Homeschooling has experienced remarkable growth over the past several decades, and the trend shows little sign of slowing down. While the COVID-19 pandemic accelerated interest in home education when schools closed and families suddenly found themselves supervising math lessons between Zoom calls and snack breaks, the movement was already gaining momentum. According to the National Home Education Research Institute, approximately 275,000 students were homeschooled in 1990. By 2022, that number had climbed to roughly 3.1 million students, representing about 6 percent of all school-aged children in the United States. Current estimates place the number closer to 3.7 million students in 2025, and many experts expect continued growth as states expand educational choice programs and funding opportunities. Apparently, the one-room schoolhouse has made an unexpected comeback—this time with Wi-Fi.
Homeschooling presents both academic and character-building opportunities. Parents who approached me about homeschooling often focused first on customizing academic instruction, and understandably so. One of the great attractions of homeschooling is the ability to tailor learning to a child’s interests, strengths, and pace. Yet most homeschooling parents quickly discover that education involves much more than reading, writing, and arithmetic. Character development matters just as much. Schools have long understood this reality, even if they don’t always advertise it on the front sign. Whether children learn in a classroom or around the kitchen table, qualities such as responsibility, perseverance, kindness, and self-discipline remain essential ingredients for long-term success.
Traits for Success provides a structured framework for identifying and teaching the character qualities that families value most. The program allows parents to customize goals based on their own priorities. Many families choose traits such as organization, grit, positive mindset, resilience, and responsibility. Others may emphasize compassion, curiosity, service, faith, respect, or appreciation for family. In fact, this ability to define success according to a family’s values is one of the most commonly cited reasons parents choose homeschooling in the first place. Before teaching a child how to succeed, however, parents must first answer a surprisingly difficult question: What exactly does success mean? If kindness matters, say so. If respect matters, define it. If appreciation for family is important, make it part of the curriculum. Children are remarkably good at meeting expectations once they know what those expectations actually are.
One final concern frequently raised by homeschooling parents involves independence. Will educating a child at home create too much dependence on parents? In my experience, the answer is generally no. The very parents who ask this question are usually the least likely to create the problem because they are already thinking carefully about their child’s future. No parent invests countless hours homeschooling with the goal of producing a forty-year-old who still needs permission to leave the driveway. Children grow into adults regardless of where they attend school. When parents intentionally cultivate both academic skills and strong character traits, they position their children to become thoughtful, capable, independent adults. The goal is not lifelong dependence on parents but lifelong confidence in themselves.
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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.”
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