Today when I was trying to decide on a topic I ran into an article called “‘Brainy Bunch’: Parents Homeschool Their 10 Kids With All of Them Graduating High School at 12”

This is an amazing family even though they claim not to be smarter than others. Kip and Mona Lisa Harding have ten children ranging from 11 to 34 years old. Their daily homeschool studies focused on Bible, mathematics, writing, and reading. The reading portion consisted of science, history, and other areas of interest. 

They allowed the children to work wherever they wanted like the table, the couch, or even on the bed. There seemed to be benefits to a relaxed environment for them to do their studies. They also did their homework wherever they needed. Sometimes that would be in the car while she was taking other kids to college, or in a waiting room. Whatever the situation required.

This learning style allowed the children to learn at their own pace. Beyond the basic subjects they could explore subjects in which they were personally interested. As the kids reached around the age of 8 or 9 they began preparing for the SAT or ACT. 

“My husband teaches our kids to ‘work first and play later’ by example,” said Mona Lisa. “We tried to teach them to wake up and do their chores. We would do Bible study together, then they were free to read, write, and work on math in whatever order they wanted.”

Some of the accomplishments of their children are bachelor's degrees by age 17, the youngest navy doctor at age 22, the youngest lawyer at age 19, youngest graduate in health care science at age 16. The youngest two at ages 11 and 14 are attending Bellevue University as a freshman and a junior.

Mona Lisa says it’s hard but rewarding. They are happy to help others who want to homeschool their children. If you want to read more about their success and process read the article above. 

They also wrote a book The Brainy Bunch: The Harding Family's Method to College Ready by Age Twelve and they have a youtube channel College by twelve.

Here are their eight basic tips for parents interested in homeschooling:

1. Let your kids study what interests them.
2. Allow them to skip the “boring” stuff.
3. Spend your energy making learning as fun as possible.
4. Spend your time and resources on their specific interests.
5. Don’t be afraid to let them skip ahead through grade levels.
6. If your child says, “I want to be a doctor,” or “I want to be a lawyer,” take them seriously! It’s ok if they change their minds later. Even adults change their careers.
7. Find mentors for them and help them research their chosen career fields. Do not dismiss them just because they are young.
8. And, have fun! If it’s not fun, then you are probably doing it wrong.

I hope you enjoyed learning about this family as much as I did.

Thank you for reading.

If you are gift shopping on the zazzle.com store I would very much appreciate you using this link (zazzle.com) here so I can get credit for any sale. Thank you.

(Unless otherwise noted, the images are public domain from pixabay.com.)

The thumbnail at the top is from the linked article at The Epoch Times.