Colleges love to see leadership qualities, but leadership can take many forms. It seems like parents think about leadership in terms of their own high school experience, as if you have to be captain of the football team or class presidents in order to demonstrate leadership. Instead, consider leadership experience something that happens when you are doing what you love long enough to get good at it.
Colleges look for demonstrated leadership skills. How can I find opportunities for a homeschooler to demonstrate leadership skills or be part of activities that will lead to these opportunities? It is quite tricky to find opportunities to get a child involved with sports or other activities that will allow them to demonstrate leadership skills if they are not in public school. Your thoughts would be greatly appreciated.
~Judy
For some, that means they love something so much they become a natural leader, or others vote for them because of their skills. This may happen in Boy Scouts or Youth & Government, when kids are placed into leadership roles. There are a lot of groups that have leadership roles to be filled.
Sometimes leadership means you stand in front of a group to do your beloved thing. That often happens when kids love music or acting, and they get on stage in a theater, performance or church to play their instrument, sing or act. If your child is involved in the worship team at church, that is leadership.
For some kids, that means they love something so much the teach it. My son loved chess so much he ended up teaching chess classes in public and private schools as well as homeschool groups. I have seen children teach Karate, ballet, and piano. Other children become a leader at Vacation Bible School, or during the summer get a job on staff at a day camp.
Sometimes leadership means you have floated to the top. On a team, or with group, sometimes longevity means leadership. When I was a hospital volunteer (Candy Striper) the older volunteers were in charge of showing the younger volunteers what to do. Usually if a child loves an activity they will stick around long enough to have some opportunities for leadership.
If your child is beginning high school, don’t look for an activity called “leadership.” Instead, looks for activities that your children love, so they can become a leader naturally. You may not know in advance how that leadership role will play out. When my son Alex was working with an economics mentor, it never occurred to me that it would grow into a leadership experience. Yet it was through that activity he became involved in an international economics conference. When he presented his economics research I thought, “Aha! Leadership!”
Do you need a speaker at your next homeschool conference? Talk to your conference coordinator about having me come. I would love to meet you in person! Here is a list of my speaking topics, or you can read my profile on the Homeschool Speakers Bureau.
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J W says:
Passion for something will naturally lead to a desire to share it. We call that sharing leadership. I’ve heard (and disregarded) tons of advice on what my children ought to be doing – and mostly it comes from people who wished they had had the opportunity to learn or do X, Y, or Z themselves. However, if my child’s heart does not desire X, Y, or Z, it doesn’t matter how worthy a pursuit X, Y, or Z is, that child will never obtain the joy and delight that inspires other like-minded people to follow and grow in their skill. No one wants to follow someone who’s just going through the motions.
August 28th, 2009 at 9:06 pm