Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

This week on Home School Heartbeat Mike Smith talks about a challenge all students may face, including homeschoolers: preparing for the working world.

Mike Smith:
Every young person needs a realistic perspective of the workplace and what it takes to become a valued employee. Parents of homeschoolers, your job is to help your child develop a balanced perspective and appropriate work skills. Your student may have great potential in his long-term professional life, but he will probably have to start small and prove himself as an entry-level employee.


Some of the most important business skills an individual can possess are matters of character and self-discipline. As students, our children have learned to embrace the idea of knowing a lot about a lot of things. We've taught them to feel comfortable interacting and communicating with adults. And we've encouraged them to dream big and take on seemingly impossible challenges.


These are qualities that we know will serve them well throughout the course of their lives. However, these qualities, and the enthusiasm with which they are often expressed, may need some adjustment as our children venture into the working world.


Knowing a lot about many subjects and interacting too confidently with peers and superiors alike may come across, in the workplace, as overconfidence and disrespect. Teaching our children to recognize the appropriateness of their behavior to the situation is one of the greatest lessons we can impart to them.


Join me next time as we continue discussing ways to prepare our homeschool children for the first few years in the working world. And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.