That is exactly the approach we took with our two children, 1 who is a rising college sophomore and one is who is a rising high school senior. Now that we have many years behind us, every now and again, I will have younger parents ask me how we turned out two polite, intelligent young ladies and I answer the same way. We kept talking to them about what was going on at school. We provided a time and place for homework. We made education a priority with the scheduling of doctor/dentist visits and never, ever took a vacation during school. But I think most importantly, we made church attendance a priority, not just something we did if we had the time. Even though my younger plays on a competitive softball team, we still found a way to attend, even if it meant she would miss a game.
I think some of the problems that some have with their kids is that they send them off to the public schools, breathe a sigh of relief that the school will take over, and then are surprised when the kids don't reflect the family values. They don't reflect them, because they weren't taught them. Never for one moment did I assume the schools would teach my girls about morals or Christianity, or even sexual education. We, the parents did all of that. In 10 years, neither of my girls attended FLE (Family Life Education or Sex Ed here in VA). We opted them out because it wasn't the schools job to teach that to our girls.
All that being said, we were also fortunate enough to raise them in a household with 2 same religion parents, one that was financially stable, and in a good school district. It seems the chances for success go down when any one of those four supports are missing. Was it a great deal of effort on our part? At times it was, but it led to two fine young ladies of which I've very proud.
Successful home schools generally imbed some or all of these elements, such as a stable home, and a 'good school district' via the home schooled curriculum. Although I've heard of home schooling being done by single parents, the overwhelming majority are 2 parent families, and it's very common for home schoolers to be active in a church. Once again, in these cases, 4 good supports are in place and success is not a surprise, but the expected outcome.
Wow, I respect the work you have done with your children. We have boy/girl twins, rising 10th graders. We don’t take vacations during school either, and we do attend church each Sunday. So far our kids haven’t rebelled against that and we just treat it as a given. They are both pretty involved in church activities and are turning into leaders in that regard. We considered home schooling as well as private school, but elected to go with public schools. We had the “sex talk” (or, rather talks) before the schools’ program, and let them attend it. We actually WANT them to hear some of the wrong information out there so that WE can correct it, which, I believe, provides stronger results than just hearing us alone. There is sexual activity and, I am sure, drug use, at the high school they attend. They are both athletes, and so far drug use doesn’t even appear to tempt them. They don’t hang out with those groups. Our daughter is more open about her hoped for romantic life, but we keep pretty good tabs on our son as well. They will get driver’s licenses in January, and our monitoring will have to be stepped up, I guess. We want those temptations to be dealt with now, however, instead of when they are out of town, in college, and less subject to our immediate influence. During that time we will be doing lots of praying...