If you’re the parent of a homeschooled high-school-aged teen, you might be starting to think about their future: what does it look like? What challenges does my teenager need to be prepared for? How can I help them maintain a strong relationship with the Lord?
At TENTMAKERS we’ve been hosting Christian leadership programs for teens for over 40 years, and have seen firsthand the difference Christ-centered training can have on young adults well into their futures.
In this article, we’re answering some of the most frequently asked questions we receive about our programs for homeschooled teens.
While this varies by family and situation, the primary concerns TENTMAKERS sees from homeschooled families are teens who are struggling with isolation and the concern from parents that their homeschooled teen isn’t getting enough out of their homeschool experience.
If you’re a homeschool student, these concerns may include:
If you’re a homeschool parent, you may also be concerned about:
Many parents who are homeschooling their children want to know they are making the right choice when faced with countless options for their children’s future.
If you’re going the traditional school path (K-12, followed by a college education), the choices are clear. Homeschool parents have many choices when it comes to educating their children during their primary schooling years and beyond, and while that can be incredibly exciting, it can also be daunting.
Homeschool parents have made the unique choice to be more intentionally invested in their children’s education than others, and really want to see them succeed, make good choices, bond with peers, and maintain a strong relationship with the Lord. Parents also want their children to meet and interact with peers who will someday make good spouses.
TENTMAKERS helps foster this sense of strong community, growth, and relationship with Christ through our programs. One of the core components of our training is that we teach teens to learn by doing at our programs. So your teen can accelerate the values and training parents are already doing in the home. Some of the leaders here at TENTMAKERS are homeschool parents themselves and can speak from lived experience about the impact the programs can have on their children.
We’ve found that the reception to TENTMAKERS programs is incredibly strong among homeschool teens: they respond quickly to the opportunity to take a leadership role, build new friendships, and be part of a Christ-centered community.
There are a few TENTMAKERS programs that are designed for teens and would be a great fit for homeschooled youths. These include:
Wilderness Challenge
TENTMAKERS' Wilderness Challenge is designed to help boys, ages 12-14, accomplish objectives both as individuals and as a team. In a small setting with 12 boys and 6 well-trained, experienced leaders, the boys will have opportunities to be pushed beyond their comfort zone in a wilderness setting.
They will grow in wilderness skills like knife and ax handling, hiking, wilderness first aid, cooking, camping, fire building, orienteering, bow marksmanship, rope bridge challenges, canoeing, fishing, and night navigation. More importantly, they will be challenged to develop characteristics of honor, leadership, integrity, discipline, dedication, and courage. Throughout the week we will study King David from the Bible and learn from his life as we seek to be of the caliber of “David’s Mighty Men!”
Leadership Quest is a one-week, wilderness-based leadership training experience designed for responsible high school students going into grades 10- 12 or recent high school graduates and adult mentors. Participants experience a powerful intergenerational community rich with affirmation and encouragement. Leadership Quest is designed for students:
Bridge Builders is the ultimate course training on relational ministry. It is fun, encouraging & active and will leave you refreshed, encouraged, and motivated to impact the lives of others for Jesus Christ. Be equipped, reduce anxiety & grow in confidence to build authentic relationships through conversations that lead to ministry opportunities. Discover why relationships are so crucial to us as people and why they are so vitally important in our culture today. Bridge Builders is a 1 1/2 day program, perfect for teens ages 15-19.
At TENTMAKERS, we create experiences. Those experiences are opportunities to interact and engage with peers of a teen’s own age, and create the opportunity to build lasting relationships.
The true differentiator of a TENTMAKERS program is how time is spent during the program. There is so much that happens over the course of a week that wouldn’t occur during just a day or a weekend program. So much of the training happens outside of the classroom and training environments.
Teens use the TENTMAKERS Wilderness North area as a training environment for Leadership Quest and Wilderness Challenge. They’re part of experiences that are so enhanced, especially due to the strong sense of community built among their peers.
Our Christ-centered training programs for teens help your homeschool teen learn:
Now, there are different levels of depths of relationships, and just getting to know someone for your whole life doesn't mean you know them really well.
The other incredibly important part of these programs is how we train teens to prepare for their future. At TENTMAKERS, we believe that the best way to prepare for your future is to know who and how God created you to be. When someone has a sense of their identity in Jesus Christ, they’re able to use that identity to release all of the things they put on themselves that aren't from God.
Once teens have experienced that freedom, and can move into their futures in the way that God designed for them. They still need to learn the skills and life experiences that allow them to move forward, but they have built the groundwork they need to explode into their future with faith and courage!
The courses provided by TENTMAKERS have been time-tested and proven for more than 40 years. To develop the skills necessary to build leadership and discipleship skills, the courses need to be engaging. They require consistent, active participation and dialogue from the participants to build their skills and their confidence and practice being put into leadership positions. But if that effort is there, teens will leave the programs with true leadership skills they can carry with them into their futures.
TENTMAKERS programs are imbued with a focus on the future, and the possibilities of what life can be through Jesus Christ. Teens can go through a whole high school and even a college career without really being challenged to think about their futures or expand their imaginations. For young people, it’s critical that they get a taste of the potential for what they're likely to be in Christ, and we encourage them to not only visualize what that life can look like but to write it down and bring it to life for themselves.
We’ve seen this practice just light their imaginations on fire. Attendees will write down dreams and plans and notes from their training, and they'll come back and show it to us 10 years later, because of how many of those exact dreams came true. This is all because they were an environment of encouragement. The strategy was a dream. They start to dream, they write the dream down, and they keep them and it can change the whole trajectory of their lives.
Finally, a key element of the TENTMAKERS programs is the power of the elders. We have a very strong focus on intergenerational learning, so young people learn to be comfortable drawing wisdom from other older people, and often discover that they really enjoy it. This practice increases their hunger to be around the wisdom of older people.
Ready to enroll your teen in a Christ-centered, life-affirming program? Learn more and register for a program here.