This course would have been exactly what I was looking for several years ago when my own homeschoolers reached their teen years. Instead of a comprehensive life skills preparation such as author Barbara Frank designed for her own children and now makes available to all homeschoolers, we had a hit and miss approach - a personal finance class here, some marriage and family reading there, with learning how to balance a checkbook thrown in for good measure.
Life Prep for Homeschooled Teenagers is a curriculum that teaches the skills and values that teenagers need in the adult world. Using a well-defined project approach, students research a place to live, figure out health insurance, come to understand credit and receive an introduction to basics like buying a car and setting up a budget. An attitude of prudence is encouraged with a stated goal of minimizing debt. The author also reviews concepts like getting along with family, friends, coworkers, and clients, finding a spouse, and living one's values - in other words applying the principles you've been teaching them since they were small. Now in its 3rd edition, this program features updates such as: new sections on borrowing money and bank accounts (each with three new projects), updates to the Financial Freedom Project and the Health Insurance Project (to reflect changes such as the Affordable Care Act), and a new section called "Work or College" to help you evaluate whether your teenager should pursue college and how to research potential careers.
The book begins with the new "Work or College?" section to help you and your child evaluate the possibilities of each. Depending on which direction you are leaning, two different paths through the book's material are provided. Next is an excellent, annotated reading list, divided by topic. The Projects section follows. Starting with background information, each project continues with research and reading assignments. These assignments are broken down into bite-sized pieces and often include the completion of various charts. Although the book is reproducible only for additional students in your family, they would be easy to replicate on any basic computer spreadsheet. Most projects include suggestions for further study and ways that parents can personalize the project by sharing from their own experience.
Although a family could use one book for several children if each prepared his own notebook, the manual is so full of valuable information and checklists that around our house we would be much more comfortable with each student having his own copy. I think my "homeschooled" college students would profit from going through this course during summer break. Revised and expanded; 160 pgs. ~ Janice