By all estimates, homeschooling has gone through considerable growth in the past decade.  At least some of this is due to the impact of Covid beginning in 2019 in which many schools closed due the scare of virus exposure.  But according to the National Home Education Research Institute, 275,000 students were considered to be homeschooled in 1990.  By 2022, that number had increased annually to 3,135,000- roughly 6% of all children educated in the United States.  Similar increases in the past three years have led to an estimation of 3,700,000 students homeschooled in 2025.  This number is expected to increase in the years ahead as states create more programs and funding for homeschool education.

Homeschooling involves both academic and character-building challenges.  Too often, parents who approached me about homeschooling focused on the customization and individualization of academic programs alone.  Most homeschooling parents do, in fact, embrace the importance of character-building programs.  I want them to understand that schools also are interested in this and that thought put into character building activities will indeed impact your child positively throughout their lives.

Traits for Success offers a formalized approach for parents to identify and address the primary character goals of educating a child.  The program leaves it up to parents (or a school) to choose character building goals.  Many parents will choose qualities like organization, grit, positive mindset, and resilience as primary goals.  Parents might also consider adapting goals around family, community, and cultural needs.  This “customization and individualization” of education goals is a primary reason cited for parent decisions to homeschool children.

How can you teach your child to become successful in life?  First, define what constitutes success for yourself and for your child.  If kindness and respect are important to you, be clear about this with your child by choosing the terms as one of your success traits.  Be explicit in what this means.

Homeschool parents often choose terms like “compassion”, or “curiosity”, or “know how” to distinguish homeschooling from more mass forms of public schooling.  Parents should feel comfortable defining these terms for their children as best as they can.  The clearer you can be about what a term means and how the terms are used to define success, the more you can expect of your child to achieve success. If success means appreciation for family, then be clear that this is what you want to teach your child.

Lastly, homeschool parents need to grapple with the issue of independence- not because independence is the most important trait to consider but because it is one of the biggest concerns of homeschool parents.  Will I leave my child too dependent on me for moving ahead in the world?  In my experience this will not be the case because the parents who homeschool are invariably humble enough to recognize that no one wants their child to be dependent on parents through adulthood.   Children will grow into adults regardless of their schooling background and the more focused you are on their academic and character success, the more you can be the voice of intellectual reason.

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Coming Next- Homeschools: Teaching Children What it Means to be Successful

 From our first posting:

“As parents and teachers, we need to reclaim our traditional role as influencers of our children – not by shouting louder than the influencers our children discover online, but by stressing ideas that are more important than fancy shoes and snappy TikTok tunes. We need to emphasize traits that everyone agrees children will honor.  We need to convince our children that the people who are most important to them have a better understanding of what it takes to be successful in life.”

 #charactereducation #successtraits #parentingtips #homeschooling #teachertips