The families of the homeschool kids that I teach are sometimes very generous - I've gotten some very nice gifts over the years. Most students don't give anything, though, and of those who give most give a small gift - a bit of candy, a baggie of cookies, gift cards under $10. One family always gave a jar of homemade apple butter...we were really sad when their youngest graduated. 🙂 I credit another family with starting our homemade pesto habit when they gave me a small basil plant one year. A mom who sells pampered chef has given some of their smaller products as gifts. If I'm given a lot of sweets, I just open them and share with the class. Occasionally my kids will take something like an unneeded insulated cup and use it at the youth gift exchange. I'd feel really awkward if students came in and handed me cash.

If it's a few families, that makes perfect sense. I'm thinking of the larger groups (there are some locally) that seem to have a lot of kids, but in classes taught by parents. Sort of like CC, only less formal. A few families getting together makes sense. A paid tutorial with great teachers makes sense. They have different vibes, but I can understand the purpose behind each. Parents having to teach classes that they don't want to teach to a class-sized group of kids makes no sense to me. And, as I said, even the paid tutorials run on a lot of volunteer hours. We keep costs down by having minimal fees outside of the payments to teachers because families work, and having the families work together helps to build community.

Lots of kids go on to be successful professional adults without working in their field as a passion during their school years. Spouse and I both have STEM PhDs, and I spent my time outside of high school at ball practice, band practice, babysitting, or with friends. Spouse spent his time helping his dad with his side job. I know that for highly competitive colleges and some scholarships they want kids to have invested in a passion. But, for many kids with the aim of going to State U, they are just as well served by volunteering once a week or getting a job. Actually, every application that my kid filled out that asked for the number of hours each week spent on each activity had categories for volunteer work, caregiving, and paid work. Again, if your student is aiming for a highly competitive school, then developing an extracurricular into a passion is likely important. But, at a couple of the schools that my kid has applied to, they don't even look at extracurriculars. If your student chooses certain schools, they may earn full tuition, or even full cost of attendance, based on their SAT score or being a National Merit Scholar. At other schools, there is a holistic admissions process or scholarships that are awarded to kids who have done something super interesting. My kid who has applied to colleges as a computer engineering major has done enough coding classes, computing classes designed by my computer engineer spouse, and advanced math classes to feel comfortable with that as a college path. But, this kid definitely does not sit around doing computing for fun. And, to be honest, neither do spouse and I. Kid reads about military history and philosophy and plays ball for fun. As a family, we watch college sports and kid sports. For fun, I read mysteries and play handbells. We work in our garden. In other words, it's awesome if somebody has something that they like doing enough to want to do it all the time. But, many of us spend our time doing other things, so it's not surprising that a kid who wants to study STEM subjects in college doesn't do math for fun. There may be some STEM opportunity that your student enjoys - maybe a robotics team, or Science Olympiad (my kids do this), but if not it's OK.

I think co-ops can be great, or be a time suck- it just depends on the group and what other options are available. When my kids were little, co-op was a fun thing to do one day each week. In middle school, it was fun, plus a place to take English and things like chess and choir. In high school, I used it differently for my 2 different kids. My older only took English, foreign language, and sometimes history or health or music theory or some other elective. As a senior, kid just goes to take ballroom dance and be a teacher's helper for an hour...and then eat lunch with friends. There are kids who have been together since elementary school. Kid has done tons of classes at home and done some DE. My younger, who fights me about everything, is taking more classes at the co-op, and it's working better for us. I'd prefer to use it the same way that I did for older, but that's not what we need right now. Our co-op is a paid tutorial, with the co-op part being the supervisory part - parents work a certain number of hours as helpers of various types, but don't teach. For the most part, our teachers are fantastic. They only teach subjects that they are comfortable with and are enthusiastic about. My kid has scored top AP scores after taking some of the classes and doing a bit of study, even though the classes aren't designed as AP courses. But, one of the biggest benefits has been the ability to take classes with friends and do things like speech or chess that need a group. I don't really understand the point of co-ops where parents have to teach since it doesn't seem like, on average, there would be a benefit over just teaching your kids yourself. I like our model because you can choose to just take 1-2 classes, or many, depending on your preferences.

I have a senior, and what will be helpful depends on what your student wants to study, where they want to go, and what you have access to. One of the schools on my kid's list (of 6 schools) gives automatic free tuition (or heavily reduced tuition) if you have the right test score/GPA combination. The usefulness of AP scores and DE credits also varies. One college accepts all DE credits, while another accepts all AP scores of 4 or higher, and some accept both, and for others it depends on the class, or they only accept a certain number of credits. If your student has 1-2 colleges in mind, then by all means look at what they prefer. If not, then just give your kid a good education and know that they'll be well prepared. If you are looking at competitive colleges, they might want to see an AP approved course. At the ones that we've looked at, when it comes to giving credit they don't care and just look at the score. My kid got 1 4 and 4 5s on AP tests based on classes that kid either took at home or took at co-op. Plans are good, but hold them loosely. My kid was several years 'ahead' of schedule, but we moved slowly through the 2 AoPS programs at home. When we got to calc, kid decided to skip AB and just work on pace to do Calc BC. Then in January kid decided that, after using it since pre-A, they were done with AoPS. The explanation for one topic had frustrated them, and after using other resources to figure it out they decided to just keep using the other books. It worked out fine, but nothing in that math pathway is what I would have planned at the start. As for graduating in December...because of how some of our public schools schedule, we know a few kids who graduate in December. Most often these are kids heading to the local community college or straight to work. Sometimes students do enroll at bigger schools in January, but unless you are an athlete who is trying to train and acclimate ahead of your fall sports schedule, there doesn't seem to be an advantage. Few other new students are starting, so you tend to get put into housing with people who are already established and there isn't the 'welcome freshmen!' set of activities that schools have in the fall to help the new students adjust. By credits, my student could be graduating in a few weeks. We've decided to knock out another college pre-req with DE, let kid take some fun DIY classes at home, have kid do a spouse-designed class that lets kid put in work in the area of their chosen college major, and let kid enjoy their spring extracurriculars. A lot of kid's teammates (on the public school sports team) are in a similar situation. After the stress of doing college applications, kid is looking forward to a bit of calmness, and kid still has some scholarship and honors college applications to do in January.

I recently tried Lume - that stuff that's advertised on TV (but available on amazon). It's weird, because it's not an anti-perspirant so you still sweat, but it changes the pH so that the smelly bacteria don't grow. I still use traditional stuff when doing music performances because...who wants visible sweat stains...but for everyday life I'm finding that it works quite well. it was recommended by a friend who has a teen athlete who is on the spectrum and struggles with showering and daily hygeine tasks. They said that it works really well, and they seem to be right.

Personally, I don't care one way or the other. Students often send a thanks when I send something that is involved, such as having to write several paragraphs to help with something. Sometimes, though I'm just sending a sentence or two and it doesn't feel like it warrants a reply. I'm certainly not keeping track of whether they send a thank you and wouldn't notice if somebody didn't. I do sometimes wonder if non-essential emails make it more likely that I'll lose something that's important because it gets buried, or, if from the same student, threaded in a way that means I don't see a message.

I don't have a solution for the issue of living next door, other than to limit involvement based on what works for your family. In the families that I know, grandparents that are more involved, like seeing the kids daily, have more of a parental vibe at times - they ask about whether school work or chores are done, for instance. Grandparents that see the kids once a month can just be the 'fun grandparents'. If the SIL is there regularly, then it shouldn't be a big deal to do a ton of visiting every time she comes. You can carry on your normal routine and maybe have a meal together. But, this has to be an agreement with your husband. How does he feel about the importance of school and when it should get done, for instance? Even when my in-laws would come stay with us, the kids and I would get up and do school for a few hours, or grandma would help by doing reading with the younger, or checking math while I worked with the older. The goal was to get done so that they could do fun stuff together. It would be really hard if you didn't have that dynamic with them, so you have my sympathies. As for the trip...10 days is a long trip to take every year - it's a lot of vacation time. What if you went for part of it - maybe taking side trips on the way up and the way back so that you spent a few days getting there and a few days getting home and then 5 days in the middle with the bigger group? For full transparency, my family takes a week-long beach trip every year. My husband is fine with going, but he doesn't really love the beach like I do. We do things that we both like (walking on the beach in the morning and evening) and then spend parts of the day separately. I'm on the beach, he's catching up on sleep with long naps, sometimes working, he takes a kid to the batting cages or to play video games, etc. He does need the break in routine, but is never going to like chilling on the beach with a book like I do. We go out to a nice restaurant one night as a couple, which he likes, and he sometimes takes a kid to an all-you-can-eat buffet for lunch, which I don't want to go to. In other words, while the vacation is to some extent a 'my family' thing, he's got things that he enjoys doing. Last year he and a kid went to a minor league baseball game. Everybody is having fun, but we aren't all together all of the time. Would it be possible for you to take the vehicle and take the kids on a 2 day side trip to explore something interesting in the area? We've done the occasional day trip while at the beach, taking the kids to see something interesting nearby. To be fair, we have also taken trips that are more his preference. He likes sightseeing trips, so I plan road trips when we have time. Some are just 2 nights and some are longer, depending on the kids' schedules. And when he's been busy or out of town, I've taken the kids to do things on my own. I know that it would be ideal for the whole family to do something together, but is there something that you could do with just you and the kids - day trips or 1-2 nights? State parks, museums, world's biggest ball of twine, factory tours, a public pool that has lots of slides to play on? Apparently my claim to fame is that if you throw a dart at a map, I can find 2 days worth of stuff to do in the area. 🙂

I think that an event that Is just a parent and kids could be really special. At the same time, if spouse had limited vacation days or budget and chose to spend a good fraction of it without me I could see being frustrated. Some people only get 10 days and end up using several for local stuff with their kids, for instance. Its hard for us to know their circumstances.

I've road tripped across the country a few times and lived in several states and never been in one that I didn't think was beautiful. I don't like cities, but I find them all to be lovely. I have preferences, but they are more about familiarity, I think. And weather-I never think cold is beautiful even when its pretty. 😀

It's nuts. Having to manage this many digital accounts is a big time waster. We had to download an app to set this up, and it took 30 minutes to do it all. It was in many ways easier to get old-school written info in a big envelope instead of a steady trickle of email. Kid liked Huntsville sending a physical letter with preliminary merit info. Parents can read it instead of bugging kid to log in so that we can see stuff. Kid has started a notebook with usernames and passwords. Ugh.

Kiddo was accepted to UA-Huntsville and Auburn so far. Both were about 10 days after the applications were submitted, so we were surprised. UAH has already sent a letter about an automatic scholarship. Auburn has somewhat irritated kid because once accepted you have to set up an email account with the school and all further info is through that email. This school isn't at the top of kid's list, although it could be. Having to check another email address in addition to the portals at each school is irritating kid enough that it may eventually cause kid eliminate the school, which is fine. I don't expect to hear from the other schools until December, but we hadn't expected to hear from these for another 2 weeks so we'll see what happens.

I'd be more worried about a teacher who seems vindictive towards the students than any particular question or method...that's nuts. You can teach biology with books, videos, or other resources, so if it's done well that's OK. But, going faster because kids are doing poorly makes no sense. Extra work to help them learn is fine, but going faster seems intended to make it worse and is the opposite of helping them to learn.

I agree that it's likely something specific to the class. Could it be something about active transport and things getting pumped in and out vs the more passive transport of small molecules? I mention something about bacteria and their ability to pump antibiotics out, for instance. Or something about receptors? When we study transcription, I mention something about cells getting signals through factors that interact with proteins in the membrane, and those are turned into signals to transcribe the genes needed to do whatever (this leaves out a ton of steps that would be covered in a college class). Or maybe something about the cell restructuring during endocytosis/exocytosis? There are lots of possibilities that would be specific to what was talked about in the class. Good luck in figuring out what it is - the answer given seems like a standard reasonable answer.

The 2 public schools at the top of my kid's list will both accept the math, physics with calc, and most (if not all) of the humanities classes. Kid is taking calc 3, having AP'd out of the first to calcs with a 5 on the AP exam. The one private school that kid is considering may not accept all of them, but I think will let you test out once you get there. Kid will have classes from 2 different CCs, but it doesn't seem to matter - the classes are accepted from both. Both colleges are out of state, but I know that classes transfer to the State U and State Tech schools, too. We did check to see which classes met the degree requirements - for instance, kid could DE statistics, but it wasn't the right one for kids chosen degree.

From a friend who does a lot of fostering, I'd expect that different sex kids can't sleep in the same room. Having a day bed or futon in the living room and a cot or trundle in your bedroom for your daughter would be OK in at east some places. It's definitely worth checking to see if that would be OK. I'd understand if that wasn't OK as a permanent arrangement, but for shorter visits...I mean, lots of kids go stay with relatives for part of the summer and sleep all over the place. I slept in a sleeping bag on the floor when I visited my grandparents as a teen. 🙂 I know that friend, who has bunk beds in several rooms, has occasionally had so many temporary foster kids that some were sleeping in the living room on the couch.

I kind of got forced into it by having a baseball kid - due to weather rescheduling, I don't know my schedule for months at a time. Now when anything goes wonky, I summon my baseball Zen. It works great for schedule problems. Less great for people are being difficult. I'm still working on that. I'm ok with expecting time crunches but struggle with expecting people to be unreasonable. Olly stress gummies help. 😀

When my kids were little, I lived far from family with a husband who was gone for work more than at home. My kids were not easy little ones. I remember reading in something, maybe Screwtape Letters, about how people get angry when their expectations aren't met. In other words, if you expect a busy day and then the day is busy, you do OK. If you expect to be sitting on the beach and then have the same busy day unexpectedly, you get mad. That really resonated with me - the idea that often my disgruntlement and stress comes more from unmet expectations than the actual events of the day. I try to hold more loosely to what I expect from each day, especially in times when much of my schedule is outside of my control. It doesn't always make it good, but it helps.

We just sent our last application today. Kid was very specific - engineering, no city environments (kid likes quiet), preferably in the south. Kid is fine with being farther away but said that without a reason there was no sense in making it more complicated than it needed to be. Kid applied to Clemson (both parents went there), Auburn, and VA Tech (we haven't visited the last 2, but they are similar, big school-small town environments), Rose-Hulman (the longest distance, but we visited and kid said that if it were close it would be a no-brainer), UA-Huntsville, and TN Tech (the in-state option). We told kid to apply to UT-Knoxville, too - kid really doesn't like the city-ness of it, but we have a friend whose kid developed a health problem and was able to live at home and go to college while it was resolved so...this is a safety, but not in the usual sense. All applications were submitted over a 10 day period - there were some EA deadlines of Oct. 15 and we figured we might as well get it all done. The major stressor was that I had planned for our umbrella to handle some of the stuff, like the counselor letter, assuming they had something sort of generic that they modified, they said that they would do whatever we needed but it would be better from me. I was fine with doing it, but would have spent the summer on it and instead had to crank it out in under a week. I was frantically writing while spouse edited. All that the umbrella ended up doing was the official transcript. I've learned that there is no fear that quite equates to 'click finalize and submit' fear. For those who have had issues with UA-Huntsville, we use an umbrella but, as I said, I did the school profile and letter in the common app. Apparently the transcript coming from an umbrella made them happy, because I didn't have to jump through any extra hoops. My school profile did say that we had to meet graduation requirements for their school (not that we wouldn't anyway - the only different thing is Bible, which we were fine with doing). We've already gotten an acceptance from UAH. Even though kid has great stats, it's a relief to have an acceptance to somewhere where I know kid could be happy. If you are considering applying to a rolling acceptance place, do it early and relieve a bit of stress. We now have a bit of a lull, with several places using the regular or honors applications that are already done as their financial aid applications. Others say that there is nothing else to do until they've made admissions decisions, so we should have several weeks/months of not needing to worry about any of this.

What's crazy to me about this is that, for 3 of kid's APs (Bio, Engl Lang, and US History) kid took the test after taking the regular co-op classes that everybody else is taking. They are well taught classes that cover the standard material. The teachers tend to grade the students a bit differently depending on their goals/abilities - students aiming for med school and students struggling to get through high school are not held to the same standards because, even as teachers of group classes, we are homeschoolers at heart and are somewhat adapting to the individual students. Not that we have to do much...the med school bound kids do great, but I'll correct minor details because they need to understand them while cheering that other students have mastered the big picture of what is going on. Anyway, kid took regular classes, watched the AP prep videos, took a practice test, and took the test. When I see public school kids taking AP classes, they are crazy work with stupid projects that are clearly not necessary, based on the fact that my kid did none of them and got 5s. So...yeah, I hate that kids are pushed into all APs because 1) they often have way more work than is necessary, 2) they limit the scope and sequence (we only took them when the plan aligned with what we were doing anyway), 3) these classes won't all transfer in a meaningful way (if you get a 5 in Engl. Lang, taking Engl Lit didn't get you out of more classes at most colleges, so kid took one and then moved on to a DE lit class). On a college visit, an admissions counselor told me that kids come in with tons of APs and think they'll graduate more quickly, but often they have something like 2 English, Macro and Microeconomics, World History, Psych, Biology, and AP Stats. Since the engineering sequence is dependent on starting with calc and then taking physics with calc, these students have cut no time off of their 4 years although they'll be able to take a lighter courseload a couple of semesters. They may not even have all of their humanities/social science done because, although the hours add up, their particular college may require (as one on my kid's list does) either US History or Civics/gov, a multicultural perspectives class (which can be fulfilled with a class like British/French/Chinese Literature or many other options), and... Knowing this, kid chose to take AP tests in US History, Calc BC, Engl, and Chem ( and Bio, which may not count for anything, depending on where kid goes to college). Kid is doing DE for physics and calc 3. But, while taking these classes, kid also did an interest-led world history class looking at military tactics through history and a spouse-designed class looking at topics in computer engineering, kid's field of interest. So, the challenging classes were there either because kid was interested or because they will be useful towards achieving college and career goals, not just so that kid can say that we did AP and DE. The whole situation in schools is unfortunate.

I've always had at least 1-2 students (out of a max of 20 kids in the live class) like this every year. Now that I have online students, there are usually 1-2 from that group, too. I've been teaching live classes for 12 years and online for 6, so it predates the pandemic. Sometimes it's parents at the end of their rope - usually boys who just won't do the work. The way that my class is structured, around 1/2 of the points come from work that mostly just needs to be done on time to get full/most credit. The remaining 1/2 is short weekly quizzes and unit tests. What this means is that if you do the work and then get 50% on tests, you'll get a C. I did this on purpose - my class is mostly freshmen and many aren't used to tests. But, shockingly, if they do the work they tend to do reasonably well on tests. I have never had a student turn in the work and not pass. The use of copying and pasting internet answers has gone up a lot in recent years. I think it's something that people underestimate. When I first started teaching, students worked really hard to make sure that they understood the material from class so that they could properly learn it when they got home. Now that my lectures, and many other good lectures, are available online, more students procrastinate, doing nothing in class and thinking that they'll learn it later. But, there isn't time to watch and learn an hour's worth of lecture at midnight before the work is due, so they copy and paste. And that gives them 'correct answers' that are often much more complicated than what they were supposed to learn (I say that electrons are involved in forming chemical bonds, their search pulls up a page about orbital theory), so they get overwhelmed and give up. I think it's a tech effect more than a covid effect, since it's gotten worse every year. People forget that when I first started, 12 years ago, very few students had phones and data plans were even more rare. It has really changed kids' attention spans, understanding of time, and belief that they can't just 'look it up later'. I have to consciously fight this with my younger kid, who thinks I'm a weirdo. I can live with that. 🙂 I recently read an article that said that many teens get over 200 notifications a day and are interrupted constantly. When I talked to my students, some go tech-free for hours at a time while others say that they are interrupted every few minutes. I think there is a lot that we don't understand about how many factors are affecting kids, no matter what their school setting is. I'm coming to think that extracurriculars have the huge benefit of causing kids go go hours at a time without electronics. I ponder on this stuff a lot because it varies so much between the different environments that I am in. At church we have kids who struggle to get through a 15 minute lesson without a phone.

To be fair, very few of the kids take AP, although some of them do DE their senior year (it's free here, so less expensive than taking classes at co-op). The kids that getting high grades in my class are mostly the ones who do their work, turn it in on time, and, if they are confused about something, they ask or look it up on Khan or Crash Course or in their book. The kids who are failing take no notes, type the homework questions into google and copy and paste the first paragraph from wikipedia, or don't turn work in. I have historically had plenty of kids who did reasonable amounts of work but if they didn't get it in class, they didn't put in the effort to find it...those kids tended to get Bs. The low Bs and Cs tended to be students with the mentality of 'just get through high school' - either they had non-college plans, or they were hit and miss on the work, or they'd do it but not put a ton of effort in. I don't have judgement about what path kids take - I totally understand the 'A C is good enough to graduate' mentality. But, I'm flummoxed by people paying for classes and then their kids not doing enough to pass. It's always happened, usually when the kids have anxiety or something like that, but now there is more 'no oversight' so that parents seem unaware of the fact that their kids are doing nothing unless I contact them. And, having had parents say things like 'I signed them up and want them to come but we aren't going to do the work' I'm hesitant to do that because the parents don't owe me an explanation of how my class fits their education goals. You never know - some don't want to be bothered and others get upset if you don't contact them because they don't check their kids grades/work all semester. Edited to add: My own kid, a senior, took 5 APs and will have several DE classes from junior/senior year. This is absolutely appropriate for this kid, but it is definitely an outlier. My younger kid will likely not have as many, if any, AP classes. This kid doesn't like school so if there is DE it will be with the goal of helping kid get through college more quickly. Unlike my older, it will not be for the purpose of adding appropriate challenge. Younger is capable, but won't want to do more challenge just because it's interesting!

What I'm seeing is that there are more kids at the extremes. When I teach, I have more grades of 97+ and more failing grades, with almost no B/C students. I've got kids who insist that they don't understand math at all and kids taking DE calc. And, sometimes you just get an unusual group. Our co-op has an exceptional group of seniors Teachers have been saying for years that they are really going to miss this group. Behind them...we have a kid who left the co-op to do DE because there were no other peers willing to do the work - for the first time, we aren't offering a couple of our academic classes because there aren't any students who will put in the effort to do them. The courses will rotate back in a year or 2, I'd expect. There was a super strong group, then a super not-going-to-work group, and then there is a 'typical' group coming up behind them. It's not a covid thing - these kids have been like this since they were young. So, you could just have a weird group - I hope that's the case.

I tend to think that the only thing that will make life better for kids is for adults to create more communities for kids and families to be a part of. Every activity that a kid or family member participates in give the kid a chance to be seen by more people who can talk to them. Participation in sports means that they get at least a sports physical. Youth from the neighborhood wander to our church to participate in youth events even though we've never met their parents. They are known by the adults who volunteer with the group. There are people who simultaneously complain that homeschoolers need to be socialized and supervised while fighting against them participating in the marching band or their teams competing in academic and athletic competitions. This makes no sense. We are so fortunate to be in an environment where people seem to see homeschooling as just another education option, no stranger than if we sent our kids to the public, private, or charter schools available in our town. The public school principals and athletic directors have been more than willing to jump through the necessary hoops to let homeschoolers participate to whatever extent the regulating agencies allow. Organizations and people who offer lessons have homeschool classes during the day and create places where homeschooled kids have long-term friendships and a great social experience in addition to doing the activity and also welcome homeschooled kids to their afterschool classes. I'll admit that nobody in these cases is checking for academic progress, but there is plenty of opportunity to see that the kids are functional and not neglected. Adults talk to the kids and can tell that they have at least some level of proficiency in the world. Based on what I see with kids in public schools, that's as much as many of the kids there are getting. I don't know what could possibly catch all people who mistreat and neglect kids, and I'd be concerned that more supervision of homeschoolers would drive some people to be secretive. How would anybody find people who choose to live 'off the grid', not in the homesteading way, but in the 'avoid interacting with people so that we can mistreat our kids' way? But, with community involvement, there is a bigger chance that another parent asks if things are OK, or 2 moms discuss what their kid is doing in math class and they figure out that their kid is behind or ahead. I know that some people never get involved in anything, but considering that many abusers send their kid to school it wouldn't surprise me that they'd take their kid to ball or youth group if it's free/cheap. Standardized testing is fine, but since it's never going to be aligned with what is being taught in a particular homeschool it is only so useful. I remember one of my kids taking a test at their umbrella school and the supervisor having to explain that 6*7 is the same as 6x7. They probably aren't supposed to do that, but they (correctly) decided that it was the right way to actually test what math the kids knew. Another year, my kid came out asking about a science question involving the purpose in putting plastic wrap over young plants. Kid had immediately eliminated the correct answer, which had to do with preventing water evaporation, because in our area spring is often so wet that we are concerned about root rot and seeds washing away, so clearly preventing water from evaporating wasn't something that was a typical part of the process. In other words, my kid's knowledge, limited but also real world, didn't align with the theoretical teaching about planting in pots.

One other thing to consider as you try to find the right balance...years ago I told my kids that if they wanted to do the outside the house things that they were doing, then, especially when Dad was gone, we all needed to work together to make it happen. We talked about the fact that my responsibility was to make sure that they were clean, fed, clothed, housed, and educated. Everything else was extra, and absolutely did not have to happen, and couldn't happen if I couldn't manage the main things with bandwidth the spare. We did not leave for their activity until their routine chores and school work were done. If the activity was during the day, then certain things needed to be done before we left, or promptly when we got home or we couldn't do the next day's thing. My rule-follower didn't really need this and would generally do whatever I asked just because I asked. My other child has missed many sessions of activities over the years, and at times we've limited involvement in team activities because we didn't feel like kid could be a reliable teammate. But, over time, even thought it takes more managing, we have made progress on kid getting their work done on time, etc. I also give the kids the responsibility for managing their own stuff for their activity. I'll ask if they have their gear and may even mention 'do you have your hat/belt/easy to forget stuff?' but I don't chase it down for them. If their uniform isn't in the laundry basket, it doesn't get washed. Or they can wash it themselves. I tell them that, while there are few things that I enjoy more than watching them do something that they love, it isn't my responsibility to manage the stuff - it isn't my activity. I don't do it perfectly, and it only works as long as you are willing to let them miss the thing. You can't care more than they do or you'll give in. But, if you care more than they do, then you know that the activity can be dropped, or they can take a break.