Most of us homeschool our teens for high school in part because we want to develop their character. Here are 3 Biblical ways to develop that character.
Develop Character in Homeschool High School
When my kids hit the teen years, one of my goals was to develop character in homeschool high school. We included character development as part of our academic goals, logging it in life skills or Psychology class.
I envision my teenagers as young adults who can make a difference in the world, help out worthy causes, and become people of influence no matter where in life God places them. However, I wanted to find Scriptural backup for my goals.
Here are 3 goals I found in my Scripture study:
1) Serve- How many verses in the Bible can you find on serving? We serve God by helping the “least of these my brethren” (Matthew 25:40) or how about most of the book of James?
My teens develop character in homeschool high school by serving at church in various capacities like church worship team, sound system help, creating videos, missions trips and so on. They also learn to help out spontaneously in things like clean-up after homeschool co-op. They do volunteer work as needed with local humanitarian organizations.
2) Social skills- My teens develop character in homeschool high school by learning to be ladies and gentlemen.
They learn to hold doors open for others, hold polite conversations, carry things for their teachers at group classes. They review the skills they learned when they were in 5th-6th grades.
In my opinion, when Jesus as a child grew in “wisdom and stature and favour with God and man” (Luke 2:52), he was behaving like a gracious gentleman toward his neighbors. For more *soft skills* read this post.
3) Study philosophy- My teens develop character in homeschool high school by learning wisdom. The book of Proverbs is a wisdom book that frequently says, “Get wisdom!” (for example, Prov. 3:13, 4:5,7).
Of course, the greatest wisdom is to be gained from knowing God in Scripture. But my homeschool high schoolers gained wisdom from wise people, too:
They studied C.S. Lewis’ Narnia and Space Trilogy for the theological and philosophical ideas embedded there. C.S. Lewis has so many ideas about the importance of character and wisdom integrated in his stories.
They earned their world history credit with philosophy and philosophers integrated in the curriculum with History and Philosophy of the Western World (which they found to be fun and accessible). Well, my oldest son, Dr. Micah Tillman actually co-wrote it 🙂
These are 3 ways to develop character in homeschool high school that we found to be based on Scriptural ideas. We love to hear what our homeschool friends include in their character development studies and academics. Share your thoughts here or join our Facebook group!
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My highschooler( who will be a jr this fall)
is nurturing his character by being in boyscouts( eagle ranked), and serves on his highschool worship team. I was pleased to read this post and seen that he has accomplished most on this list. PTL.
My daughter, is a 9th grader this fall, so I am working on her character and integrity as we speak.
She has a lot of good character and qualities but still needs a little nudge and direction on certain areas.
The Lord has directed me to a scouting program called American Heritage Girls, a Christ based scouting program for girls that focus’ on integrity and character in young girls. It is similar to boy scouting as they go camping and work on merit badges etc.
I can’t wait to see what the Lord will do through her. She will also gain some leadership skills and community service. Double bonus score for HS transcript.
Lisa, Eagle Scouts is such a wonderful accomplishment! Congratulations to your son. To be an Eagle Scout, a young man must truly be developing good character.
How exciting you found American Heritage Girls for your daughter. Sounds like they are intentionally developing the Christ-like character in their girls.
I’ll pray you all have a wonderful, growth-filled year!