stay up to date, because the fashions and colors change every season.

6. Stay smart. Home schooled students are usually smarter than most public schooled students, and quickly rise to the top of the class. However, home schooled students will be in competition for the top places in class rank, and must be prepared to work very hard to get the best rankings and grade point averages. This is critical in landing big scholarship offers from prestigious universities.

7. Embrace your nerdiness. Most home schooled students come from conservative, white collar backgrounds. Automatically, the students will be labeled, but they will also be welcomed and "friended" by the other "nerds" at school.

Donna Pravel is a 25 year home school veteran and the author of Packaging Your Homeschooled Student For College, an e-book on the college admissions process. Download a free book list for high school from Donna Rae At Home.com, a blog site for homeschoolers with a college prep focus.

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