Could you have her do a defined activity which limits her input? Maybe she could be in charge of the library visit. It sounds as if she has something to offer based on her professional experience but at the same time I understand that you want to control her influence. Down the road you might appreciate a break for doctor visits or just to have some free time.

I wonder if a gratitude list approach would help you? So when you see your husband doing something you disapprove of, stop and make a mental gratitude list of five of his qualities. It is easier to replace a negative thought with a positive thought than to repress the negative thought. Also, I would get him a super nice Cuban cigar! That will break the parent-child dynamic you have going on there. It's not a healthy habit but only he can stop it. If you hand the power back to him he may be more motivated to own the problem and address it.

I am looking at this myself. A friend has had success with Rosetta Stone. I'm veering towards Fluenz. Starting off with Duolingo and/or some game apps.

That is simply not true. Sweden is struggling to assimilate refugees and so is Germany, France and the UK. Cities like Cologne have seen marches in support of women's rights. Public services, particularly hospitals, are at breaking point in some areas in the UK and the schools there don't have the resources to teach children who do not speak English. In Belgium and France the police have struggled with neighborhoods where it is extremely hard for them to enter safely. I agree wholeheartedly with you that people should not be held in camps but to say that the rest of the population of Europe has been unaffected is to misunderstand the scale of the problem.

I'm from Europe, now living in the US. I would not say there is a civil war in the technical sense (armed warfare by one group of citizens against another) but I do think there are tensions which are escalating and also increased fragmentation. Europe as I knew it, when you could stroll safely in London and Paris, no longer exists. The UK has voted in Brexit to leave the European Union. The Far Right in France is gaining ground. Women in Germany and Sweden are marching in support of their right to walk in public in freedom without suffering aggressive sexual harassment. The refugee situation is worsening. The desire to help displaced and suffering refugees is coupled with fear at how public services can cope with an influx of needy people and the changes in culture brought about by those from a different culture and religion. And hundreds of ISIS terrorist sleeper cells are estimated to exist across the continent.

Matilda read by Kate Winslet is hilarious. We listened to it on a long car journey and the hours flew past.

Agree on the sleep issue. My son went through public high school and played sports. So the average day was... Up at 6am to finish homework 7.15 I drove him to school because otherwise it would have been 6.45am for the bus 2.45pm home. Homework. Then practice or a match starting around 4 or 5pm depending on location. Often we were not home until 10pm. Then shower and homework which had to be finished in the morning. So it was really hard to get to bed before 11pm. The crazy really started when he was doing additional work for SAT and ACT. Oh, and college visits. And socializing.

In two words - peer pressure. My nine-year-old begged and begged me for a bra even though she is nowhere near needing one. Because all her 3rd grade friends were wearing them and she felt like the baby. I decided this was not a hill to die on, so to speak, and got her some Hanes crop-tops from Target which I assume I made for precisely this issue. Going forward I could foresee more of the same and I did not want more of the overly-teenage peer group preoccupations to influence my daughter. Hence home-school. In my opinion, children need to be children and hit milestones in their own time.

I would say this is a lose-lose situation for the parents. If things go badly for the couple, they will bond in blaming the parents. Boyfriend will say he helped move some firewood and therefore parents should pay their car insurance. When he gets a ticket for driving with no insurance it will of course be the parents' fault. And so on. If things go well for the couple, they will be blind to the parents' help and congratulate themselves. And so on.

OP, I think you feel stressed and frustrated because you are stuck. A med student will work horrendous hours and share a cramped apartment because they know it is short-term and there are longer-term rewards. So really the only practical option is for your husband to retrain. Even if it is tough, you will know that it is leading to better things. It is OK to have dreams - to want to homeschool, to live in a bigger house, to live in a better area, to be able to go on vacation. Don't discount or abandon your dreams! But you have to make changes to get there......

Can someone tell me how to make bath bombs!

I don't think you need to delete this post! Your feelings are valid given your situation. First stop beating yourself up about the way you feel. What follows is just my opinion. Take it or leave it. In the short-term focus on gratitude. Tough I know. I do mental gratitude lists whenever I feel like this. I am divorced and I feel "less than" at virtually every homeschool event because I have no wedding ring or husband to support me. No one has a perfect life! I don't know the reality behind the exterior of other people's lives. Second, you need more money. $29k to support 5 people is very little. That is why your living situation is so rough. Your husband needs to retrain and get a higher-paying job. That will allow you to move to a better area and save for your own home. It is a short-term sacrifice for the long-term. In your position I would look at getting a CDL license. Yes, he will be away from home. But those guys earn a lot of money and progress to home routes. There are other options but off the top of my head that is the easiest and quickest I can think of. If he gets a hazmat certification he can make around 50-80k. Nothing is going to come quick or easy. But I assume you are young enough to work to longer term goals. You are miserable. Acknowledge that. Change it.

Maybe you need to give him more time? In third grade school we had a week to learn spellings. It can take a lot of repetition. I worked intensively with my daughter to lean spellings.

I can give you some advice based on my experience of parochial school third grade which my daughter did last year. I thought the spelling was quite advanced. Words like people, particular, challenge, average. They brought a list of 20 compulsory words and five harder (optional) words home on Fridays. Homework was to copy in cursive and write ten sentences using ten of the words. Or sometime to write a story using all words which was hilarious. We had a sensible lamb eating a bologna sandwich (4 words down). Test was on Friday. My daughter did well but I practiced with her every night. So you could do a DIY list on what you want them to learn. For 4th grade I am using Spell-U-See which is based on a story from history or geography so they learn some general knowledge every week. It relies on copying (quite heavily IMO so we may skip some of that) and dictation. So the dictation is another skill. If I was designing my own curriculum I would use words which were relevant to other things we were learning.

My daughter is starting Spanish. I plan to start with an app/game. Any suggestions? I have read good reviews of Fluenz versus Rosetta Stone. Does anyone have any advice on a program that is good for grammar. Thank you!

I'm looking to start Spanish with my 4th grader. I plan on starting with an app like Spanish School Bus. What programs do you use? I've read better reviews of Fluenz than Rosetta Stone. Also can you recommend any fun apps to start?

I have joined the FB group and I will buy one membership. Is it a PC game or an app. Either is fine with me!

My daughter used school-based AR Renaissance reading last year for third grade. She loved the quizzes and accumulating points. I called them and they don't as yet have a home-school program. Does anyone have any alternatives?

Thank you for the input. I plan to use Hakim for general reading. I do have to do a portfolio so I will use the projects for that and maybe throw in a few home-made quizzes. I agree with all your answers! Context is needed, a sense of timeline, but within that we can pull out stories and personalities and use field trips and crafts to bring it to life.

They look great! I want to stay away from testing in history this year. I actually majored in history and I love the subject! My daughter is the type who will pick up a book on history for fun.

I will check those out! I agree about context so at least we would have US context.

This is my first year home-schooling my fourth grader. I need to concentrate on math because she is behind from last year in school. And also catch up on science. I want to pursue music, voice and PE in more depth. I have decided to "chunk" history into 3 projects. My daughter chose George Washington and then The Declaration of Independence. For the third we will do a project from the 20th century. But should I be introducing an overview, timeline of history or can that wait?

I'm not in NY but it sounds as if we are in the same boat! I am doing a daily state history book and 3 history projects (chunking suggested to me by a teacher friend) but putting more emphasis on geography this year. We did one history project last year in school. The rest was social studies. So I don't feel I am doing any less. I think I am anxious because I procrastinated and only started pulling everything together in the last week. But I do have my curriculum and state paperwork together.

Yes. They watch movies in the classroom here.

Yes. One of my reasons for home-schooling was to do more PE and more science out of the house. I live in an area with a lot of snow so for weeks on end there wasn't even a recess.