Thanks @Catwoman It wasn't my grandmother but my ex-husband's and it was a long time ago. Over ten years ago now that I think about it. I only met her once before she passed away. I know my ex-mother-in-law was pretty upset that they paid in all these taxes for healthcare only to be told that her mum was too old to be helped unless they could come up with thousands of pounds, on top of what they paid already in taxes, to pay for a spot on the wait list. The whole situation changed how I looked at socialized health care. It definitely has its merits but it has its own issues too, just like our healthcare system. I have no idea what a good fix would be, there really seems to be nothing that would be a good fit for everyone and make everyone happy.

Like I said, I have no idea what the right answer is or how to fix things, just pointing out that from my perspective, having seen the grass on both sides, neither side is greener. I can see the faults with socialized medicine and I can see the faults with our American system and I can't honestly say I would want one over the other. They both have problems since "affordable" is a very subjective term. The $100-$150 we pay for just dh's prescriptions every month would sound like a great deal to some who pay much more than that but for us, it's a lot and causes us to have to make choices every month as to what gets paid for every month. It would be nice if the medications helped dh enough to allow him to work, but they don't. We are hoping he will be approved for a charity program that will allow him to have surgery that might help but if he doesn't, we will probably have to set up a Go Fund Me for his surgery because it is ridiculously expensive and traveling to where it is less expensive, in his condition, just isn't an option physically or financially.

I wasn't saying they were wrong at all. Just that she wasn't even given the chance to be on a waiting list because she didn't have the money to private pay. A lot of people assume, or at least a lot of people I've met anyways, that socialized health care means never paying privately for health care. That's just not true. If you don't agree with the government's decision for your health, you will still have to pay privately. I personally think she should have been allowed to be on the list but maybe given a low priority spot due to age, not denied all together unless she could afford to pay for her spot. She still may have died before receiving the transplant but it seems more fair to me. But that's neither here nor there, my point was socialized medicine does not mean not ever paying privately. Sorry that wasn't clear.

I have no idea what the answer to everything is, all I know is dh is physically disabled, on disability so we don't have much money to begin with and he has Medicaid because of his disability so we can't afford to buy better health care (oh how I wish we could). Medicaid will not pay for the $300/month medication he needs and his doctor has tried and tried to get them to approve but it is not on their preferred list. The medication they suggest she prescribe instead costs $1200/month and we have trouble finding a pharmacy willing to order it for him without at least $600 upfront which will be returned to us when Medicaid pays them... because yeah we have $600 lying around every month that we can just give to the pharmacy and wait to be paid back! So we make due with a slightly less effective medication that Medicaid will only pay for 75 pills per month and we pay out of pocket for the 15 additional pills since dh needs to take it 3 times a day. On 31 day months, we have to pay for 18 pills. Oh and they will only pay for 3 prescriptions per month which we can get upped to 6 for dh but we have to do it, every 3 - 6 months and we don't know when they need reupped until we go to get his meds and find out they were denied. Then it takes a day or two to get them re-upped. Meanwhile dh is without meds because they will not let us refill until the day he refilled the previous month so we never know until he is out whether or not his meds are covered We've tried asking how we can know in advance so we can get his meds on time each month and they (Medicaid) claims there is no way to know until the day of the refill. If dh needs more than 6 meds in a month or a medication that can be obtained over the counter (like the stool softeners he needs because his meds cause constipation) we are out of luck and have to pay OOP. All together, we pay between $100 - $150 per month for medications just for dh between copays, OOP and OTC. Oh and every time we've looked into drug company programs for those who can't afford their medications, they are not open to Medicaid recipients, sigh. I wish we could have Tricare again. They only seemed like a pain to deal with but I never worried about whether or not we could afford medications or specialists. I would deal with Tricare again any day before dealing with Medicaid. If we could afford it, I would get us an Aetna plan. That's what we had when my ex-husband got out of the military. They were hands down the best and easiest insurance company I've ever dealt with. I wish there was an easy answer to the health care problem world wide but there just isn't. Every system has it's own dark side. Ex husband's family lives in England and his grandmother was deemed "too old" for an organ transplant that would have saved her life. I don't remember how old she was, sixties or seventies maybe? Not terribly old at all, just past her prime in the government's eyes. Every system has room for improvement but I have no real ideas on how to go about it.

I have severe arthritis, working to get a seronegative rheumatoid arthritis diagnosis, so my electric can opener is a life saver. We do keep a manual can opener though, living rurally we do lose electricity, frequently, even when the skies are blue and not a breeze in sight, sigh. Love all the canned goods that are going to pull tab tops too. Much easier for those of us who often have swollen painful hands. I don't keep the can opener on the countertop. I have deep drawers instead of normal kitchen cabinets (much easier on my back due to arthritis/bone spurs on my spine). I keep the electric can opener in the drawer and pull it out when I need it and then tuck the cord back into the built in cord cavity on the can opener and put it back in the drawer. When we finish our kitchen remodel (going on over a year now since we have to do it ourselves due to cost but we are almost done finally) there won't be any appliances that have a permanent home on the countertops. We have a cubby for the microwave, none of us drink coffee so no coffee maker, the toaster, stand mixer and bread machine all have their own cubbies or cabinets, slow cookers and emergency indoor propane burner for power outages and canning have their own drawer (our main cooktop is a lovely easy to clean glass cooktop that dh's grandmother bought for us but it isn't good for canning and it is electric so we have the little indoor propane unit) . I love the look of clear uncluttered counters so when we designed our kitchen remodel the top two priorities were a place for everything off the countertop and cater to my and dh's various disabilities.

We have it but, like barnwife, it wasn't a favorite here either. The Carrot Seed, however, is a well loved toddler/preschool favorite here among others.

As long as we are going to argue semantics... stun gun a battery-powered, handheld weapon that fires an electric charge when held against a person and activated by a trigger or button, used, especially by police, to immobilize a person briefly and without injury. Taser A Taser is a brand of electroshock weapon sold by Axon. It fires two small dart-like electrodes, which stay connected to the main unit by conductors, to deliver electric current to disrupt voluntary control of muscles, causing "neuromuscular incapacitation". I have to disagree with the "without injury' part as I believe psychological and emotional pain is just as much an injury as physical injury but that is not really the point here. The point I'm trying to make is that a weapon was fired at a child that electrically shocks them into compliance when the crime they committed probably amounted to less than $50 (maybe less than $20, I didn't see a dollar amount in the story) and made a child like decision to try and run, likely out of fear. Should she be punished? Absolutely. Should a weapon have been fired at her to cause her to receive an electric shock and make her comply? Absolutely not. But in all fairness, I'm not keen on tasers or stun guns being used on adults either. What if the person, child or adult, has a heart condition or some other medical condition that no one, not even the suspect themselves, is aware of and that electric shock does cause injury and secondary complications? The police seem to use tasers much more quickly than they would a normal gun because it supposedly does not cause injury. I would even argue that the stun gun definition above ought to read "without lasting injury" since even a healthy person can be injured by a taser that is being used correctly. It may not be as critical of an injury as being shot with a normal gun but it's not a slap on the wrist either. If a parent had fired a taser at their 11yo who was running away to avoid the consequences of their actions, there would be very few who would not condemn that parent and call their actions over the top and abusive. I don't see why it should be any different just because the adult has a badge.

My second youngest son managed to grab a toy at the dollar store without me seeing when he was 4yo. When we got home and I saw him with a toy I didn't recognize, I asked him where he got it and if he gave it to the cashier to ring up when we left. Then we talked about stealing and how it is wrong and I made him return it to the store manager and apologize. The manager, seeing how upset ds was, tried to say it was ok and he could keep it but I insisted that he return it because stealing was not ok, no matter how small the item. He was plenty scared just having to apologize for his actions, no electrocution necessary. Granted he was 4 years old, not 11yo, but there are plenty of ways to impress upon a child the seriousness of their actions without physically punishing them or berating them. I would imagine the 11yo isn't afraid of shoplifting again, she is afraid of the police. The punishment, if you will, did not fit the crime. I also agree with the others who said "police" doesn't equal "right". They are only human beings with their own bias just like everyone else.

It takes time and patience, a bucket load of patience, to train children to play quietly for a read aloud. And sometimes open ended play isn't the best activity for everyone during a read aloud, sometimes they need to be given a specific quiet task. Perhaps read aloud time is too long for all your kiddos if distractions are popping up left and right. I would start with 5 minutes and then build up in 5 minute increments until you reach your goal read aloud time which I would say probably no more than 30 minutes for them all as a group. If you still want to do some read alouds but do them individually, you might try an "I read to you, you read to me" approach. The child reads a page then you read a page and so on. That is a fun way to continue read alouds if they are the type of kid that would enjoy that. But for them to get any meaning out of it, they need to be fluent readers. If they are struggling every other sentence still to sound out words, the reading level is too high for them to also get meaning out of it. A blanket on the floor that the Legos must stay on will reduce the noise that Legos can make on hard surfaces. They do need to be trained to keep the Legos only on the blanket though or the Legos will be put up. And if you want it to be a quick training you have to be willing to put them up each and every time they start pushing them off the blanket. Also don't forget audiobooks in the car when you have a captive audience lol! Pause it every once in a while to discuss what is happening or what might happen next to break it up and reduce the possibility of them creating distractions because they are bored.

I never thought in my life I would ever have to say "Who put their feet on the ceiling?...again?" But I did...repeatedly. lol We lived in Japan when my older boys were elementary school age and our house was made completely of cinder block, no drywall anywhere, it would have rotted away with the humidity. So our ceilings were painted cinder block and I had to get up there to show them how to wipe their feet prints off the ceiling...repeatedly. All I have to say for our current house in the states is thank goodness for high vaulted ceilings lol!

My older boys had bunk beds from the time they were preschoolers. Later when they were both teenagers they had both had loft beds so they each had their own desk and both had the top bunk. My daughters shared the queen bed that their dad and I had before we got a California king for a long time. When they finally wanted their own separate beds, they each had a twin and just dealt with less floor space. They didn't want bunk beds. We also keep them in toddler beds until they can no longer physically fit on them comfortably to save space. My current 5yo is still in a toddler size bed and still has a little room to grow yet. Most of my kids have been 6 or 7 even before they are too big for a toddler bed. They are also usually well past the bed wetting stage by then so we don't have to keep tons of sheets and waterproof covers for the larger mattresses. Not a popular option I know but it works for our family.

You cannot be everything to everyone nor can you do everything in every season of life. You have to prioritize. You have to decide what is important to your family. If religion is important, then church obligations take priority and if sports are important, then taking everyone to various practices will take priority, even if you must let go of other things to do it. Personally, in our family, it is family relationships that we value above all else. So we don't do tons of outside activities in order to spend lots of time as a family. Everyone's priorities will look different and what each family chooses to value is what is right for them. There may even be different seasons of life where the same family might put a higher priority on a different value.

Not all kids are snuggly read aloud types. My oldest son was a "just the facts so I can be done and do what I want" type. My second oldest was a "I need something to do with my hands but then I will listen for as long as you want" type. My oldest daughter was a "I'll sit nearby but I don't want to snuggle and if at all possible I'd rather just read it myself and discuss it with you" type. My younger daughter and second youngest son were snuggly read aloud types but I imagine that had something to do with they spent hours being nursed to sleep as I read aloud to the older kids. My youngest son is a "I need something to do with my hands and I want to see the pictures but I don't want to snuggle" type. As old as your children are, I can't imagine doing hours of snuggly read alouds if that isn't how they are used to doing school since they were young. And yes there comes a point, especially with pre-teens where as a parent you need to grow a thick skin and say "I'm sorry you feel that way but it is my job to teach you what you need to know and your job to learn." And if you think they can add anything constructive you might add, "Do you have any ideas on how we can accomplish both of our jobs?" By middle school, I start giving them some say in how and what they want to learn. Then if they complain about a curriculum choice, I just remind them that it was their pick and they can choose differently next semester or next year, which ever is applicable. I only allow them to jump ship middle curriculum if I completely agree with them that it won't accomplish our goals or has some other flaw. "I don't like it and I don't want to do this stupid thing" is not a curriculum flaw most of the time, it is an attitude problem and is treated as such.

Avoiding common everyday experiences like flying and elevators because of anxiety is completely different, in my opinion, than feeling obligated to spend time at a party with people who have a history of being unkind to her. Maybe they have grown up and will apologize to her but she has already been to one and this is still causing her stress to think about going to an optional party. There is no reason, in my opinion, to subject herself in an optional context that is suppose to be fun, to people that cause stress and anxiety. If she wants to go and still feels anxious, then that's a problem to address but she should not feel in any way obligated to attend, anxious or not. My therapist would not encourage me to willingly put myself in a situation that causes stress and anxiety. We work on dealing with stress and anxiety from things that are obligatory and I have to do, like it or not. If I don't want to go to a party, I don't have to no matter what anyone thinks of my reasoning. If I want to go but anxiety is paralyzing me from making the decision to go, that is a different situation entirely. It was never mentioned whether or not this person wants to go and have a good time or feels obligated to go but doesn't really want to go.

I thought about that too. A lot of reunions nowadays have virtual guestbooks where those who cannot attend due to distance or cannot get time off work to attend can leave their contact information in case someone wants to get in touch with them. Maybe this person could volunteer to organize this if the reunion committee hasn't already done so? That way they can get in contact and still have something to do with the reunion even if they don't attend the actual reunion.

I may not be the best person to answer this as I have some of the same issues but it is due to domestic abuse from my first marriage, not childhood bullying. I'm just wondering why you are worried about going to a class reunion if they cause so much anxiety and distress. I wasn't bullied or anything in school but I've never gone to a class reunion They have had a 10, 15 and 20 year reunion and I just chose not to go. The people I care about I'm still in contact with on at least a every few months basis and I have no desire to visit with people I barely knew or don't even remember. I just see even less reason to go if it would cause me anxiety or emotional pain. I have forgiven my ex-husband for what occurred during our marriage but that doesn't mean I want to spend time with him any more than I have to or be his friend. It is ok to forgive and still maintain boundaries for your physical and/or emotional safety.

I had to laugh at that first part, sadly I do know people who swear up and down their child is accelerated because they stood at 6 months and walked at 9 months and others who panic that their child is behind because they aren't walking at 12 months like all the parenting books say they should be (most of them seem to miss the part of the book that says there is a wide range of normal, sigh.) I do agree with that last bit though. Focus on the child in front of you, don't try to think too far ahead or plan more than about 6 months or so ahead. An idea of where you want them to be in a year is fine but don't strangle yourselves with hard plans. It's better to take things in small managable chunks and follow your child's lead than to write a plan in stone only to realize that reality never looked at your plan and went its own way.

Spalding International does have their own phonogram app if that is any help to you. There is a demo and a paid version. (Link is for the full paid version). https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.spalding.phonograms Each Spalding spin off or Orton-Gillingham spin off (which is what Spalding is a spin off of) has added it's own flavor so to speak to the phonograms and rules so the phonogram cards from one program are not directly interchangable. So AAS's cards are not the same as WRTR's cards which are not the same as LOE's cards which are not the same as SWR's cards even though they are all Spalding and/or Orton-Gillingham based.

So I have 3 out of 6 six kids who were accelerated in some way. Each has ended up, or will end up, differently. My second oldest son was 2e, he has dysgraphia and is extremely bright. He taught himself to read at age 4 by just listening in on his big brother's phonics lessons. He could tell you anything you wanted to know about history, archaeology, palentology, Egyptology...and probably a few things you could have lived without knowing. His reading leveled out around 3rd grade and he was just average but his in depth interest in history never waned. This is the kid that asked for a new history encylcopedia for his 13th birthday because he had read every one we owned at least twice. He just graduated high school this past May as an honor roll student but not in any sort of gifted program. He had IEPs for his dysgraphia while in public school. My younger daughter learned to read when she was 3 years old from lessons given to her by her then 6yo sister. By the time she was in kindergarten she was reading at a 2nd grade level. By the time she was in 2nd grade she tested at a 7th grade comprehension level only because that's where the test topped out. She qualified for the gifted program in 3rd grade. But she struggles to pull average grades in math. Her brain just isn't mathematically wired. It definitely isn't due to lack of exposure because she had plenty of exposure. She just doesn't pick up the concepts in math as quickly and easily as she does in phonics and reading. She had stayed accelerated going into 6th grade this year. My youngest and currently only homeschooled child is 5 years old this year and this kid has a gift for math concepts, seeing patterns, logic and his fine motor skills have been out of the world advanced since he was a toddler. He is flying Singapore 1A, I imagine we will start 1B before Christmas, though I'm not writing that in stone. He solves sudoku puzzles with his dad and has been since he was 3.5yo - 4yo. He amazes me with his ability to use logic to solve problems. He is a very mechanically minded, engineer type like his dad. I don't see that changing, just seeing his personality develop. I see more of the type of giftedness in him that his older sister had at this age than his older brother who didn't stay accellerated. So, like the others said, it depends on the kid.

Check your library for WRTR 4th edition if you want to try before you buy. I know our library has it. Also you can make flashcards to begin with using a sharpie and index cards, then if you decide to stick with it, invest in a nice set of phonogram cards. If you need some help with the sounds the phonograms make, there are lots of videos on Youtube to hear someone doing the sounds correctly. It can be helpful to hear someone else reciting the sounds if you've never done Spalding before.

Rather than type it all out, I'll just give you the link to Singapore Math's FAQ. One of the biggest differences is the order that topics are presented and some of the depth of topics. It is, more or less, all the same information in all the editions. I've chosen Standards Edition for our son this year. Standards was what I used 15 or so years ago with my older kids. That's really the only reason I chose it, familiarity.

Read alouds, especially for young kids, need to be engaging for them. Not all kids are ready for chapter book read alouds at 5 - 6 years old, but almost all will enjoy a good picture book. There are so many wonderful picture books out there with richer story lines than beginner chapter books like Mercy Watson. We had several false starts with chapter books until we came upon a chapter book that kept my 5 year old's attention. His first read aloud chapter book ended up being "Zoey and Sassafras: Dragons and Marshmallows". Now he will sit and listen to most chapter books and audiobooks that are at a 2 - 3 grade reading level and comprehend the story on his own. 4th grade reading level and up tend to be to complex and vocabulary dense for him right now. The Year of Miss Agnes would definitely be over his head right now and I wouldn't have any problem putting it away for later and picking something at a little lower level for him. ETA: Even though we are beginning to read aloud chapter books, we still read tons and tons of picture books at his age and will continue to do so through out elementary school.

I want to like BFSU as a curriculum. I love the concept, hate how the book is laid out, hate the way the author's voice comes across and hate how disjointed it feels in places. I find myself using it more as a reference guide than a curriculum. I use it to beef up lighter science curriculum and that seems to work for us. On a related tangent, I also hate the idea that something isn't "secular enough". There are lots of different flavors of being secular just as there are lots of different flavors of religion. There are also just as many reasons for using secular curriculum as there are flavors of being secular. Plus the idea that there is a gold standard for "being secular enough" just reeks of the same sort of superiority as "not Christian enough" arguments to me. Personally, we treat secularism and the ideas of evolution and the orgins of the universe the same way a religious homeschooler might treat teaching their faith. We use science resources that some may deem "not secular enough" and then teach evolution and big bang the same way others teach the creation stories of their faith. A child of elementary school age is less interested in the debate of evolution vs creation and who is right and more interested in just answering their questions about the world at large in my experience. I see no reason to muddy the waters for them until they start really questioning why others do not believe evolution which in my experience, even living in Bible Belt areas, doesn't usually occur until late elementary or early middle school. We regularly read books about evolution and orgins of the universe. They live in our morning basket full time. We discuss how these ideas tie together in science AND history lessons. We study volcanoes and we also read about why the earth has magma in it which leads to discussion of the orgins of the universe. We study history and we also talk about why we know more about history since Mesopotamia than we do about history before Mesopotamia and how we know what we do know about prehistory and how academia even divides these topics into different branches of study since obtaining the information of each branch requires a different process. This often ultimately leads to the ideas of evolution and the cross over of the history of the earth and the history of mankind. None of these ideas live in a vacuum, they are all interrelated and I prefer to treat them as such. In twenty years of raising children and homeschooling, I've learned that there isn't a perfect curriculum that requires no tweaking whatsoever. So I find the options that appeal most to me and my children, regardless of whether or not others find it "worthy" and then I tweak it to fit our particular secular beliefs. It works for us.

This. My younger daughter was very bright and precocious and always asking for more work in elementary school. She literally asked for more workbooks for her 6th birthday lol! I would definitely try to stick to one program for continuity as her main program and add diveristy by adding more diversified math experiences as Tibbie Dunbar suggested, not more math programs. If she likes challenge, Beast Academy might be right up her alley after she finishes Miquon. Perhaps print out worksheets from MEP and CSMP for her to complete on her own time and by her own choice just as a fun activity and time filler rather than a part of her math time. Also, just out curiosity, why do you not want her to get "too advanced"? If she is ready for the material and wanting more, why hold her back? Perhaps if she were allowed to move through concepts at her own pace, she might not have such a huge appetite for workbooks. Or maybe she just enjoys workbooks like my younger dd did but what I found was once I let y daughter go at her own accelerated pace, she learned things just fine, even if it was grade levels ahead of her chronological age, and she didn't have such a voracious appetite for work she found easy in the form of multiple workbooks/worksheets. I still kept them available to her but when she was appropriately challenged, she tended to be more content with less of them.

Yeah, me neither on the reading of the dialogue lol! We will definitely being doing the audiobook version. I thought the reading/acting was ok/tolerable but at least clear (important for my son due to apraxia/speech delays) and the voices are not nails on a chalk board for us (important for my sanity lol).