Mm-hmm.

I start the book with that.

I want them to know how to live into healthy relationships, to be able to discern what is a healthy relationship, um, to start to see, uh, their interests and find their unique calling, their vocation in this world, to be able to get more clarity on that.

So I think those are some of the things that we can hope for for all of our children.

And then, um, the rest of high school will look different d- different d- depending on each child.

So I think we can shape the experience based on our individual child, which is one of the-

Mm-hmm.

But I think that since homeschooling gives us the gift of time, there really is the time to pursue both.

What's the difference between an AP versus a, what do they call it? CLEP exam? Those are

things I never really knew anything about before.

Well, until we learned some things after our first.

Yeah.

You said several things that sparked some things in me.

So first of all, in terms of being a consultant, I write about this in chapter one.

And then there's a whole book on this called Hold On To Your Kids.

I felt like your heart was, you know, we're just here to support our kid, whatever path they choose.

How has homeschooling given you a better opportunity to do that?

[sighs] Yeah, there are so many ways that I think homeschooling can benefit families in this way.

So when I think about our family relationships, because we didn't have to get up early, teens are naturally biologically programmed to stay up late.

And so their melatonin actually doesn't release until much later in, in the evening.

And so it's common for kids to not be tired until 11 o'clock or later And that's often when they have questions.

Because we don't have to get up really early, we can have the time to talk late at night about the things that are really on their heart.

And in fact, there's legislation in the European school systems where they're thinking of moving the start time later for the high school students because they're seeing, like, kids are chronically under-rested.

Are they at a disadvantage from being homeschooled? Are they at an advantage? Any insight that you have here that you want to offer to parents of homeschooling high schoolers?

Hmm.

So one of the things that was really beautiful about this book is I was able to connect with two people who were foundational in helping me, um, and then who decided to share their expertise with the homeschooling community at large.

One was someone named Dr. Abel Gonzales.

He was a first-generation college graduate, and he felt like he didn't have accurate information.

He runs dual enrollment for our city of 1.5 million and oversees five different programs, helping students navigate everything from apprenticeships, certification programs, the trades-

Yeah.

That, um, it's important to acknowledge when we get things wrong or if we've hurt our kids, and I think you're right.

Like that rep- repair step too, to say like, hey, like, I have said to my son, "I'm really sorry that, that I didn't have the information I thought.

How do you help parents think through creating a transcript that reflects their academic record at home? I hear a lot of fearful questions about that particular topic.

Yeah, I myself, even though we had homeschooled for so long, was really afraid to put together a transcript.

I don't know why, because the truth is, it's very easy.

For me, the hardest part about doing the transcript was finding a good template.

And I have one on my website, RachelKovac.com, K-O-V-A-C, that you can download if you're interested in that.

But I think it's the question that underlies the transcript that is more important, which is which classes would I like my kids to take in the high school years? And the high school years are special because there are so many opportunities for homeschoolers.

I might even say more opportunities than any other time.

How can homeschooling high school years, those years, actually strengthen our relationship with our kids, do you think?

Uh, like, you know, oh, prom and, oh, graduation, and there's all these sort of like bright light things about high school that it would be easy to just be drawn to that because you don't have a solid why for that age stage.

Yeah.

I started the book and my introduction with this very idea because I think in the early years, our children's vulnerability is obvious to us.

We can see that they are fragile in some ways, or we can see their needs clearly.

But sometimes as they move into adolescence, it can become a little bit more difficult to recognize that this stage is also vulnerable.

And in fact, in some ways, as you're saying, I think it might be more vulnerable than the preschool years.

My kids did go to school.

What might that look like for a homeschooler in high school?

What are the bonuses?

Yeah.

I'm so excited about the bonuses because we're going a little bit deeper into things that I wasn't able to co- cover in depth in the book itself.

So I have four bonus conversations that we're doing.

They're sort of like a podcast.

It'll be an audio.

Over three hours of content.

... of all the wisdom?