I definitely see the idea of hands on teaching of small children but one of the most important things I have to teach my children is how to teach themselves. That doesn't mean I don't care, don't help, etc. However, I would like to know how much one to one teaching is going on in schools and if it isn't and lectures are the norm, what is the difference between a video lecture, a computer lecture and a classroom teacher? Yes, a one on one tutor is at times necessary but not for most children at most times. If you have been homeschooling in the long run, you teach your children one on one or in very small groups while they are little. At some point, and certainly by high school age, the child should be mostly doing work by themselves. That creates independence. I don't want a dependant child going to college or off to work. I have seen plenty of problems with schooled children going off to college and not being used to scheduling learning for themselves. A child can learn, know something, but if they can't produce that paper on time, or get their studying done in advance of a test, they won't get good grades. I am sure that many would think I am too lax. I don't have schedules all planned out for months. I have the girls do their assigments on most days Monday through Friday and that includes summer. Sometimes they do their work on the weekend too. However, even if I am not assigning work, they learn and work on their own. All the time- no. But more than people might suspect. My younger one fixes things, invents things and loves to watch science and engineering shows. Yes, she also wants to play Club Penguin and watch mindless tv at times but official school comes first and doesn't take 6 hours for her. My older one writes a lot of stories in her free time and also likes to check out non-fiction books on current interests of her which include things like computer languages, sharks, and movie technology. On the so-called wasted times of going to doctors and dentists, they often ask questions that lead to very educational discussions.

This is a tip for you Sebastian (maybe?) and any other Military Officers (retired, reserve or active). Join the MOAA. They have a fabulous no interest charged loan program. It is not a giant program because they believe in keeping loans at a reasonable amount so people can pay them back.

My children have never asked anything and we have very minimal discussions. There are no gender differences in their non-discussion. They all have asked about aberrant behavior of others on tv news or something like that- some guy stealing shoes, etc.

I disagree with many of the so-called signs of educational neglect being actually so. I would counter that what happens in certain schools is educational abuse. First grades being forced to write a paragraph with all their spelling words (not thematically related) in a local public school. Children being forced to write papers but having no instruction at all. How about bad science being thought in elementary schools because the correct science is supposedly too hard? Many of the science books that I have used in elementary school were worse than useless if not used by a teacher who could correct and expand on the text. So, no I don't think that lower grades need science instruction. Nature study and exploration of the world are very important at this stage. The most important things in my estimation in pre-10 children is to learn to read and to learn basic math. But if some child is having problems, unless I am very aware of the family's circumstances and no something neglectful is happening, I would not criticize. One older girl my daughter befriended in another place was not reading well. When I met her younger sister, I found she was a very good student. I could have chastised the mother but I would have been wrong. THe older girl had birth complications and is slow. SHe is happy in her homechool community and has friends. She is learning how to take care of herself and she is a good caretaker of young children. Is she a good reader- no. Would she be a good reader in school- I doubt it. Would she be as happy in school- highly doubtful since unless human nature has changed since I was in school, the mentally challenged children were cruelly treated by some. I don't believe that homeschooling is for everyone or necessarily for all times. When I was having a cancer scare, I considered that my older girl would be able to continue homeschooling if I did have cancer but my younger would need to go to school. This year has been a big growing year for my youngest and by next year, she may be able to homeschool alone too, if necessary. That means homeschooling with an assortment of video, online and self taught material with parental oversight. I fully expect children who are intelligent and non-LD to be able to homeschool alone for most of the time with parental or tutorial help/discussion at other times.

I would really recommend the Catholic colllege. There are always extra costs to college that you don't know about before the semester starts- mandatory supplies, mandatory trips that cost extra, etc. I also don't think communting three hours a day is good. I did a bit less during graduate school but I had no part-time job over the 10 hour grad asst. position and on good days, it took only about two and a half hours, roundtrips. I chose classes so I only commuted two days a week. It still was hard. I didn't have any money problems to add to the struggle. College is difficult enough without a burden like this. Unless you are going to go into ministry and need a denominational program, a school that has a good value system and isn't anti=Christian should fit. The Catholic college you describe is not only not anti=Christian, it is Christian, just not Protestant. I have been considering some Catholic colleges for my children even though we aren't Catholic either.

We have one living at home and it was unexpected. He did two and a half years away from home and then developed serious medical problems and couldn't continue. He has transferred to a college near our new home and is nearly finished with the semester. We don't have the same rules we would have if we had much of a choice. We pay his tuition, his transportation (bus pass), his books, his food, and he has health care through us though he refuses to use it. He isn't on our sleep schedule, sleeps through occasional classes, and doesn't hardly help at all around the house. We are putting up with this because of his issues (major depression that has disappeared for now) and because with the economy, we really want him to finish his degree and then move out. We would not continue to support him if he is not in school or not working. He has been doing one or the other since August so we are okay. What I will do differently if any of the younger children want to live at home- set rules beforehand about medical issues, school responsibilities, and household responsibilities. But I really expect not to have the same issues with my girls anyway even if one of them gets depressed. For their whole lives, they have been much more accepting of medical treatment than he has. My middle is absolutely convinced she needs to continue ADHD medication while my son has decided he was misdiagnosed. This as he routinely forgets or loses everything including bus passes, keys, important papers, books, etc,etc.

My life has been made very hectic by my dh going on so many trips. For the last three or four weeks he has been travelling most of the time. Well that means that my teens and young adult only bother me, that I have to cook or arrange all meals, that I have take anybody who needs taking anywhere, and that I have to do all shopping. I suffer from a few chronic illnesses and it has been wearing me out. Normally, if he is not travelling, he will cook about 33% of the time and shop about half. On top of that, I get insomnia with my time of the month upcoming and this week dh is traveling M-Th morning and we are leaving on a 12 day trip on Thursday afternoon. The girls can be some help like I have already assigned the older one to get ready the electronics (camera, laptop, batteries, etc.) and the younger one to ready sports gear. I will make up lists for clothing requirements and they will hand me basket full of those clothes. I usually take a nap each day and I am sure I will go to bed earlier tonight.

I got this idea to ask this question from the William thread. I am through teaching my children phonics but I remember that one problem I had was books that said wh was pronounced differently than w. I am currently watching a series at my church and it annoys me so much that one frequent speaker keeps saying hwat and other wh words as hw. I was born in DC and moved to VA suburbs at age 2. Neither I nor my husband who was born in northern NJ say hw. Who does? And do you pronounce whale any differently from wail? I don't/

I have already posted that I am relatively free with my kids but less free than I was or my husband. There are two main reasons for that- we have the resources our parents didn't have to be more at hand (drive more, be more involved) and the other reason for how free we are is our two older children's fear problems. OUr two oldest have genetically based fear issues and we are trying and have been trying to help them cope with this. For them, that certainly means get realistic about fears. Abduction is an unrealistic fear but being careful with medicines is a very realistic fear. I know some of you are approaching this issue from an emotional basis of what if your kid was the one? Well, I have this to say, many more children are diagnosed with cancer than are abducted by strangers. So should we subject our children to invasive and probably completely useless tests just so we can find that 1 in 100,000 or whatever the cancer rate in children is? We don't do that. We do sensible things like check where the predators live, keep children home if we live in dangerous areas with drugs and crime, etc. But there was nothing particularly dangerous about my daughter riding her bike for twenty minutes in a very low crime neighborhood where the community was full of actively involved people. As the author of the freerange book pointed out, online activity isn't very dangerous either as long as your child is behaving. Each of us has a responsibility to evaluate the risks of actions and inactions on our children. We all have our own opinions but our children are different and our circumstances are different. So if you keep your 12 year old at home and not allow them to go out in the neighborhood, I have to at least be willing to accept that maybe your neighborhood isn't safe or your child is not as mature as mine. On the other hand, you should accept that I am not endangering my child by letting her walk our mini poodle in our close neighborhood which has very, very low crime rates and no registered predators.

Get some good books, some movies, some interests,etc. Plan some nice times for you and your kids, nothing fancy necessary but something different or something that you normally do aroudn this time of year but would think you won;t since dh is gone. I am having to readjust to dh being gone a lot too. My dh is traveling so much that I am now trying to figure out food buying strategies. My dh has lately been gone most weekdays. And he is not just gone- he goes to great steakhouses, fancy receptions, stays at very nice hotels or lodgings, etc. I have to keep reminding myself that he is working the entire time, he is getting very tired with these continuous trips and he misses his home and his freetime greatly. (My dh is an assistant to a 3 star equivalent and travels with him and his boss likes to eat well when he travels. Dh would normally be eating much less extravagently when he travels.

Try looking up Myers Briggs typing. 60% of males are T, 40% of females are T. 60% of females are F, while only 40% of males are. Almost all T females marry a T male, but T males often marry F women. My dh and I are both T and neither of us are that emotionally connected to our kids. It is okay for them since they are all T too except for the youngest who is almost even on the two scales. Research has shown that you remain basically true to your personality type no matter what type of scale you use. So logically based people stay that way and emotionally based people stay that way, At a conference (for a disease I have that is 90% female victims) the keynote speaker spoke on relationships. (My disease is completely non mental but we do need spousal support). SHe cited statistics that one of the very common times for dicorce are after 20 or 25 years of marriage and these are almost always F females being fed up with T males. They got married in early 20's and she would think he would change. He doesn't and in middle age, she decideds she is fed up. I am not saying anything about anyone here getting divorced but I just found it such an interesting observation. Probably why I don't have friends who have been divorced because I tend to only make friends with Ts like me.

DR. Mercola seems to me to be a conspiracy theory person. I don't hold those people credible at all. For him to say that no one should get the flu vaccine is insane. Why? I have been getting the flu vaccine for over 25 years. Neither I nor any of my family members who also get vaccinated because of me or their work have ever had the flu. Who wants the flu? I am at high risk for flu complications since I have several chronic illnesses including asthma and am on immunosuppressants. It has been proven that those who died in Mexico did not have strep. They also did not have a different strain. Furthermore, air pollution has nothing to do with it since they also die in clean air places. More likely, I think, is that they don't get flu vaccines on a regular basis. Many of us do. Our flu vaccines give some amount of immunity even if not complete. We don't get as serious a disease. Or on the other hand, we may have not had as many people sick for as long to get the deaths yet.

From my understanding, the first patients in Mexico didn't tend to die either. It was the later patients. I believe that the fear in the medical community is that this will be a repeat of the 1918 flu which appeared in the Spring, killed hardly any, than reappeared in the fall and killed millions. We are going about our business since there have been no outbreaks here. I am a bit curious about that since the DC area has a more than normal proportion of people who travel. Lots of people travel as tourists and lots of people travel for work. But we haven't had any cases in our metropolitan area. What we do have in this area is probably an extremely high rate of flu shot takers. That is because it is one of our government health care benefits and even if you aren't reimbursed for it, this area is so competetive, people just don't want to be sick for weeks so they get the shot. I am wondering if the years of shots that people got my give them some sort of modified immunity. Back in 1918, no one had ever gotten a flu shot.

I took that Myers Brigg test some time ago that was posted here and it said that my type tends to value independent kids and encourages that. That is absolutely true about me. My kids play outside. They ride their bikes. They have cell phones. They have been playing outside most of their lives. I had my 13 yo ride a bike a mile to church choir practices. (She is now 15 1/2). I sent my 15 year old on a flight to another country and then to college overseas at 16. I don't have them doing things yet that I was doing at their age. By 15, I had been a 2 year rider of public transportation. I had been babysitting triplets and their older sister. I had walked alone to school by a busy highway. But no I am not super cautious. My youngest has broken a bone on a carpeted floor so I can't get too excited about scrambling on the hill and crossing the creek. I warn them about things that aren't obvious. I forbade them to play in arroyos when we lived out west. I forbade them from digging giant tunnels, caves, etc. I taught them about Walk, talk and die syndrome, etc, etc/ My stranger warnings have been along the lines of avoid people who act strange or give you the creeps and also a warning many times that if you go to a bar, party, etc. with people, you leave with them- not by yourself.

We moved in later Dec. and were getting calls for a while before the DNC registry updated our number. But then we were still getting debt calls for some other people. Usually they left messages but one time I answered and told them that this is a new number for us and we don't have any idea who those people are. The guy transferred me over to a supervisor, I repeated the story, they asked when did I get the number, and since then, no more calls. I don't pick up on on untraceable calls unless I have put in a call to a doctor on call.

FPEA is a super huge fair in Orlando Florida. It is the Friday and Saturday of Memorial Day Weekend. I saw everything there. I see you are far away though. Closer to you, maybe, would be the huge CHEA fair in Santa Ana or Buena Vista or some other place near Disneyland.

None of my children ever got daily baths. It wasn't recommended by anyone, in fact, it was specifically not recommended by many doctors. (We have eczema problems). What a rude statement. I agree with others that the organization should front you hotel accomodations. Yes, you are a volunteer but your time is valuable. I also think there is nothing unreasonable about not wanting your children alone on a farm with no transportation.

I don't do yard sales anymore. I did one about seven or eight houses ago. I think the only way they can be profitable is if either you do one every ten or twenty years and have lots of stuff or if you are a person who buys lots of extras or gets lots of extras. We are always moving and I don't want to have to move extras. I give away. I give away to groups that pick up. I take things to groups. I will soon be planning to give away a lot of curriculum. I find that the my time is worth more than the few dollars I make. I don't have the extra time to waste on a half day.

I am Christina but I no longer live in Space Coast as of late Dec. Now as the message says on the bottom, I live in beautiful woods in Northern Virginia. I have been homeschooling since 1995 and will be homeschooling until 2015. O think. I have been a very long time poster on these boards. I used to be Christina in NM until mid 2003 then I was Christina in BE or maybe Christina in Belgium. In mid 2006, we moved to the Space Coast. I haven't figured out how to change my name to my new location. I did decide on another board to just call myself a transient. I homeschooled my first from grade 2 -12 and the rest have been homeschooled from the beginning. I have been married for 23 1/2 years and dh has been 22 years in the military. He will definitely stay in at least 1 1/2 more years and probably do at least 25. So I am still going to be transient for a few more years.

Where are you getting your information about physical science being required? We were almost stationed in MD a few years ago and I don't remember anything about titles of science classes. I think they had requirements for amount of science. Also, in MD, there are two ways to homeschool. One is through a private school in shich case they set up the requirements and you can find one that doesn't have a physical science class requirement. The other way is with reporting to the public school system. I am less familiar with that because I was planning on using the umbrella school option. Either way, when a system requires physical science, that often doesn't mean a class labeled as such but rather that one of the science classes have a physical science approach such as chemistry or physics.

Since she wants to go, I would let her go. The clothes aren't an issue. Just wear something darker rather than lighter. No one cares about the clothes. It is a tragedy for your town and she was in a class with him.

My daughter is similar. She has an account on facebook but finds it boring and hardly ever check in. She is adamantly against myspace. She does do fanfiction. She loves to write and this helps her get feedback. She is 15 1/2 and is vigilant about net security. She routinely reports abuses on the various sites she visits and is hypervigilant about revealing personal info since at age 11, she was contacted by a predator online after playing runescape. We don't allow that game and she is very protective of her younger sister's activities on the net.

Dh works full time (normally over 60 hours a week). He gets paid salary so it doesn't matter how much he works, it is still the same. I have a hard enough time keeping up with homeschooling, medical problems of all my family, and household management to work at all. In fact, if I hadn't gotten disabled at a too young age, I would be getting disability. I am very fortunate that although I got disabled young, I married my husband who has been able to do very well in his career and I can look forward to a secure future.

Strawberries are perennial but I am certainly not surprised that they were mislabeled at Home Depot. Home Depot can be okay for plants for those who know something about gardening. I did get a columbine there recently that is doing great. However, at the same time that I was getting my columbine, they were also selling plants that need warm weather. Well just this last week we had temperatures down in the mid 30's and then lots of cold rain. Probably not what the tender annuals needed but that was what was being sold. I was complaining to dh about it because I consider it a very deceptive practice and he said that they probably ship all the plants for all areas at the same time so while those plants would have been great in Florida now, they weren't great in NoVA.

My PCA church has both praise music, old hymns, and music sung by choirs (sometimes old music like Bach, sometimes sprituals, sometimes more comtemporary, etc). I love the mix. We do have infant baptism. Since they do go with the Bible, I believe they would go with wifely submission but we haven't have any preaching on that. One of the things that I love about my particular church is the wide variety of people who are coming together to worship. I am sure that is because where we are (close Northern VA suburbs).