... for a high student to complete TWO courses of high school studies simultaneously, with minimal "double dipping" (as there would presumably be some overlapping content or maybe even entire courses overlapping, but the student would still get tested with each program according to its bibliography), with two different institutions / online / umbrella arrangements? Do things change if the high school programs are associated with different countries, in different languages, and the student wants to keep both options open? Is it problematic to be registered within one school system and fulfill its requirements, while at the same time belong to another accredited online diploma program or umbrella? Are there any documents which regulate this and explicitly state that a student can or cannot belong to two distinct courses of study at the same time? Would one even be required to inform each institution and program of the fact they belong to another one too? I am not interested in the discussion of why on Earth would one go that route, I am only interested in whether it is legally problematic or no. Thank you in advance. :)

But it says "no nothing, no exceptions"... I thought that covered it all! (Not that one still does not get solicitors, though.)

I know... Sort of, "I know you put this sign, BUT..." :glare: If it occurs frequently, you may wish to try this one. :tongue_smilie:

For prevention, put this on your door. ;)

:iagree: This was probably linked at some point, the Kansas City experiment is mentioned, too. (Disregard the emphasis on testing in the video and focus on the money side of the story.)

Consider yourself lucky for having had a teacher with such a clarity of insight into what is good literature. ;) In Heaven-on-Earth we typically study that work over three years. Yep, you read that correctly. Three YEARS.

Yep.

If I have an intermittent capacity of doing something, I simply cannot accept that I do not have that capacity. We are not talking big time frame oscillations (e.g. "I can do something at 20, but not at 40" kind of thing), but a capacity that fairly regularly manifests itself in situations in which things "matter" more, while those situations in which it does not manifests itself cannot be boiled down to anything obviously drastically different (to something like "I can do something at 8 AM, but cannot do it at 8 PM, because meanwhile I had not eaten nor drank and have undergone huge physical and emotional distress, so by 8 PM I am barely preventing myself from fainting, let alone focusing actively on something" kind of thing). The only way I can describe it is lack of will to actually do it, even if there is vague volition present - and I am far from sure that that will cannot be trained and tamed, because I see people making drastic choices and changing their modus operandi about things all. the. time. It *must* be possible on some level, even if I fully accept that people differ here too and not everyone has an equal degree of self-control, so for some people it may be a lot harder than for others. But there we go back to my initial point: hard does not equal impossible. Doing hard things is hard, but very possible. Just like some people have to study more and some have to study less for the same exam, or some people have to practice more and some have to practice less - same thing here. Provided there is no genuine delusion about time involved, and one can arrange one's life to minimally accomodate this tendency, I simply do not see why it would not be possible to gradually train oneself to overcome much of this. It seems to me that to claim that those intermittent moments are in NO way under the subject's control is a bit excessive. My synesthesia is like that: intermittent, and I cannot "predict" when those will happen, I cannot turn it off and turn it on by the power of free will alone. But with time, if I manage to "overcompensate" in moments that matter and still somehow change what I do based on my inner attitude about it, that fact itself contradicts the theory that I cannot willfully guide that tendency, because there is obvious control involved. That is at least how it looks to me. :confused:

First time I hear about it. Totally surprised now. It makes sense from the business standpoint, but I never thought there was no actual obligation to pay, regardless. I always thought that if people are told they do not have to pay, it was the company being nice to them, rather than a real absence of a duty to pay - I thought that the default situation was that you were responsible for the items you broke, even if accidentally. Is it like this everywhere or only at some places?

The less you make it an issue, the less of an issue it will be. :) Studying multiple foreign languages at the same time is more of a rule than an exception in most of the world. Kids are fine. Occasional awkward situations occur with having troubles to recall the right word or such, but no big problems for most kids. Continue to do what you are doing for each language according to your plan, they will be fine.

But it may be a simple stamina issue, no? I could not run a marathon right now. I could probably not even run a few hundred meters well right now. But, I start with what I can and little by little I expand my comfort zone. Same as with any other issues that matters to you and you prove capable of doing - you keep overcoming things. So you fail, and you keep trying and you keep knowing somewhere deep down that you can do it because you have proven capable of doing it. It is a process, it does not happen overnight. But for many people, little by little, issues they have can be reasonably overcome by consistent application, in spite of the frustration and failures it will necessarily involve.

Some thoughts: 1. Yes, kids can have real attitude problems and not every complaint is to be taken very "seriously". Obviously, it does take knowing your children to estimate when to take them seriously and when not. Personally, I have saved myself lots of nerves by not taking them seriously at all times. I do not have criers, but they had their moments of whining, especially at those ages. 2. If she is capable of doing it, it is not too hard for her, but it may be boring as in repetitive. Sometimes things get a lot easier when you, ironically, move up a level rather than down when they "struggle" or complain. 3. Can you keep those history narrations, but use them more rarely? I sometimes find it more effective than working on a skill all the time. Also, I generally find - a personal note here - that younger students write too much rather than too little, and although I am in favor of the incremental writing approach, I think it can easily be "overdone". Maybe she needs to be doing it, but more rarely, with a mix of other methods, sometimes requiring oral summaries rather than written ones? 4. If it is purely an attitude thing and none of the above helps and they still whine for no reason, time to practice stocisim as you refuse to move on until they do it. I recommend reciting your favorite poems in your mind as you sip tea and ignore their sighs and nasty looks at you while they are doing it right. there. in front of you.

Are you serious? :confused: How come?

No, it does not sound like a reasonable request to me. Had your toddler put it in his mouth or destroyed in some way, then yes, but simply for holding it? No.

The library probably tracks her books, doesn't it? I would look into ways to formalize it. Look at what she read, and look whether there are things you could use as a spine retroactively (:D) to arrange those readings in a sort of a meaningful unit. And then with that bibliography, you can see whether there are some exams available which pretty much cover it, or take the route of independent examination - sorry if it is problematic for you. Maybe not local but online? Not sure about the possible options, I only have experience with IRL examinations of the kind. Or, perhaps, if you are not "against" such a thing (I am not sure how I stand here, just throwing ideas out for you), you can award a credit without a grade, with the bibliography list, and treat it as a P/F subject with some sort of alternative project (such as a presentation or something)?

True. My observations are in line with this too.

You did the right thing in protecting your daughter from violence. The boy's mother sounds negligient, honestly.

The ESL thing is an excuse. English is not even my second language (third, fourth... depending on how you count) and I was fully functionally literate in it before I ever set foot or lived in an anglophone country. English was not a spoken language in my family, I never attended an international school and I lived in a country notorious for the fact that its high school kids are more proficient in Latin than in English (a trend that has been sadly reversing lately), in which all the TV programs and movies were dubbed and there was no such thing back then as casually running into English all the time. Yet I knew English, and many other kids knew English well enough to apply for and attend US/UK universities after high school. Many educated Europeans speak English so well that you basically cannot tell them apart from native speakers in writing, it is only their accents that betray them, and most of them have never lived in an English-speaking environment. Whenever I hear ESLs being blamed for low tests scores, I chuckle, because I recall those cases and know that it cannot be reason behind it. ESL instruction in the US is often lacking because instruction as such is often lacking - it is not specifically a problem of children who have to learn to function in a different language. It may be difficult during the first year, but after two to three years, the "ESL factor" of that student should be completely erased. If they are not on par with native speakers after that time, while living in the country and *being educated in the language* (the crucial factor, as if you live in the country, but conduct all of your business in another language, it does not mean much - ask me how I know), something is seriously wrong.

I have paid some ridiculous fines in the past too, so I sympathize with the problem. Return the books / CDs right away, because the longer you have them, the bills go up. Ask them if you can return them but without paying the fine right now. They will probably grudgingly agree, so only meanwhile you will not be able to use the library. (By the way, some smart libraries have altogether got rid of fines and simply do not allow you to use them until you bring back all the materials you have, and ironically, people DO that and they do not have more problems with excessive lateness or losing their materials than other libraries.) Also, I second the online or phone renewal options if they have those.

Wikipedia is acceptable and okay as a starting point when researching something. Lots of inner connections and sometimes useful external links. Not bad. BUT, it ought not be cited in papers, since one can only cite the material of "fixed" and known authors. So, signed articles by people with some kind of credentials are okay to cite, but not Wikipedia (nor general printed enyclopaediae, for that matter).

I pronounce it like , at 3 minutes and 27-28 seconds. Except that I am more dynamic when I talk. :lol:

This is a problem. Common standards should be such that an average child with an average effort gets an average grade, i.e. a C. It would take a HUGE, HUGE shift in the mentality which has been "adjusted for inflation" of grades in the past decades to allow for that correction and go back to normal, reasonable grades which actually mean something. The standards are modeled by the average typically, but the average meaning exactly what I wrote above - an average child should not be getting As as his default grades for a reasonable effort. And yes, it means that there are children who would never be promoted past certain stage. But it is what it is. Realistic. I think a movement towards core standards in core areas is a very good idea, but unfortunately, I am far from sure it would ever be recognized and accepted as such. Either you are going to end up with standards vague enough to be manipulated at one's will, either it will not pass due to PC concerns. I skimmed the link provided in the OP. Math is more concrete, but English is still quite vague in my eyes, and I am not sure I would agree that all of it is "as it should be" (frankly? some of the English language standards are what I encountered as ESL standards in some of those grades... it cannot possibly be that you are expecting of your children the level of literacy and grammatical distinction which is expected of children who never set foot in an anglophone country, these must be reconsidered or better exemplified and specified what is meant). However, as an *idea* itself that there should be some common ground rather than everyone doing their own thing, and some minimum ensured to all and clearly defined, I think it was about time.

Have her formally examined by somebody else. The person writes a comprehensive exam, grades it, does the oral exam follow-up, then issues the grade and signs it. You keep the test as your documentation, but you also have their written statement. It should not be too difficult to find a local expert in the field and request a private examination based on this and that bibliography (and then you submit the list of works your DD has read, what she used as a spine, etc.). You may even form a commission that way, and some institutions might allow you do to it through them, but you must ask about this specifically in advance.

:iagree: Thanks for verbalizing it, I often marvel at those cultural differences too.

A pretty good explanation. :) I do not have problems with emotions, empathy as such, with recognizing other people's emotional states (IRL, as online it is typically close to impossible), feeling for others, OR adjusting my reactions and what I do / say based on other people's perceived emotional states (which is why the way I talk on the boards is often *not* representative of how I would talk IRL, since here I do not have those other factors, just an abstraction of a situation). Her parents shared that information, and general information on her lifestyle. I am not ruling out an option that there are issues even they do not know of, because she is legally an adult. But if they are asking around for advice from anyone even tangentially related to them, you can imagine that it worries them. It is also because of this why I know that she has the options, time, and knowledge to change. She just does not do it, which in my mind translates to the following options: (i) either she does not recognize the problem (highly unlikely, being an outlier in a population she circles around for her age), (ii) either she does not recognize it as a problem (highly unlikely too, her parents hinted at something in that direction too), (iii) there are underlying physiological factors which make it impossible, (iv)she does not want to change, because if she wanted, she would already be on her way of accomplishing this - and thus my question, what kind of psychology blocks a person provided (i) and (ii) and absence of (iii). Her lifestyle seems to be supporting it, I do not think it is all fundamentally physiological. I did gain weight after kids, major life stresses and just getting older, getting from the low end to a normal range, but I can see very clearly which behaviors make me gain or lose weight, so in my mind, if I see that connection and have different kinds of options and still go with this option as opposed to the other ones, it is a consciously self-destructive choice. I do not think I ever had the *physiology* of a person who genuinely cannot gain weight, despite having been borderline underweight most of my life, but I certainly had a lifestyle (physically active if constantly hurried around, not caring to eat many times even if hungry so skipping meals, a culture of small portions and "real food", etc.) and, in some periods, a psychology of a person who wants to be underweight. While I do tend to feel full after comparatively small portions, because I am *used* to it (American portions are just overwhelming to me), I am also okay with the slight discomfort of being hungry if I have other priorities at the moment. I am not sure I ever experienced a feeling that I *must* eat right now, for example. My middle daughter, who is the fattest person in our immediate family (still within the normal range), is more along those lines, but she had general issues with self-restraint as a child, needing to have good habits because she is a "person of a habit" (difficult to function outside her habits), distractability, grazing when bored, problems with delayed gratification as a child, etc. My eldest daughter, on the other hand, is like me, for the good and for the bad :glare:, she does not assimilate habits so deeply so she finds it easier to break off her functioning patterns, does not care particularly about food, and it creeps me out if I notice her playing the same control games that I did when I was her age and older, and rarely "loses it" (she has a temperament just like I do, but this is a separate issue). So even within my family, I see two different forms of psychological functioning which affect the relationship with food too. With one child I have to keep an eye that she eats enough, with the other child I have to occasionally keep an eye that she does not take it overboard. If I do a thought experiment, I can imagine my middle daughter in another family overweight, if I add other factors which are currently absent (culture of big portions, more processed food, etc.). My eldest though, I cannot, but I doubt it is for physiological reasons - I think her psychological functioning is simply such that if she had a problem of those proportions, she would find it relatively easy to break off her patterns of functioning and establish new ones. Now, I am NOT trying to establish this as a general pattern. These are simply insights into my own family. But I was wondering if there were resources which deal especially with this: what type of personal disposition, other than in the fundamental physiological sense, bends itself to some types of problems with food, and in this case, to obesity, if we can reasonably eliminate other factors, or say that even with those factors, there must be a strong disposition which cannot be reduced to physiology only. I ask questions such as, is it a generalized problem of internalizing habits too strongly, so finding oneself less capable of breaking off bad habits than other people? Is it a problem of needing instant gratification and finding it hard to function with long-term goals in one's mind, which would prevent one from committing to a lifestyle which would not bear results right away, but only with time bring about the dissolution of these problems? Are those control issues, being overwhelmed by life and unpredictability (especially in those early years of adulthood, with all the problems of settling about a life one wishes), so to exercise control in things like food? Is it a control or a lack of control that is at stake here? etc. Those were the kind of questions I was hoping to get some insight into. As far as acceptance is concerned, I accept her. :) I can (emotionally, with my heart) accept and love a person who does not make sense to me (cognitively, how they function and what motivates them). I have never asked her about this, all of this is strictly in my mind. We are not close, so this is one of the topics I would never open myself. It does worry me, though, because I do not think this is a case of parental exaggeration. Even if I can or ought do nothing, I was simply interested in trying to understand it - my attempt at understanding, even if it clashes with how I typically reason, does not affect my warmth and love towards the person.