:iagree::iagree::iagree: Perhaps that might be the only thing you change over the summer. Start with math and have them do it every day over the summer in addition to their delight-directed activities that they like to do. Perhaps you can think of it this way, that you are still going to unschool content subjects, but move into a more directed phase with skill subjects. But I would add them slowly, one a week or one a month.

We have found tacos to be pretty cheap also, especially if you add refried beans to the meat to stretch it. Another savings point is to get tortillas cheaper from the bread outlet.

Not a budget, but cheap meal ideas: Red Beans and Rice Meatless Ziti Spaghetti and Meatballs (we buy them from Costco and a bag lasts us a long time so that is fairly economical) Mac and Cheese Two whole chickens roasted at the same time, then the leftovers used during the week for other meals

1. No. 2. No. 3. USA. 4. 44. 5. 1968.

Welcome! You're getting great advice already. I will add this: A wise woman once told me that I should start with one subject only, and do that for a week. The second week, if things are going well, add a second subject. Et cetera. It will feel like you're "behind," but that's better than trying to do everything AT ONCE the first day, and possibly making it that far, only to crash and burn the second or third day and be reeling for weeks that you have ruined yourself, your children, your house, and possibly your pets. I will also add: You are adding a full-time job to your plate. Something else will have to "give." Keep laundry, cleaning, meal plans, and grocery shopping/errands simple. We instituted a family cleaning evening every Friday, and with all of us working, we can usually knock it out in 2-3 hours. I can get up and down for laundry now, but when the children were smaller, I changed the laundry during recess and lunch. Make a meal plan weekly and send DH to the store if possible. Sometimes, when the children were smaller, I would meet DH at the door when he got home from work with my keys in my hand and say firmly that I was going to the store or library BY MYSELF and he had the conn. Do what works.

I'm not a dance mom, but my son resembles what you describe. :tongue_smilie: I don't know that Mom's situation, but I can say this is something we have been working hard on for YEARS with this child, and at 13 he is not over it. The above bolded made me wince. My child seems pretty hardwired to do this, and we work on this All. The. Time. Yet it is still an issue. Sometimes my child does feel that he is better than other people, but also at work is an overdeveloped sense of justice. All I can say is that I will not stop working on this. I dunno; perhaps this mother is in a similar boat. If she is working on it, I recommend giving grace.

Most excellent! Thank you, Faith! We are pretty heavily involved in a couple of rocketry clubs here in WA, but a TARC team is only a dream at present. My daughter does have her Jr. Lvl 1 cert. My son is doing the NARTREK Cadet program. I'm surprised that 2 of the 3 CATOs were Cesaronis! They are usually more reliable than Aerotech. (We recently switched.) Congratulations! Eggs are a notoriously difficult cargo, especially two of them. A TARC team from midstate somewhere came to one of our launches to do some practice flights, and they had issues with a bulkhead failing, which botched their flight. But they were able to fix it and drive on. I don't know if they made it to finals or not.

I found tent camping in Yellowstone to be dismal. The bear rules are super, super strict, and multiple times we returned to our campsite to find write-ups by the rangers about additional things that were not even on the list! If you tent camp, be aware that you can basically only leave your tent and your clothes. You must carry everything else around with you in your vehicle. Honestly, I got sick of getting in trouble Every. Single. Day when we were trying really hard to follow the rules and we ended up leaving a few days early (something I have NEVER done on any other vacation). If I go to Yellowstone ever again, I will rent a hard-sided RV just outside the park and drive it in. Yes, it will be a pain on those tiny roads, but we will be able to fix ourselves lunch, change clothes to adjust to changing weather conditions, etc. And we won't be continually harassed by the rangers. Yes, I know the animal danger is real, but still, it was a most unpleasant experience (and we had been tent campers for 20 years, so we knew what we were doing).

Thank you so much! I'm always glad to support Mac developers. I downloaded the trial and hopefully will buy!

Right. But the students, not the parents!!! Seems like infantilizing the parents. Ick.

That is so bizarre. No way would I participate in that.

Oh no! I saw a headline and wondered if it had to do with where you work, but it was your patients! Oh, how terrible. I'm sorry. This is going to muck up your life for some time to come, methinks.

I'm coming in very late to this discussion, but as some other people said, they are COUNTING on you not wanting to make a scene, not be rude, not confront in front of your children, etc. They are using that to continue to suck you in and keep you engaged. Make a battle plan with your husband for tomorrow. Put on your mama bear suit, and get ready with what you will say WHEN they cross the boundary of being mean to you or your children. And they WILL cross it. Probably perhaps 15 seconds after your husband leaves. Remember, they are hungry. Acting mean when they have you alone feeds them. And you have been starving them for a couple of days. They will act up right away, and then you can say your planned piece, and then you can lock your house, put your children in the car, and LEAVE and go anywhere you want. They cannot stop you!!! You are not a child anymore. Even more proactive, if you'd like, wait for them in the morning with your house already locked and your children already in the car. Then they won't actually hear what takes place. You can even not bother to wait for your parents to start in, you can say something like, "You have been rude and mean; this visit is done. Please spend the day however you'd like. We are saying goodbye now." Yes, they will trash you to anyone and everyone. But they are going to do that anyhow. You might as well go out defending your brood. You CANNOT worry about them thinking you are rude or whatever. Again, that is what keeps you stuck, and they are counting on that. Get mad about that to find your courage. Yes, they will act all incredulous, which is all part of the act. Just ignore that. They know. Don't get started trying to explain. Just repeat your set phrase, like a broken record, and don't engage in justifying, arguing, defending, or explaining (JADE). They will use that to suck you in. And then, this needs to be the last visit. Seriously. We have seen where grandchildren who were allowed time with grandparents in this kind of situation had pretty serious things go wrong with their lives. I can't completely prove a causal connection, but I have a fair amount of data. To me, this is the kind of situation that is like the pagan people in the Old Testament sacrificing their children to Moloch (an idol) for what they thought was the "good of the city/country." No, it wasn't worth it then, and it isn't worth it now. That might sound melodramatic, but it really isn't if you have really lived this kind of situation.

I have a hoarder. He will keep ANYTHING. Not only does he keep truly trash items, if assigned to gather trash, he will trash-pick from other people's trash in the house. I had to ban non-organic items, period, because of health concerns (e.g., they rot and invite insects). We have done a combination of giving him a "trash and treasure" box that when full must be weeded out, making him do periodic clean outs, periodically doing big bad clean outs ourselves, talking, training, talking, training, talking . . . I dunno how successful we've been. He's a little better now that he's 13, but not much : (. This is the child who was crying at bedtime SIX MONTHS after we moved cross-country because we had given his bed away (it was too heavy to move all that way and he got a brand-new one on arrival). This is also the child who was crying at bedtime ONE YEAR after I forced him to get rid of an outdated calendar. So I don't have any easy answers or answers that he outgrew it. I pity his future wife. I have done my best, but . . .

I went through this last year. I even checked out all of the different translations I could find, coupled with online samples. I ended up with the new Ian Johnston translation, and it worked great for us. Iliad. We didn't do this one (lack of time). Odyssey We used this and had a great experience. I shelled out for the printed version, but the text is available online for free. This work also has an accompanying audiobook, that we enjoyed. They were more expensive, but I liked them better than the Fagles. They are true to the meaning and style, yet easy to read. They are meant to be a "first introduction" to reading the whole work. My children really enjoyed the Odyssey.

I don't know if you are speaking of Homeschool Potpourri in Kirkland, but that one is my favorite. We live in eastern WA, but we go to a homeschool convention every April in Redmond, just 5 minutes from Homeschool Potpourri. We always leave early so we can spend a few hours in the store before convention opens, even though the parking lot is really hard to get our RV into. In fact, we are making our annual pilgrimage next week!

Aw, I'll tell you if anything big goes down, if I don't miss it . . .

Okay, I don't have any experience with Aspie or FAS kids, but I did have this wild idea. Since she is into electronics and also lives 100% in the moment, could you give her a really basic cell phone (that can only call you) or a walkie-talkie? You might be checking on her every 5 minutes through the window, but she doesn't realize you are supervising. I think it adds to the disconnect. So what if every 15 minutes you call her (on phone or walkie-talkie) and ask her where she is and what she is doing (even if you can see HER and know)? I mean you do this is a really nice way not a punitive way. This engages her in the process of checking in with you and knowing she is supervised. At minimum, she will have to stop and think about where she is every 15 minutes to respond to you, which should build awareness, I would think. So I'm saying that perhaps you should use her strength (technology) to help coach her through her weakness (impulsivity). Of course, YMMV because I haven't been in your shoes.

I selected "no TV" because I thought it fit best, but I don't quite fit any of your categories. I'm taking "no TV" to mean no TV in sight, no broadcast TV allowed. We do have an ancient TV hooked up to an equally ancient VCR, where we watch a family movie once in a while, at least once a year, LOL. We have no antenna or cable, so it can't get any channels. We also sometimes let them watch an old video when they are sick, like a Veggie Tale, even though they are too old for them. The TV resides in an upstairs room that is half guest/half storage. There is no TV out in the living areas. We gave up TV many years ago because my husband was addicted. I do have Netflix on my computer. I watch things sometimes, at night or weekends or sick. Only I have the password for this so that my husband is not tempted. I know how to balance a movie with other commitments, him, not so much ; ). I do get educational Netflix DVDs in the mail now and then for the children. They are not a priority. I have one on Vikings that has been hanging around for three weeks now, and I don't know when we will have time to watch it! Our children were very small when we gave up TV, so they don't really know anything else. But between dinner (they help), dishes, instrument practice, Bible study, events, meetings, volunteering, cleaning house, laundry, rocket building, and Lord knows what all, I can't imagine when we would have time for television. I think that if you go "cold turkey," you will find that other things fill the vacuum of time. Hope this helps!

If you have been "conditioned" by a narcissistic parent, you probably grew up with some toxic people "built in" to your support system like barnacles, and you tend to "attract" other toxic people. First you have to work on detaching the original narcissist, then the barnacles, and then work on not attracting more. I have found personally that I have had to work a lot on presenting myself differently so I don't attract toxic types. It is VERY difficult.

Ding, ding, ding! We have a winner. Although this person is undiagnosed (as are many since they will never, ever see a mental health professional), the diagnosis seems pretty cut-and-dried to us. That you were able to tell from such a small amount of information shows me that you really, really "get" it. And there's only one way--to experience it. :grouphug: to you.

LOL! Thanks.

I figured I had a choice: 1) My grown children would need therapy because xxxx was not in their lives or 2) My grown children would need therapy because xxxx had caused severe damage in their lives. I opted for #1. Other people I know who think we made a "bad" decision, I hear now through the grapevine, are dealing with big, bad trainwreck issues that I suspect are closely related to still being around xxxx. I can't prove it, of course, but . . .

--Phonebombing. --Email bombing. --Finding out your work phone by calling your public affairs office and calling it repeatedly. This was preceded by telling the public affairs office to tell the employee to call xxxxx. (Said employee was 45 years old and could make own decisions about whether to call xxxxx. Let's just say that xxxx was not a work contact.) --Telling all mutual friends/relatives that they are soooo worried about you and wonder why you don't want to talk to them anymore, and that they have nooooo idea what they could have possibly done. Convincing mutual friends/relatives that you are on the road to destruction because you are not in contact. --Threatening to call CPS on your family, because if you are cutting contact you are obviously in a "cult." They can't feature you might be thinking for yourself, so if you are not listening to them, you are clearly in a cult. (We homeschool and go to a mainline church.) --Soliciting mutual friends/relatives to phone and give you guilt- and shame-inducing messages about not contacting them. Otherwise telling mutual friends/relatives lies about you that make them think you are crazy. --Sending unsolicited gifts and cards with guilt and shame messages. Sending same directly to your children (we did not deliver them but threw them away). --When there is a health crisis, initiating a series of guilt-inducing phone calls to make the situation sound dire, and then falling away into silence when the situation resolves. --Hiring a private investigator to find out contact information you have chosen not to share. I could go on and on. Some of the behaviors are still occurring five years after going no contact.

I see two different subjects being discussed. I think "letting a friendship go" and "detaching from a toxic person" are two totally different subjects. Your initial questions seem to me to be dealing with a first, but the behaviors described are definitely the second. One can let a friendship go for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is you making the decision, and sometimes it is the other person. You honor each other's boundaries. However, you detach from a toxic person to prevent their toxicity from spilling over into your and your family's life in destructive ways. This might involve going no contact. However, it is for your own well-being and that of your family. Typically, a toxic person will ramp up behavior to keep you stuck in the relationship and will not honor your attempt at boundaries, detaching, or no contact. The toxic person will pursue you relentlessly and you must be firm about your and your family's need for mental health. He/she will make it as painful as possible. Detaching from a toxic person is not a selfish act, and it is not easy or simple.