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Do you ever find yourself observing children at a supermarket, library, or a shopping mall? I do. My wife and I will sometimes play a game called, "Spot the Homeschoolers." For some reason, it is not all that difficult to identify homeschooled kids in public, whether they are with their family or in a crowd of other teens.

Why is that? One of the distinctives is manners. I've noticed that homeschool kids tend to conduct themselves more civilly than their formally schooled counterparts. This is likely because homeschool families may be a bit more attentive than other families to the rules of conduct in civil society. Gross generalization - yes - but true enough to make "Spot the Homeschoolers" a possibility.

How does this relate to homeschooling high school?

Consider that the adult world is always judging your children and your homeschool. Never is this truer than when you begin the college admissions process. Homeschooling is growing in acceptance with universities across the country but is still unique enough to warrant homeschool students to be singled out for special observation. Lee has told the story about when our boys went to the day long full-tuition scholarship competition at Seattle Pacific University. Each of the students they invited had great GPAs and SAT® scores. They all had more than the requisite community service and could all write great essays. They also all seemed to have a unique gift to contribute. So, what distinguished one from another?

We were told that a significant factor in their assessment was based on how they conducted themselves during the on-campus competition. How did they relate to each other? How did they treat the professors and staff? Even, how did they conduct themselves in the dining hall and with the other students? These were things of seemingly great importance to the university.

But why would that matter to colleges? Why on earth would a college care about polite behavior, civil discourse and table manners? One reason: Reputation.

A college is a business and, believe it or not, college students are the equivalent to members of a company's Sales and Marketing department. Think about it: When you, a prospective customer are on their campus for a visit, what are you looking for? By the time we visited a campus, Lee and I had convinced ourselves that the college had good academics, that they offered the majors our boys were looking for and that they might be within our affordability limits (though, on that one we were clearly delusional). Other than the physical setting of the campus, when visiting we were primarily looking at one thing...the students!

Were they smiling? Did they speak courteously to each other? Were they respectful to my kids and to their peers? In short, were they polite? Why was this important? Manners are the lubrication in the engine of civil society. It is the last line of defense to our culture's descent into barbarism. On a more practical level, a polite student body is a learning student body. Study after study has shown that students thrive in a positive, respectful environment. Chaos and rudeness are just not conducive to education. When we were judging the colleges, we were asking ourselves the question: Is this an environment where our children could learn?

The conduct of their student body is of great importance to a college, just as the conduct of their Sales team is important for a business. It promotes a school's bottom line to have students who will represent that school well in society. And that isn't just limited to recruiting side of the business equation. Students who know how to conduct themselves in society tend to be more successful, which will yield a stronger, wealthier alumni population. And it never hurts a school to have rich and successful alumni. Just ask Lakeside School in Seattle, whose average alumnus earns over $1,000,000 per year.

OK, so two of their alumni are Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who might tend to inflate that average a bit. Aren't statistics wonderful?

So don't miss manners when you raise your high schoolers. The rewards will be tangible. Plus, it is a lot more pleasant at dinnertime when your kids know a little bit about table manners!