#16 Unschooling – The Secondary Level, Pt. 2
Categories: Unschooling, Léo’s Insights 2025-2026
In the past, I have addressed what I call the four sets of fears and concerns in home education. The first set of fears is understandably in the beginning of the home education program, as it is new and filled with uncertainties.
Once past this stage, home educators are generally on cruise control until the little boy or little girl starts to show signs of puberty. Suddenly, many parents start to question their ability to prepare their offspring for the real world. I imagine this is because parents no longer see children, but young adults, before them and for some reason, they confuse parenting with being God! By this I mean parents who have taken their responsibilities to educate their children seriously assume they are also responsible for placing their children in their futures. This is an error. While parents need to provide opportunities for academic development, where children end up is between them and God. Once parents have put this faith in God, the second set of fears and concerns are diminished.
Regarding teaching the student high school (advanced) programming, please know that you are not the one who needs to learn this material. If you have properly raised your children to take responsibility for their education, which is a mainstay of unschooling, your job becomes easier than when you were instilling the basic skills. All you have to do is find appropriate material in keeping with your children’s gifts and interests and get out of the way. Let your children learn the material themselves and encourage them to teach you what they have learned. Both parent and child greatly benefit from this. It is really a form of testing, assuring the parents that things are going just fine, but understand that it is near impossible to predict exactly how this will end up, except that the entire exercise is toward fulfilling God’s will for the child.
Do you remember the most important attitude necessary to successfully unschool? Reflect on that rule… relax! This is especially important at the post-puberty level of development. If you have your doubts about your ability to unschool well at this stage, your child will pick up on it and start to negotiate a return to school. This is likely to satisfy a curiosity about what they have not experienced, however understand that unschooling at this stage has not changed. Same parents. Same children. Same or greater concern regarding the failures of schools. And same requirement for faith in God and believing He has things under control.
Unschooling is an exercise in faith in God rather than fear of man.
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