153: Mentoring Youth: How Homeschooling Builds Confident Leaders
Homeschool Coffee Break · Kerry Beck
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Show Notes
Homeschooling isn’t just about academics—it’s about helping your kids discover their unique strengths and preparing them to lead. In this inspiring conversation with Heidi Christianson from Leadership Education Mentoring Institute, we explore the powerful role of mentoring youth in your homeschool, along with how to shift from a checklist mindset to a life-long learning approach.
You’ll hear stories of real families, practical strategies for mentoring your kids, and encouragement to see your role as a parent-mentor in a new light. Whether you’re new to homeschooling or a veteran, this conversation will leave you inspired to create a family culture that values leadership, learning, and connection.
What you’ll learn in this episode:
✅Why every child is a genius—and how to help them shine
✅The difference between teaching and mentoring youth
✅How to create a homeschool culture that sparks a love of learning
✅Practical tips to individualize your child’s education
✅Encouragement for parents who feel overwhelmed or unsure
Check out LEMI, mentioned in the podcast and start mentoring your kids with confidence!
Resources:
A credentialed teacher with a Master's in Education, Heidi Christianson has taught across university, community college, private, and charter school settings and homeschooled her five sons for over 20 years. Her commitment to personalized education led her to co-found a commonwealth school, develop curriculum, and co-author the book The Learning Zone. She has spoken at major homeschool conventions and serves as director of operations at the Leadership Education Mentoring Institute (LEMI). Heidi also founded The Genius Paradigm and Realizing Genius.
Show Notes:
Discovering the Genius in Every Child: A Leadership Education Approach to Mentoring Youth Through Homeschooling
Meet Heidi Christiansen
Hey, everyone! I'm Kerry Beck, with homeschool coffee break where we help you stop the overwhelm so you can actually take a coffee break. Today we are talking about a topic that I know y'all have heard me talk about a lot - leadership education. Heidi Christiansen from LEMI is here, and we're going to dive right into it.
Heidi has 5 boys who are all grown now. Her youngest one graduated last year, and she homeschooled them for 23 years. Before kids, she actually taught at the university and at the community college level.
She knew she wanted to teach, but never thought she would teach kids because she did not have a good experience in public school. When she went to enroll her oldest, she just couldn't do it. At that point she had toddler twins and a newborn, so she put him into a private school. But with that many kids already, there was no way she could continue.
The Turning Point: When Traditional Methods Don't Work
Kerry: So when our twins were ready for kindergarten, we jumped into homeschooling, and even though I had such a horrible time in the public school system, I found myself falling into that track and those habits. I was - I wanted my kids to love learning, but because I was, you know, especially with my experience in education I still was following, falling into those bad habits.
Heidi: My 4th son, I like to say he's not my problem child, but he's the child that made me a better mother, and because of that he just fought me on the traditional education, and I knew that I was the one that had to change. You can't ask your kids to change in that way. They're kids.
So I started doing research. That's when I found leadership education and I just loved it. One of the things they talked about in a foundational book, the Thomas Jefferson Education, by Oliver Demille, is how everyone is a genius. I just love that idea.
What Leadership Education Really Means
Kerry: When we're talking about leadership education, tell us what that is, and what that would really mean for a family, and how it's more than just a curriculum or a checklist.
Heidi: It definitely is not a curriculum or a checklist. One of the important things I feel it's just so important for people to understand is that idea of what leadership is, because too often - I know my oldest son, he was about 12-13 years old when we started in leadership education, and I was all excited about it. I was trying to share it with him and he just started crying and saying, "Mommy, I don't want to be President."
Leadership education is not about titles or positions. True leadership emerges when someone learns to navigate challenges thoughtfully, see patterns in human behavior and systems and guide others towards positive change. It's about developing the capacity to make a meaningful difference whether in your family, community or the broader world.
Kerry: So good. I really appreciate you reminding people that not everyone's gonna grow up to be President of the United States or CEO, or even on the church elder board or something. But just like you said, moms are leaders and dads are leaders. I would say, 99% of the kids of the moms listening to this are going to grow up and be a mom and a dad. And they need to know how to lead well.
Shifting from Teacher to Mentor Mindset
Kerry: If we're talking about leadership education, how would someone shift their thinking in the way that they would homeschool, or in the way that they would parent, because, like we said, it's not a curriculum. It's not a checklist. How do they shift, and what kinds of things might they start doing?
Heidi: One of the biggest shifts is how we see - what our goals are, because too often I know as a credential teacher, and one of the reasons I stopped working for the Charter schools is that as a teacher we are looking at checking off those boxes and all of those standards. As a mentor, which is something that we look at differently, a mentor looks at the child, the student and sees where they are, where they need to go, and then helps them get there.
We're looking at where do they need to go? And for every single child that will be different, for every single person it's slightly different. Yes, they need to read. Yes, they need to be able to do math. But some kids need to do statistics and calculus and all of that, and some kids don't. And that's okay.
Instead of looking at okay, what does my 5th grader need to know, it's more of where do I want my child to be when they are 40. What do we want them to be doing when they're 40? We want them to be living their genius, sharing their genius with the world. We want them to be reading books and discussing them. We want them to be writing effectively and persuasively and challenging ideas.
Real-Life Examples of Mentoring Youth
Heidi: My youngest son is much younger. There's like 7 and a half year difference, and I was just tearing my hair out. How am I going to get him to read? My 4 older sons loved fantasy and science fiction, and my 5th son, I'm like, "Okay, why isn't he fitting into the mold?" This is after so many years of doing this, but I still - it was so easy to try and just force him into that box that his older brothers had built.
He read a little bit later, but once I figured out what he liked to read, oh my gosh! He took off. We were driving to our homeschool community, and I would listen to books in the car. He started out with his earphones on listening to his own stuff. Then it's like, "Okay, take one off. What is she saying?" Then it's like no earphones, and then stopping the thing. "It's Mom, let's talk about this."
That's how I figured out what he liked to read. He loves psychology, economics. It's just amazing what he will read, but it had to be individualized for him.
Kerry: You know that sounds like my son - he's our youngest, and he knew how to read but he wasn't interested in it. As long as it had water in it, like Robinson Crusoe or Swiss Family Robinson, I don't know why he would be interested. He's 32 now, and he loves to read. Give your kids grace and patience. Give them time, and give yourself grace and patience, because sometimes it takes some time to figure out for each child what is best for them.
Practical Mentoring in Action
Heidi: For my youngest son, once he got to that hard age of 17 where it's like, "Oh no, I'm going to be an adult, and I don't quite know how to do it" - as a mentor, I could see that one of his things that he was very concerned about is how would he literally survive on his own.
One of the things I did actually made my life a win-win. I gave him a couple hundred dollars and said, "Okay, you're in charge of 3 dinners a week for the month. Here's $200. I keep the basics stocked. If you need anything else, you need to use that $200. Anything left over is yours."
He got really creative. It was not only a way of him figuring out how to use what we had, it was a way for him to put some money in his pocket, but he also had to learn to go out and budget and figure out recipes. My husband and I have never eaten better. He feels so much better because he knows he can go and live on his own when the time is right.
One Simple Step to Get Started
Kerry: So let's say we have a mom here, and she's hearing this, and she's excited but she's also overwhelmed. What's like one simple step that she could take to just begin leadership education in her home?
Heidi: The best thing I would say is the first step would be understanding that you are an example to your kids. In order to help you connect your students' heart and mind and purpose, showing them you doing that is the best thing to do. So they need to see you reading. They need to see you writing, or at least hear about it.
I would highly recommend starting like a journaling routine for yourself. Every week I will write down my gains - everything that has happened, all of the positive things that have happened for the week. Too often, as homeschool moms, we have these elaborate plans that we're going to do, and then something better comes along. Then you look at your list of goals for the last week, and it's like, "Oh, I didn't do anything." That's the gap you're looking at.
Instead, look at the gains. What have your kids learned? Sometimes for me, when my kids were little, at night I would think, "What went well? What worked? What did they learn?" Sometimes it was just "Well, that mommy can say she's sorry, and it's okay. Grownups can apologize." That's an important thing to learn.
Being that example for your kids is just so important. Be that adult that you want them to be.
Kerry: That's so good. And it covers so many areas of our whole life. You need to start with you. You don't need to go, "Oh, here's leadership education. I'm gonna make my kids do all of this" because you've got to change. It's got to be internal for you before you can share it. You may spend several months just working on you and becoming maybe a better reader, or a better writer, or have better character in your life.
The Genius Paradigm
Heidi: I would love to encourage people to take the time. Stop and see the genius in your kids. I call it a genius paradigm. It's not just your kids. It's your spouse, your friends, the people you work with. Having that genius paradigm just really can change the world, because you can see how one person - it might not be the right spot for somebody to do something, but they are a genius at something else, and you can give them grace.
That's what leadership education is all about - seeing that amazing qualities in everybody, and having the grace to let them shine in their own path.
Ready to start mentoring youth in your homeschool with a leadership education approach?
Connect with Heidi and learn more about Leadership Education Mentoring Institute:
- Website: LEMI-u.com (includes a free online course)
- Email: [email protected]
- Facebook and YouTube channels available
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