Challenge high schoolers to think creatively in terms of their long-term ambitions. If your daughter is following the catering business plan discussed in this article, she could offer free cake decorating services for local parties and weddings (charging for materials only) to gain experience and good publicity. She could spend time creating signature decorating designs, photographing them, and compiling a “showcase” book for prospective customers. She could create advertising flyers and business cards and teach herself the nuts and bolts of budgeting.

Your future carpenter/contractor can plan and execute (with professional help only when necessary) an add-on to your home or the remodeling of your garage into a bedroom. Your future musician could use the summer months to organize a homeschool band, complete with auditions and a woodwinds seminar with talented parents and local teachers instructing. He or she could pick out and order music, plan a fund-raiser with the other band players, design performance posters, and arrange performance dates.

Post Seasonal Goals

Posting specific goals in a highly visible place is one of the simple but very valuable tools that successful people use regularly. Your high school students need to begin this habit, too. Every three months, your teens should decide on five to six goals that they would like to reach over the next season. Physical goals should be included as well, for it is difficult to keep our minds focused and alert if our bodies are not strong, and our teens need to be healthy in order to serve God and others with a long, energetic life.

These short-term goals your teens set should vary—some big, some small, some to be accomplished through sheer routine commitment, some attainable only through a large amount of creative effort and time When your high schoolers conquer a goal, celebrate the occasion. Your children should have no doubts when it comes to your support of them and your real interest in their endeavors. Small successes do lead to great ones, and persistence and diligence coupled with passion will pay off for your homeschooled high school students in the end.

Perceive the Highest Goal

Of course, we know that in addition to nourishing their bodies and minds, our teens also need to feed their souls. Encourage your teens in their personal Bible study and prayer time. Rejoice with them as they see the Lord answer their prayers, and do not be afraid of the hard questions that may come at this crucial time in their lives. Keeping the communication lines open with your high schoolers can be hard at times, especially if there are personality clashes. However, we must remember that God placed each particular child with each particular set of parents, and He sees the big picture much better than we do.

As parents, we should be prayer warriors for our children and their futures. They can be the ones who challenge our communities, our country, and our world to turn to God. We must earnestly desire and pray that each of our children leave home understanding the truth that knowing and serving God should be the highest goal in life. If they realize that they can do this in the area that God has gifted them, the area to which He has consistently drawn them throughout their childhood and teen years, they will be prepared, confident, and enthusiastic as they leave us and enter adulthood.

This article was originally published in the Mar/Apr ’08 issue of Home School Enrichment Magazine. For more information, visit http://homeschoolenrichment.com/