Thanks, I never knew the difference between [Name] Junior and [Name] the Second.

My first pick would be something for internet access - mini laptop, iPad, even just a smartphone - if that's going to be available where we're going. Then a stash of exercise books and pencils in case we aren't able to print anything out. Then fill up the remaining space with fat books such as The Complete Works of Shakespeare.

Thanks OtherJohn, I'm so glad you are working on this because I didn't realize how often I used multiquote until it disappeared.

That also makes sense. I started out with the assumption that any group activity could yield friends, but IME having times when the kids are in a room (or on a playing field, or wherever) with other kids is not the same things as having real opportunities to create friendships. Many activities the only kids who see each other outside of training/class are the ones who were already friends from school. My Ms. 9 has been going to gymnastics regularly since she was 5 and has never been invited to do anything with the girls she chats with in class.

I think you are probably right about that. And I think what you describe is part of my problem. Our pattern is that I will resolve to do more social stuff. I'll make a massive effort to get to things. I'll feel disappointed that my kids muck around and don't seem to get "in" with the other kids in an established group. Because every time we go I end up feeling left out and upset (on the kids' behalf, that is - because adults will either be friendly and welcoming or at least make a decent pretense!), we won't go regularly. This will make it doubly difficult for my kids to infiltrate the group (especially the two with ASD). Then I'll decide that group activities don't work and give up. Until the next time I feel motivated and the cycle repeats. I guess the only solution is to pick a group and make a committment to go for several months, expecting that it won't necessarily 'work' for the first few weeks?

I hadn't really considered it in that light, but your theory does actually make sense to me.

The bolded is me too. I went to school, so I always had a few friends from my class, but I can honestly say I would have happily exchanged all the elementary school friends I ever had for the opportunity to spend more time alone with my books. I certainly wouldn't have appreciated if my mom had set up play dates for me! But that is me, and I am extremely introverted. My social kid (Ms. 9) asks for social time, and we provide that as far as practical. (She has two standing weekly play dates, so even if I haven't organized anything, she gets a play date on Monday, another play date on Tuesday, and extracurricular activities with social interaction on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Most weeks that satisfies her craving for social time.) But my other two don't ask for social opportunities. Ms. 6 sees her former best friend from school twice a week, and shows absolutely no desire to have any further interactions. Mr. 11 has no regular social activities at all, and doesn't want to. I have been trying to create friendships for him since he was born, but I am spectacularly unsuccessful. We've found a few kids with whom he was happy to interact, and they likewise enjoyed it, but he just isn't interested in following up anything. The kid he got on best with at school lives in our street just a couple of minutes walk away, and ds won't go and visit him! Is there a point where I should just accept that this kid isn't a social kid?

I wonder whether there was really a time when kids were shooed out of doors and instructed to come home for dinner, and spent their time having happy adventures in a gang of friendly neighborhood kids? Did there really not use to be such a need for parents to curate their child's every interaction? Or was the reality of the golden age of childhood somewhat darker? Did some kids get harassed, bullied, or excluded because their parents neglected to monitor their social life? What about the 'school model' of friendship: do we tend to have warped expectations based on the school pattern that each child ought to have a best friend and a same-grade friendship group? What is the normal, natural or optimal pattern for experiencing friendship, or is it so individual that there isn't an actual norm? How crucial is the social thing in the scheme of childhood (and adolescence), and in relation to other learning? To what extent should home schooling parents give up 'schooling' time in order to pursue social opportunities? I sometimes find myself feeling a little resentful after I have tried to branch out and give my children more time with other kids. A 10am-12 meetup pretty much takes out the entire day (get all kids up, fed, clean, appropriately dressed and ready, pack extra clothes, snacks, etc., drive half an hour, everything runs late so we're not heading home until 1pm, kids want more food, need quiet time after the excitement, it's 3pm before we can do anything and by that time at least one of the kids is likely to be in meltdown) so I feel it needs to be something worthwhile if we're going to forgo all that time, so it seems like a waste if the kids barely spoke to any of the other kids there. I'm tempted to give up on socializing until I can get the kids up to speed with things like literacy and numeracy!

Yes, and even when you find such a family it doesn't always work out that way. We had a family with 'matching' kids come to play and Ms. 6 got on really well with the girl who was nearer Ms. 9's age, and wasn't interested in playing with the girl her age.

Hey, just because I'm not teaching my kids doesn't mean they aren't learning! At this moment they are consolidating their math facts by trying to teach the dog arithmetic. Apparently if you show a puppy "1+1", and put out two bits of dog kibble, and the puppy eats the food, that proves he can add :lol: (clearly I need to work with them on experimental design principles).

I bumped it for you. It should now appear under View New Content.

Bumping for NEprairiemom

I think it's important that she 'gets' how this strategy works, but not essential that she habitually uses it. I often need to remind myself that even the simplest arithmetical calculation can have many ways of reaching the solution, and that my 'easy' or 'obvious' way of understanding it might be different from somebody else's.

Somebody asked about them quite recently - did you try a search? I haven't used them.

It really boils down to whether or your desire to be kind to these kids and encourage their fundraising efforts - or your desire to get along with their mom - outweighs your (very valid) reasons for not particularly wanting to buy anything. If so, go ahead and make a purchase. If not, politely tell them no thanks and then forget about it. I don't think you are under any obligation in this situation.

I think that regarding reading, the teacher has stated the expectations pretty plainly. Now the ball is in your court: either you can give your child more encouragement and help with the reading, or if you feel it's too much for him request that he be moved to a group that doesn't move quite as fast. The only thing that might slightly annoy me is the bit about not 'using his time wisely'. If he has behavioral issues in class, I would ideally like the teacher to have raised this when it started, not as an aside in the reading conversation.

Wow, thanks for the many ideas. I have added some of these to our list and will be looking for a few more. Jenny, any tips on how to persuade the kids to like musicals? They all tend to groan and say "Urgh, is this a musical?" whenever the characters burst into song. But I'd like to indoctrinate them into the cult.

I don't see any contradiction. There's a big difference between making sure that there are gluten-free or pork-free options, and allowing your children to treat your house as a restaurant every day.

That's the funniest grace I have heard for a while. We don't say religious grace at meals, but on the odd occasion that we have visitors who like to, they are welcome to do so. We have had one or two occasions where my usually-adorable little niece figured out that she could be rude to the other kids with impunity under the cover of prayer, so we got 'unusual' lines such as "Dear Jesus, X is really annoying, please help him to be less annoying, etc."

That is very true. It's highly probably that he is oblivious to the things that you're worrying about, such as the fact that some of his 'friends' are, more properly speaking, his siblings' friends.

I'd go ahead and invite absolutely everybody you can think of that your son thinks he is friends with, plus allow each of his older siblings to invite a friend for themselves (if they have their best friend, they are less likely to monopolize the friends invited by the birthday boy).

I would have to say that replacing sofas isn't a priority around here! When we first got married we didn't have any furniture except a bed (and we hadn't even bought sheets for the bed, I remember the first night we slept on two single bed sheets placed across the bed :lol: ). We found a super cheap secondhand lounge suite, then around the same time somebody gave us one, so we gave the other to our neighbor who didn't have any lounge furniture either. A few years later one of my SILs upgraded her lounge suite and gave us the 'old' one, which we kept because it wasn't as rubbish as our previous old one, but it still had rips so we had to put throws over the torn bits. Then 6 years ago a relative passed away and we inherited a 'new' secondhand lounge suite. Now that I think about it, we've never actually gone shopping for new sofas or armchairs.

Um, keys, wallet and phone? Then toothbrush and a change of clothes. Sheesh I must be very boring.

We've watched everything I had on my Family Movie Mornings list, so now I'm compiling a new list. Any suggestions?

During a car drive, my children were speculating about what it would be like to be able to follow a scent like a dog does. You know when you are kind of half listening and letting the conversation flow around you and then suddenly certain words jump out and hit you? Well I heard: "So if you could smell curry, you'd know you were getting near the Indian shop... and if it smelled like bread the bakery would be coming up... and IF IT SMELLED LIKE DICK you'd be near Dick Smiths". First I thought HUH? Where did the 6yo get that from?! Then I realized they were just mentioning places we were driving past. But it would definitely sound dodgy if you aren't Australian and don't know that Dick Smith is a chain of electrical goods stores.