Wow, it sounds like you have your hands full there! First of all, I would say that alot of what you described with your ds reminds me of my oldest ds who is also awaiting dx for Aspergers. Whatever the case I know within my heart, and have for years, that he is on the spectrum. From what you are telling it sounds like your son is really doing well at home and you are doing all the things any parent would do to help him excel. That's wonderful. I would agree it sounds like your dn has some "stuff" going on. You didn't mention if he is a bad influence on your kids, if you are just worn out dealing with him or just a loving family member who is willing to keep it up but doesn't know what else to do. If you are willing to continue schooling him you can pursue some discussions with the parents. Let's assume that he has ADHD, maybe sensory processing disorder, maybe dyslexia. What would you want his parents to do that you have any chance of expecting? Medication would probably settle him down a bit and help him to focus more - is that something you would suggest/want? From what you are saying about his family *if* they agreed to get him evaluated and he was found to have these things then they might go for meds. Before you pursue that line of questioning you need to think about whether you would even want that. From a somewhat similar BTDT situation with providing daycare for a neighbors child I finally had to make a decision to not watch my neighbor's child anymore - it was just too painful to see a child who wasn't well cared for and the parents thought it was all just fine (sleeping on the floor in front of the tv every night because that's just where he fell asleep, terrible chronic constipation but eating junk food all the time, etc...) That said, if the child had been a family member I may have made a different decision wanting what was best for the child in the long run regardless of the difficulty to me. In the case of your nephew you have to consider what the alternatives will be. Either they make some changes or they put him back in public school. I think alot depends on the relationship you have with the parents, can you start with some discussions about him needing more sleep and better food? In reality those things would probably help his symptoms more than anything else. Some options: you can feed him better food at your home, maybe get them to agree to feed him a little better during the school week? Or maybe just let you feed him breakfast and lunch so at least you aren't dealing with additives/food dye reactions, etc..during the school day? At his age you can still offer recess time and some quiet nap time in the later morning so he is getting more rest. For the wigglies I use an inflatable wiggle cushion in their chair. We also have a indoor minitrampoline for the kids to jump on, I bought them some hand manipulatives for xmas, I have the kids go walk the dog in the morning before we do long sit down types of things like math, and generally encourage them to get up and move around when needed. It really does help. I do brushing at home with both my boys, you might want to try that as well (can't hurt!). I can imagine how frustrating it is to be succeeding so well with your kids and wanting to do more for your dn. Hopefully you can communicate with his parents and get them on board. Only you know what you are willing to do without their support and buy-in.

Three boys here. I potty trained my oldest when I was 5 months pregnant with my middle son, ds was almost 3. We used the "Potty Training in a Day" book/method and it worked that day. Within 3 days he was trained for #2 also. In hindsight I can say that my oldest son is most interested in pleasing and wants us to be happy with him. My second son trained at around 3 years old using the same method but continued having resistance and accidents with #2 until he was 3.5 even though he was at part-time school and pottying with other kids during the day. I started my youngest son at around 18 months by introducing the potty. He sat on it once or twice and may have even peed in it then refused outright to sit on it again (by refuse I mean running away yelling "no, no!" and shaking his head, nothing worked to calm him). We tried again at 2.5 and had no success at all. At three I tried really focused Potty Training in a Day cold turkey and found myself with just alot of messes to clean up. He would wear dirty soiled underwear for hours if you let him. :( With this child he was just extremely strong-willed, much more so than my other two boys. Trying to force him to do something basically was like declaring war to him. He doesn't really care what we want him to do most of the time - it's his way or nothing (in his mind). I consider myself fairly strict and require compliance in areas where safety or family need is an issue. There are some things you can force someone to do, for instance wear a seatbelt, put on clothes (though they can take them off), sit in a chair...but you can't force someone to toilet or eat. So finally I put up the Thomas the Train reward chart in the bathroom (yes, had been tried many times before), showed him the rewards and told him that when he was ready he could use the potty and earn the rewards. In the meantime I worked at making him more responsible for cleaning up (some days it was putting his own pullups in the garbage, others he would run around naked and have to clean up any messes - and yes we have whole house carpet - I'm hoping to get it replaced now!) Essentially I had to remove any personal emotion from the process and let it be his thing - not my accomplishment or failure. Even reminders from me set up resistance. It took several months of two steps forward, one step back; some days of total regression. Suddenly a couple of months ago (maybe 10 weeks now?) he started going on his own regularly. We occasionally have nighttime accidents and once or twice he had an accident while we were out. I still carry a backup pair of pants and underwear and a pullup in case of sheer emergency but otherwise he is totally in charge of his own toileting - and he turns 4 on the 19th. Hang in there - it will happen!!

It really sounds like your mom feels guilty about something or that she sees your sister as the needy one (info in the post make it seem this way - has sis always had mental health issues?). As a parent sometimes we have to do more for our needier children and it isn't always fair. For instance I pulled my asd kid out of public school months before I considered bringing my second son home - the older son needed it more. But I can imagine one day the middle son asking why he didn't get to come home at the same time. When you were younger sounds like mom got in the habit of giving to your sis to try to make up for the issues your sis has. In the case of the coat and wedding, yeah, there does seem to be an unnecessarily wide margin between what you manage with and luxuries for ds. I would do some thinking about what exactly you are feeling and what you think would be the best outcome before approaching your mom about this. This has been going on a long time, have you talked to your mom about this before? It really seems like she should do some work on this issue of enabling your sister, it isn't in sis' best interest. And if you have a real relationship with your mom it is reasonable that you let her know you feel like she shows favoritism to your sister and always has. This is a tough situation, the hard part is that if you talk to mom you have to be prepared that she may not agree with you and may even vehemently deny the situation. You need to know what your reasoned response will be to whatever she says/does and be free to take care of yourself in this situation.

I use Math U See (MUS) for my two visual learners on the spectrum. I have found the blocks, along with the dvd instruction, to be really helpful for both kids. Also the MUS workbooks are all black and white with lots of white space and no distractions. Very helpful here. For LA we are using WWE and FLL, I like the way it is broken into small chunks of information. I observed a similar inability in my boys to summarize/retell stories but they are getting better with age.

:lurk5: I am looking at this for my 2nd grader (dyslexic, bad speller) and to use with my upcoming 4 year old. Interested to see replies!

Glad you found something so wonderful for your family. Isn't it great to see the kids really get into it and get it?! We use MUS as well here and I have been constantly impressed by how much the kids seem to be learning from such simple little worksheets. :)

I would recommend the older Newberry Award winning books that focus on more old-fashioned values and stories of courage and family. One simple way is to go to Sonlight and check out their booklists.

I wanted to chime in here, my MIL seemed to never believe that something was actually wrong with my oldest ds, 11, (ADHD, undiagnosed Aspie and SPD) but that it must be my parenting. One day I let her take my two older boys to a local international fair. When she came home she was a believer. She says he was doing ok, she got him some icecream but he didn't want to go up to the crowd that was around the icecream man. And then afterward started to melt down and cried. This was a 10.5 year old boy. She was shocked and I think started to understand a little bit more about how our daily life is. I limit his exposure to these kinds of situations because I know the result. Heck, I don't do well in crowds either! IMO parents who aren't supportive of their kids and grandkids get only the barest welcome in my house. I hope it all worked out ok!

We are nerdy too, I actually think he's cute! :lol:

:iagree: We have had much the same experience. This is our first year on Latin and we are on Primer A. We watch the DVD together on Monday, Primer A has an ongoing skit called "How the West was Unus" and my 11 year old thinks it's funny and really looks forward to it. Some of the chants with the real students aren't perfect but, heck, they look and act like real kids so at least you can relate to them. The teacher does write on a white board but I think he is pleasant and engaging and best of all the lessons are really quite short. I couldn't watch him talk for half an hour but usually it's less than 10 minutes and the white board at least gives a visual and he explains cases. I'm not a grammar or language pro so I'm grateful to have someone else explain it.

My children have both demonstrated exactly those kinds of behaviors, I don't think it's uncommon. After you read the story do you ask any discussion questions? The point of the questions is to not spoonfed them the answers but to help provide a framework for what happened first, next, and last in their brains. This is a learned skill for most young children. If you are doing the discussion/recall questions after the reading and she still can't repeat back to you any narration (in the case of my 7 year old with history and with his WWE I ask him to tell me *one* thing he can remember, sometimes I get one sometimes three or more depending on his interest level in the story) then I would consider adding in some kind of hands on (drawing, coloring, playdoh) to go along with the story - she may be a very visual/tactile learner and need more stimulation. The point of the narration as I understand it is to expand the student's working memory/recall and grasp of verbal instruction.

:iagree: I think that this is better than any test or review. Not only does it demonstrate mastery, it is creative and would look great in her portfolio ;)

:iagree: Great suggestions up here! We use MUS as well because both of my boys seem to really benefit from the visual-spatial and handson. With MUS once you "get it" and don't need the hands on you can just answer the questions but any time there is a question (for instance my 7 year old struggling with 13-7) we can pull out the blocks and do it physically. The DVD lessons are also short and very simple, most kids seem to like the teacher Mr Deeme.

:iagree: I feel like my son has been blossoming at home. He now volunteers to go out shopping with my partially disabled mother because he wants to help her. He doesn't insist on staying home when the family goes out. My in-laws took him out to dinner for his birthday and just raved on how polite he was to the waitress and what great manners he had. Just this fall (about a year since he left ps) I found a social skills group at a local center. The first group was a disaster, older boys who liked sports and he had nothing in common with. He was concerned about being picked on and bullied (though that wouldn't have been allowed - this is a very controlled setting). We talked with the counselor and decided to try a group where he is the oldest child. He seems to fit in very well (especially emotionally) with these kids and after the first class told me that it was "like heaven". This is only once a week and again in a small and controlled setting. He didn't ever do well in Cub Scouts and martial arts - he was always overwhelmed and unsure of what to do with himself, just lost.

My oldest is an undiagnosed Aspie - officially he has ADHD and social skills delays along with fine motor delays, sensory processing disorder and alot of problems organizing himself, i.e. executive skills. Along with that he is highly intelligent, a natural speller and reads (fiction) at an 8th grade level or better. I pulled him out of ps last fall due to a combination of teasing and his inability to function and follow directions in the way his teacher was giving them. He was coming home with hours of homework every night because he just couldn't keep up with her, mostly along the lines of he didn't know what she wanted exactly and so would get stuck and not do anything. He would get in trouble for not paying attention when he asked for help. After I spoke with her (repeatedly) about his issues she had another student be his "helper" - you can imagine how well that worked. Because he previously was doing so well in school (due to natural reading ability and high IQ) he never qualified for an IEP and the teacher didn't have to do anything extra for him. After weeks of regular phone calls from school and notes of concern from the teacher I also realized that he was getting angrier and more frustrated and wasn't the sweet child that he had always been. I felt like his spirit was being crushed. Since that day he hasn't been back to public school. This year we are using WWE3 and FLL4, along with a unit of IEW (ancient history based to go along with the history we are doing). For us this combination has been good. He struggles with narrations and giving a short summary of anything (he tends to ramble on and on) but through practice is doing much better. The summarizing skill is not natural for an Aspie and I'm so glad to have this tool to work on that with him. Dictation is also hard for him, he tends to insert lots of descriptive, colorful words into dictations that I have to point out - thinking about it he is a natural for the IEW method. lol I enjoy doing a lesson of IEW every few weeks because it's so different from WWE and I like that it gives a structured way of outlining (the KWO). He isn't crazy about it, he gets overwhelmed, but when I really break it down into steps and sometimes have him dictate to me what he wants to say (so he isn't having to deal with the physical act of writing himself) he does very well. He isn't good at sorting out information on his own. For his history (we are using SotW and History Odyssey 2) he really needs me to sit with him, discuss the question then prompt him on what we should underline in our Kingfisher to use as answers for the questions. I have to model alot and encourage alot but I'm really proud of how well he works for me most days. I have to add in that I mix up his lessons and encourage jumping on the indoor trampoline, playing with playdoh and various other things to help with his sensory issues (so common with Aspies). I make a weekly schedule that I print out for both boys (my middle son has ADHD and is dyslexic as well) that breaks down their daily assignments per subject. At a glance he can see what he has to do each day and checks it off as he goes. I have had to build in a lot of that kind of structure because he doesn't have any on his own. As a note, we tried Classical Writing at the beginning of the year and it just wasn't for us. I loved the idea of following the progymnasta but I think the wide range of skill deficits and areas of giftedness made that program a tough fit for my oldest. I may try it again with my middle son. Good luck with finding the right fit for your Aspie!

:iagree: I have three boys at home, the older two are actively being homeschooled, both have learning disabilities - ADHD, possibly Autism Spectrum and definitely dyslexia on my middle son. I have to sit right next to them and work with them to get them through anything. The way I have managed is we start off the morning as a group with Bible and history read aloud that I read and we discuss out loud. I take turns asking the children leveled questions (harder for the older, easier recall for the younger), then my younger does a narration out loud to me (I write it, fine motor skill deficits for both). For my older I am using History Odyssey 2 and he will answer the questions and fill out the summary part but with alot of resistance. It usually requires me to sit next to him and we take turns reading the spine text outloud while I solicit him for where I should underline to answer the questions. My middle is either doing playdoh, blocks, related coloring page or taking recess during this one on one time. Next I have to split them and I have them each take separate "recess" while I work one on one to do math (MUS they watch the video and do the workbook with my oversight), Latin (video/chanting I do with each), and Language Arts. I'm using WWE and FLL (level appropriate) and I love that neither requires alot of writing. What I don't like is that it is very instructor intensive but I think any program with my boys would be that way. We keep our lessons short, sweet and to the point. We do lots of auditory work, memorizing short poems that I read aloud and we practice daily. The Latin songs and chants are very interactive and at the lower level quite fun, my latin program includes learning derivatives so that is our vocabulary and language study as well. With my two (plus a pre-k age running around) we do logic twice/week (one page from a workbook - yes I have to be right there), handwriting (Handwriting Without Tears and I got ReadyWrite for stylus skills plus the calculadder review sheets), music/composers study (online and a book with a CD, plus pulling up free stuff from Youtube), Artistic Pursuits (with the poor fine motor stuff they don't like art and this falls to the wayside most weeks) and I'm really trying to squeeze science in there more often. Some weeks I am overwhelmed and it's really hard to get going. I'm working to just focus on the basics (my 5th grader is doing Gamma/3rd grade Math U See because he just didn't have his multiplication tables) and making sure that we do reading. It stinks being the one who has to do most of the reading and even the writing but it does encourage me to keep the lessons short and to the point. As for math I am grateful for MUS, even though I'm pretty good at math I am glad to have someone else to teach the principles and the boys enjoy getting to watch the short lessons. We take regularly planned mental/physical breaks, I do brushing (per PT) on their hands and arms to stimulate, and let them sometimes play with playdough and other things with their hands while we discuss history/bible etc. This is my first year homeschooling my kids and I have had to adjust my ideas and schedule, sometimes on a daily basis! Still, I know they are getting more one on one from me than they would at public school and I really know and care where they are in their skills. I am capable of taking a week or two or even a semester or more to remediate the key skills that they have to have to succeed. We start school around 9am (we are a late hours kinda family) and my 7 yr old son is usually done by noon. After lunch I usually have under an hour left to finish up with my elder son. I can see that you have 4 kids you are teaching so I can see it would take longer. The 6 year old should really just focus on learning to read and count, some handwriting, more crafts (coloring, cutting, pasting, sorting, etc.). Have him listen to read alouds you do with the other kids and lots of playing with legos, playdoh, swinging, learn to ride a bike, etc... The two older (10 and 12) should be grouped together for as much as possible, sometimes maybe the 8 and 10 year old grouped depending on their relative strengths and weaknesses. Make this is easy and simple for yourself as possible - one person can only do so much! My language arts with my 11 year old has him narrating to me most days, this is taking one skill step at a time and not overburdening him with combining thinking up what to say and writing it down at the same time. This kind of program might be a real win for you. My house is a wreck, usually these days, but I keep reminding myself that a clean house will not guarantee happy and successful lives for my kids, my time and attention to their education will. :P At the same time several times a week my kids are told that they won't get any lunch until their bedrooms are picked up, beds made, etc and later that day no dinner until the toys and accumulated detritus is cleaned out of the living room. I make them all work together on the big stuff and when the older kids complain that they didn't make the mess I point out that I cleaned up for them when they were little so now it's their turn! hehehe Big hugs and keep coming back here for encouragement and ideas! Being a parent who cares and is deeply invested in your kids is a hard job but the most important job in the world.

I think it's more likely that either a) they may not have been out when the author's were writing that section of the book or b)the authors don't have the time, resources, etc to review every latin program out there. Just because they aren't listed specifically wouldn't rule them out IMHO. Galore Park wasn't mentioned either but that doesn't mean it isn't a good program.

Thanks for all the replies! We are using a HWT printing book but I don't have the TM, maybe I need to look into that. I've been thinking about starting him on HWT Cursive because of how cursive makes it impossible to flip the letters.

MoH uses SotW as one of it's primary resources. It is very Young Earth focused and that made it not a fit for my family. I like the idea of tying history so closely with bible study and I know alot of people like it.

I'm curious if you got or tried the portion using the Latin History Read "Libellus de Historia"? We aren't quite there yet but my impression is that it's point is daily translation. We are completing week 10 in Primer A and have already translated sentences, but just starting in the last two-three weeks. I don't have as many years of experience with homeschool as others, so just sharing my limited experience. :)

LfC = Latin for Children with levels A, B, C. The primer is Songschool Latin. All from Classical Academic Press.

Playing with the Thomas the Train setup at Toys R Us my three year starts singing "Quid est tuum praenomen, quid est tuum praenomen..." he's been delayed in his speech and some motor issues, you can't believe how good such a small thing feels to the mom!

So does my three year old - it's hilarious hearing him do the Amo conjugation chant or songs from SSL. He does this out in public, I only occasionally get a weird look. :D

I have to disagree. The repetition and review is built into each week. We do Latin daily because I believe to learn a new language you need lots of repetition and practice. LfC has 10 vocab words a week. If you follow the author's suggestion: Day 1 you watch the DVD and review the new vocab Day 2 you would review vocab (using the chant cd) and one activity from the activity book Day 3 practice chant and do worksheet or activity book page Day 4 practice chant again and do whichever you didn't do previous day Day 5 do weekly quiz. Starting week 16 there is also the history reader that you can integrate into your week and do the translations and history study. That is a lot of repetition. There is so much available in the full packet that I sometimes don't do all the activities - just depends on the kind of week we are having and how much practice I feel we need. Once a week at least I run myself and my son through all of the chants up to the point we are as an added review. Also, every four chapters LfC has a review week to go back over the previous chapters and integrates alot more derivative words. We don't have to do a separate vocabulary study at my house, I feel that the vocabulary in LfC is more than sufficient. I tried Prima Latina and wasn't happy with the quality of the materials and I looked alot at Lively Latin because of the reviews but I really didn't want to deal with printing out a book or having my kids spending more time on the computer (that is already a struggle here). For the price I really have been satisfied with LfC. Good luck with making your decision!

I'm using Times Tales with my 2nd and 5th grader (bought primarily for the older who was strugglign with his times tables) as a supplement to their regular math program. Times Tales is just one book, essentially large flash cards, but the idea is cute and the kids do seem to get something out of it. It's definitely not a whole math program so plenty of time to learn addition and subtraction.