I am so happy that HSLDA is helping in this. AS I said in the other thread, I am praying for you Cleo and for the situation in Quebec to be resolved.

My girls were part of a neighborhood swim and dive team last summer. They had movie nights and other type events for the kids. They lasted to about 11pm. This was great. Fun times, no sleeping over. They had boys and girls and popcorn and movies. Oh, and this was after a swim meet so they were all tired too and not that much energy. Those are the kind of events I like. I can tolerate staying up to 11 or so. I don't want to monitor people all night long.

Let me start out by saying I don't believe this. I think we have earthquakes as one of the many natural processes brought about God to give us a great Earth to live on. However, I thought I heard my pastor praying a prayer last week saying something like the idea that earthquakes are a result of sin or our sin nature or something like that. My dh, who was in church at the same time, didn't hear it that way but I don't know if he was paying attention. (I was late coming in.) So does anyone teach this? Is this part of the Young Earth idea or of some other teaching? I am very confused.

I have to agree with ciyates about the future employments. My dh is an officer and he will get employed after his military career but that is because he is a highly educated scientist with great writing skills, good management skills and very high security clearance. On the other hand, I know other wives of officers who are quite worried about employment opportunities or ones who were unemployed for a long time after retirement. What are some of the issues- not translatable job skills. Not wanting to move to certain areas or wanting a job only in a certain area. THe ones I have known to have problems are intelligence and foreign attache type jobs. The ones who haven't had problems are medical, science, engineering, and communications/computer type people. Oh and this also goes for enlisted although they have more jobs that are translatable to civilian jobs that officers don't do- technicians, other medical positions, air traffic controllers, etc. NOw another option I have seen people do successfully after a military career is to switch careers. Usually those people have spent time getting educations or training for the new career while having a military career. So I know some who were training for ministry, some who were training for some business career,etc.

all of the commercials on AFN This is funny. We were stationed in Belgium from 03 to 06 and my kids still talk about the commercials particularly the ones about VA benefits.

As by my screenname, I am a transient due to my husband's military career. I am so grateful for churches with a building or meeting in a building, not in a home. Why? Because it is so hard for us transients to become part of anything like a home church. The one hardship that we have had as a result of being in the military and homeschooling is the exclusion we have felt in some places. Friendly churches are a true blessing for us. That doesn't mean that I want wishy/washy preaching or anything like that. But having people talk to us, greet us, and make us feel welcome. I will never be a part of a homechurch because although the preaching and worship may be there, the welcoming of strangers is not. I think God put me in this life so I, quite an introvert, could learn that I need to be more outgoing and make sure I welcome others. Another difficult thing for us as transients and Christians, is the insistence of some homeschooling groups to have church membership as a requirement or some colleges for pastor letters. Well it all depends whether we can do that on how long ago we moved. I know when we first moved to Fl, I hesitated putting my girls in a homeschool group because we weren't members anywhere yet. Most churches have membership classes or procedures that take several times a year. If you move in between times or if you are searching for a church or if you attend a large church and are new, you may have difficulties getting that letter.

No, I wished I was homeschooling when I was a little kid and found ads for Calvert School in the back of my mom's Woman's Day magazine. That was in the early to mid 70's.

Never read a Kindle or any type of book like that but have read things online. I will vote 1. I don't buy books and don't want to even though I have the money. I am a strong, strong supporter of the public library and would hate to have them disappear because of KIndles and such like.

I think she is so wrong, not about testing, of which I have mixed feelings, but about one school for all philosophy. Her example of Japan is dead wrong. I don't know enough about their primary school (not the elementary school but the school that is the official one) to say what form they take (public, specialized, private, etc). But I do know that in Japan, even if they are in public school, that is not the only school they attend. Many children and pretty much all who want to go to higher ed go to cram schools after school and on weekends. I wouldn't compare US public school situation to theirs since there is this huge difference. Oh and those cram schools are teaching to the test. So it is like the kids go to 6 hours of regular school and then five additional hours of cram school. Not the same thing as our schools at all. The one system other than the US that I am familiar with, I find much better. That is the Belgian system where the money goes with the child. You can go to public school, Montessori, tech high school. religious school, English school, etc, etc. You can also homeschool. Many choices and the students tend to leave school at ages 18-20 with a useful education.

I strongly recommend a tutor for your child. That could be another family member who understands Algebra better. You have two main problems- you admit you aren't good at Algebra yourself and then you say your daughter thinks about Math in a very different way from you. Nsw if she is in Chapter 8 of LOF, I believe that is 2/3 of the book. If she is liking it and understanding it, have her take control of the situation and contact the author when she doesn't understand. Adding something like ALEKS may be helpful since it doesn't depend on you. As someone else in another thread pointed out, the main problem with students in math and science classes in college is that they never got Algebra. Now there is one more avenue you could explore considering her age (she is a 10th grader, right? if not, I wouldn't do this). It may behoove you to take a break from Algebra, do geometry (which would seem to suit her way of thinking about math better and by the way, so would LOF since he incorporates proof much more than most other Algebra texts) and then come back to finish Algebra 1 and continue on with Algebra. One more thing, are you using the home companion to Algebra 1 along with the LOF text? If not, that has a whole lot more problems and more answers.

I am so sorry Cleo about your dilemma. All I can say is that it looks like there are slim openings for your son to go to college. I would say that if your son does not want to go to school and you feel that he would not be best served by going to school, you don't send him to school. I had other issues with my oldest where I was really worried about who would accept him in college. He didn't take CC, AP, or SAT 2. He is now a senior in college with a great GPA and figuring out which graduate schools he will apply to. If you are bent on sending him to one of the colleges that is in ine with the QUebecois government in harassing homeschoolers, I guess you have a very big problem. But as others have said, if you are okay with colleges in other provinces or the US, I think you will be fine. I will pray for you and the homeschoolers in Quebec and I am very happy that HSLDA is fighting for you.

WHat I find is the best thing to do is outsource the subjects you don't want to teach. For me, that is writing. For others, it may be science or math. HOw involved I am depends on both the student's wishes, how much help they need, and how interested they are. One of my passions is Earth Science. YOu can be sure that I am involved in that though none of my kids were quite as interested as I was. On the other hand, I am not that interested in going over the same history over and over and over again. They don't need me to spoon feed it to them. So this year, dd is watching teaching company videos and she will be watching those next year too. Which ones I watch with her or them depends on my schedule and theirs and also on my level of interest. SO I am sure I will watch any new ones we get on areas of history I am not that familiar with and probably will watch any ones that my youngest will watch. BUt I have two who will be doing high school next year and my older is more independent (and was at the age her sister is) and my youngest is much more depended.

I am teaching Government and Econimics this year. I used two books that were very inexpensive, thorough, but completely understandable and not difficult. The books were The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Government and Economics for Dummies. These are secular books but will do an easy but thorough job for you. They are not textbooks and most of my students found they actually like the subjects:). That is because the books have an easy attitude about them.

Mrs. Mungo is giving the truth. For examples, most officers who are Majors or above have a master's degree. My dh is an officer and not only does he have regular academic degrees, but had to do special school degrees, most of them in his spare time. Only a small percentage of people get to do those courses as their job. Most, at least in the AF, have to do special schools in correspondence. That means, in their spare time.

I have to agree with Mrs. Mungo's post. In our case, we married after I graduated college and right before his senior year. There was a small recession when he graduated and couldn't get a job so he decided to go into the Air Force. I supported him in his decision. In terms of what I knew, I knew more about military life than he did. :) THat is because I grew up in a heavily military area and used to bike ride to and into a fort. I do think that overall we have less stress than many civilians since we have health insurance, job security, and retirement. All my kids have enjoyed the military life though it was tough having a child go to college overseas ( we were in Europe then). I think overall it has been a benefit for my kids- lots of travel, awareness of different cultures (both her in the US and overseas), and a more realistic outlook on life. I think the Air Force really lags behind the other services in family support. I think a big reason is that the absences in the AF tend to be one or two members at a time (not a unit) and also, there is a very big lack of support for long TDYs. It is much better for me now since I have two older kids who can drive and no kids that need babysitters. It was quite a more difficult task when I had three kids who needed babysitting and my husband would be gone for months. There was zero support and I had no living parents. This reminds me that I need to get my dh's ear about this so he can urge senior leadership do change this situation for others. (DH is the only military member of his office and his boss has him answer all surveys and opinion issues going around that have to do with military issues not relating to their own office and role).

I have three children and I did or will do a different amounf of classics with each one. My oldest did the whole WTM thing. It suited him very well and he is now a senior in college majoring in philosophy. My second started out with a chronological schedule and stopped soon after Egyptian lit and then Gilgamesh. Why? Well she was also taking movies and lit and she got majorly sick. We stopped ancient history and ancient lit. Thne the next year, we decided to do American History and American Lit. This year, she is finishing American History and doing British Lit. Next year she will do World History and World LIt. She reads plenty of classics and mostly in chronological order, but divided by where they were written. Her future major will be something in social sciences. My third will be neither a humanities nor a social science major. She may be math, physical sciences, or engineering. WHat does this mean for me? Less classics, slower reading schedule, more emphasis on math and science. I do want her to get some classics but she isn't a fan of reading those as much as the first two. My older ones loved to read classics. She doesn't. So she will do some but I will probably be adding more non-fiction reading for her.

I have never read any of those Ezzo books. I never breastfed because of my own medical issues. That said, with at least one of mine, I had to schedule feedings to make sure she was eating, not to deprive her of anything. My third was my smallest and while full-term, she wasn't that interested in eating. SHe was a very content baby and didn't cry much. If I waited for her to cry for food, she would have been FTT. As it was, I made sure I fed her enough by making sure she ate at least every _ hours. Another one of mine, my biggest (6lbs. 11 oz.), ate more than the doctors recommended. She wanted more and she wasn't gaining too much weight. In fact, she was and continues to this day to be about 20% in weight. Back then and even today, she eats more calories than could be expected. She is severely ADHD and she used those calories up and I guess she did as a baby too. I didn't listen to the doctor who recommended feeding her less and I am glad I didn't. Then I had doctors who wanted me to alter my somewhat older kids (toddlers and pre-schoolers) diet so that instead of OJ they drink grape juice and instead of whole milk on cereals, they have half and half. I didn't do that either. They were skinny, not losing weight, just low on the curve. I hate one size fits all recommendations.

I took my 12 and 16 yo to it. They liked it but then they are big, big Julia Child fans. SInce my then 12 yo is the youngest, she has been exposed to a bit more at that age then my first kid had a 12. I didn't thin there was anything really wrong with the movie. I mean, my kids know that married people and unfortunately, even unmarried people have sex. That said, it wasn't a major theme of the movie and wasn't explicit. Those are no-nos in my book.

I just closed a thread I think when I actually wanted to reply. Since I am not a moderator, could I actually have done this? I didn't think the thread was bad but just clicked incorrectly.

Questions- does one know one is banned? I don't come here everyday, for example, so if I was banned for 24 hours, would I know? HOw do we tell that someone is banned besides trying to PM them and then having a message? (I don't even know if that works since I rarely PM). Is everyone who has an individual post deleted banned?

Actually I do believe that his ministry is a cult. I was given one of his books many years ago and quickly decided that it wasn't any thing I wanted to do so I never read anything by them again. Then there was the thread about the HelpMeet book. Somewhere in that long thread was a link to someone who had taken long quotes from that book and challenged it with Biblical references. I read that and came to the conclusion that this is a cultic movement. Those that mean that everyone who is associated with it or reads the book is in this cult? Absolutely not. But I strongly believe that his misinterpretation of God's word is cultic. I thought his recent post was weird and disturbing but I didn't know about any death associated with his book. Once I realized that this was in response to critics because of the death of a child, it makes it particularly horrific. I would not want to be meeting God and explaining how my method lead to a child's death.

I am not trying to start any arguments. We are old earth creationists and while watching a Teaching Company show, my girls had questions I couldn't answer. I am not really familiar with the young earth ideas except I know that there is a big emphasis on the catastrophic Flood. SO one of their questions was about plate tectonics and I had no idea about what the ye view on this was? Can anyone enlighten? On another point, I think the ye view is that the rate of radioactive decay has not been steady and that is okay because God is all powerful. Is this a correct interpretation of your views? Thanks for any help.

I have been in many support groups over the years. Some required a statement of faith but were basic enough that Orthodox Christians, Catholics, and Seventh Day Adventists were all welcome. Others has an statement of faith but nobody had to sign it, just not go against it. In the group I am in now, we meet in a Baptist Church. I am not a baptist and in fact, do not belong to a church which practices adult baptism. It isn't a problem. THe statement says what they believe and we have to say we won't be advocating in class a position contrary to their beliefs. The statement makes it very clear that my kids won't be attending the apologetics class nor the science classes. However, they find plenty to do and I teach social science classes. There are others who attend who have far less in common with the Baptist church than we do. I know we have Catholics and Orthodox and my daughter was telling me that one of her friends is Jewish. My economics class could be taught to anyone of any religion. At most, my kids sometimes bring up ethical issues since they bring in a news story each week to discuss.

Oh that is really too bad about the ACT not being give very often in some areas. I hop we don't move there. I won't have one of my daughters ever take the ACT and I will only let the other one take it if she is scoring significantly better on it in practice tests or if she ends up being a NM semi-finalist and needs the score for that. Otherwise, just the ACT here because I like its policies better and feel it is a fairer test.

THe PSAT is also one that no one will see. THe SAT and SAT 2 are a different matter.