My opinion only: Working with children is thought of as a nuturing thing to do. Men are often taught early not to allow their nurturing side come out too much for fear of ridicule. Sure, men have more freedoms than women in many areas, but not in being allowed to show a wide range of emotions. Men are allowed to act angry from time to time, while women are never allowed to act angry. But at least women are allowed to cry and feel and nuture. Men have to shut that part of themselves off in so many cases. Fear of accusations of sexual misconduct.

I saw Hacksaw Ridge and loved it. The reviews say it's very gory and go on and on about it. I'd say it wasn't any gorier than The Walking Dead--actually I thought less. I did get a bit teary in the fight scenes because things like The Walking Dead are fake, but war is real and it breaks my heart to think of guys in their teens and early twenties going through that. (Women now, too, but back then it was the young men--I have two sons and it hits close to home.) It was a heartwarming story and I'm glad I went. I debated with myself for a week or so before deciding to go. I don't normally like war movies, but I liked this one. And they don't hide his faith. He was a conscientious objector for his faith and it shows him praying. I don't like it when movies about someone who does something for their faith strip that part out of the story. Either leave it in, or don't make the movie at all. But it wasn't a preachy movie, either. Just a story showing why he did what he did.

This is good stuff. Thanks for this perspective. I was totally thinking of sci/math for all 4 years, but why? I don't even know. Unless something changes, my kids aren't the kind that will want to go to elite STEM schools. They'd be miserable! They wouldn't thrive with that. When I sit back and think, we're going to do our best to get the requirements out of the way in these first couple of years, to have wiggle room for more interest led stuff in the later year. RIght now, my guy can't come up with anything he's interested in. I ask and he pleasantly says, "I don't know!" He did ask to study introductory Astronomy this year, so we are doing that. He seems to be happy with it.

To me, it comes across as an excuse to bash. It's not funny enough to be satire. It comes across as mean-spirited.

I have heard an insulting song about an entire generation of people. I absolutely detest it. I haaaate this kind of stuff. I hated it as a teen when I was told over and over what losers my generation (X) was. I think I wrote about this on another post. I had lunch with my dad one day and listened to him rant about how he was sick of hearing how the generation before him was soooo great and how bad his generation was. He was referring to The Greatest Generation vs The Baby Boomers. And the Baby Boomers used to pick on Gen X. And now Gen X is picking on the Millenials. I think it's an obnoxious habit and I wish people didn't do it. I'm not sure I have strong enough words to convey my disgust at songs aimed at deriding millions of people. ETA: if this thread is NOT about the insulting millenial song, then ignore my rant.

Ah..I realize my entire post was pretty much what everyone else wrote. Should have read the other posts before replying!

This is my house! Dishes and laundry get done and the bathrooms as needed...but I figure showers don't need it as much as the toilet and sink. I scoop the litter boxes twice a day. I have stopped the craziness that equates a clean house with morality. I just simply don't care what anyone thinks anymore. If it was hazardous and we were getting sick, then I would worry. But we're not. And we're pretty moral people, even in our messy home, so I'm ok with it. I haven't apologized for my messy house in a few years and I never will again, even if I get the urge to say, "Oh excuse the mess..." when someone comes in. I just won't do it anymore. Freeing!

I'd heard people say that 9th grade was just like 8th grade, only a little harder. I have not found that to be the case At All. I had to drastically change how we do things in high school compared to 8th and below. Because now, if I want my kids to have a shot at college, there are certain boxes that I must check, and they must be checked well. If I had a child who was curious and wanted to study a lot, or even if I had a child who devoured books, then maybe 9th would be like 8th. But I have children who would rather sit around playing on computer games all day than do anything else. So...I have to make sure that they do the 6-7 required classes a year in order to have a transcript at the end of the 12th grade that gives them a shot at college. What I did: I went onto various college websites and saw what the minimum requirements were for kids to enter their schools. I looked at places like Harvard all the way down to a local college up the road. I mapped out how I would fit those requirements into the 4 years of highschool. I also noted that there are things called credit hours. A full credit is about 160 hours of schoolwork. That means I can't say we did English for 9th grade if we only worked on it every other day for an hour. Well...there are those who would disagree with me, but that's how I see it. I can't fit more than 6 or 7 classes a year, if I need to spend about 1 hour a day per class. And we spend over 1 hour a day per class. My son works about an 8 or 9 hour school day. For many people, that's normal. You probably should start at the end. What does your child need to get into college? Then work backwards and map out when those things could be taught. Basically there are 5 subjects each year that are required: Some form of history, some form of science, math, English (which includes literature and writing, but not so much grammar), a foreign language (and Latin doesn't count I'm pretty sure...read up on that just to be sure, but I think it doesn't if you were going to do Latin). That only leaves one subject left per year that you can play with. Oh, and somewhere in there you need a fine arts. And PE. So, some of your precious electives time is taken up with more requirements. I was kinda disheartened to see how much these required subjects would dictate our day. Now, you can be creative in how you approach them, but my dreams of lots of logic studies and 3 different history classes was shattered when I took a good hard look at the requirements and took a good long look at my unmotivated student. (He's a great kid--but he's too young to care about education. Yet. There's always hope!). It takes everything out of him just to get the requirements done, without piling any other subjects on him. In middle school, we easily had 11 subjects a day, but I didn't expect a lot of hours for those subjects. In high school, you have to account for hours. I'm sure there are those who would disagree with me entirely, so take what I say with a grain of salt.

I have a keyboard for my ipad. You can buy them and they come as part of a cover. I looooove this keyboard. I used to try to type without it and that drove me crazy. It's always stuck to the ipad as it's part of the cover. It just hinges open and props up. It adds very little helt to the ipad. I can't say whether you need a laptop or an ipad, but if the keyboard thing holds you back from getting an ipad, don't let it.

Here's what I do when I'm in a cleaning rut (which is all the time). On separate sheets of paper, or in columns on the same sheet, write the next four days: Wed, Thurs, Fri, Sat. Divvy up the work that needs to be done onto those four days. Some jobs will be on every day (dishes). When you write the jobs, break them down into parts. Don't write, "Clean bathroom." Write, "Scrub toilet, wipe sink, sweep floor, etc". This is for two reasons: to get a handle on exactly how big each job is and also so you have the satisfaction of crossing all these things off the list! (The best part.) You probably need to get it all done and it would be awesome if it was all done today, but why kill yourself? Just break it down into small jobs and work on them throughout the next four days, going easy on yourself. By Sunday morning, it'll all be done without a lot of angst.

Then don't! I wouldn't. Take the day off. It'll be there tomorrow. A day off from the routine is always good for one's mental health. :)

I used to be friends with a man from our church. One day, he was sitting in the back 2 rows on the right. Those rows have engraved signs posted on them saying, "Reserved for parishioners with small children." When you have a noisy baby or toddler, it was nice to have those rows in the back where you wouldn't be distracting the other parishioners if the little ones got wiggly or had to be taken out. I told him, "You're sitting in the rows for people with babies. You should move." He said, "No I'm not." I showed him the placard. He said, "Well, if people with kids want to sit here, they should get here earlier." I called him on it and said, "Really? This is posted for people with kids. You really aren't going to move? Even though you don't have kids? And even though you sit on the end, so anyone further in the row has to step over you to take out their kids?" And he didn't. And he sat in those rows for years after that conversation. He was a divorced dad of teenagers (who never came to church with him) and I kinda wonder if he wasn't pretty miserable to live with. His wife left him for another man. Maybe she was sick of this guy's entitled attitude and pride. He just could *not* admit that it was wrong for someone without little kids to sit in the rows for parents with little kids. My family let the friendship die. There were some other annoying behaviors that we got tired of as well.

Are you sure there's no allergy that's causing a bit of drainage in the back? My dh and ds both would clear their throats as a nervous tick. Just telling them that that's what they were doing ended it for my son. My dh was a little more hesitant to admit that it wasn't a real medical issue...it was just a habit...but he doesn't do it as much now that it's been brought to his attention. Which was a shame. When we'd go to a store and separate, if I wanted to find him in the store I'd stand still and listen for his throat clearing. He would clear it every few seconds. I'd be able to pinpoint where he was in under half a minute. :). Now I have to wander around looking for him.

What is a coughing twitch? I've not heard that phrase, so I'm not sure exactly what she's doing.

I've been using Reading Like a Historian along with our World History studies this year. I like that website. What projects do you assign, if you don't mind sharing?

I have an older tree where I put up the branches one by one. Last year we didn't put the bottom 4 or 5 rows of branches on the tree. We also don't put the ornaments on right away. In fact, today we'll put up the tree and some lights, and then tomorrow or Wed we'll put on the decorations. We also use water to spray them when they go near it. This has worked in the past, but we have two new kitties this year and I'm not sure how it will go.

I think I found what you're talking about : http://www.sonlight.com/100-00.html That's a lot of money ($800). But they've listed the books and I could pick and choose them. I'd imagine this would take entirely too long as it is for my particular student. Are the discussion questions in the history parent guide that they sell?

This is interesting. Where do you get the extensive discussion questions? Are they part of Sonlight? Did you make them up? I know nothing about Sonlight. Could I get the 17 other books from them? And the discussion questions? Or do I need to buy an entire curriculum? Are the 17 books large or small? My son is a slooooow and somewhat unenthusiastic reader. What are the Oxford and Hewitt tests? I've not heard of those.

Well, drat. I knew it wasn't high school level, but I was pretending that maybe it was. I bought the entire 10 book series and never had a chance to use it when my kids were in 5th and 8th. I was sort of hoping that maaaaybe if I added some Great Courses and some original documents it would work. Some people at the beginning of the thread said it might...but I don't know. I love how complete it is (and that I already have it...) and I really wanted to use it. I like the friendly writing style. But I don't want to do wrong by my high schooler.

I know now whose posts I'll be reading with a huge grain of salt in the future. I see now that I disagree greatly with some of my fellow boardies. And I admit that I've fallen for the "propaganda" hook, link, and sinker that Castro was one nasty dude and has been the cause of widespread human misery. I don't buy the spin that he's just complicated.

I hide in the bathroom for an hour watching tv on my ipad. I also go to the movies alone every Tuesday night for $5 movie night. Sometimes I let someone come with me and it's ok because as soon as the movie starts, they have to be quiet. I can sit and watch the entire movie without someone pausing it every few minutes or talking over it. (My family LOVES to pause everything a billion times over. I hate that.)

For 15 minutes every hour, our local pool has "adult only swim." All the kids have to get out of the water while only people over 18 are allowed to swim without the kiddies splashing and jumping. A friend of mine says that she thinks moms should get an "adult only house" every couple of months. All the kids (and maybe the dh's) get out of the house for the weekend, while the moms are in the house alone without anyone splashing or jumping on her. :)

Oh and another one! I watched Manor House on PBS which shows what it was like to live in a manor like Downton Abbey. In real life, the staff is worked to the bone and is exhausted all the time. I like to imagine that I lived in that time, as the lady of the manor, and could actually make the servant's lives wonderful. Like, get them really comfy beds, implement more time off for them, find labor saving devices for them to use.

I daydream during those times when I can't get at a book or tv. So, I daydream during the shower and especially before sleeping. My dh has trouble falling asleep and I think if he'd just come up with a good daydream, he could nod off. He says he's too busy thinking of things--problems or whatever. I sit around thinking about things like: What if it turned out that I'm actually next in line for the throne of England and a bunch of English people showed up at my door and said the current queen wanted to retire? What if it turned out that I'm actually the smartest person on the planet, and no one recognized it before, and with a little help harnessing my heretofore untapped intellect, I could solve all the problems of the world? What if I found a genii in a bottle and had three wishes? If I wished for world peace, would the wish work or would it backfire? What if (famous person) showed up at my door with a stalled car in a blizzard and we had to hang out together for a day? ETA: I love daydreaming about somehow or other making a time machine and bringing some famous people forward in time to show them how things turned out. Like, I'd take da Vinci on an airplane ride or give Mozart some expensive headphones and let him pick whatever music he'd like to listen to.

You guys are awesome! I really, really like the idea of telling him about consultants. It's also good to know that some of the schools focus more on the arts than academics. I'll let him know that he needs a consultant who can figure out which is which. And I'll also tell him about how he'll need to figure out a fit for him based on the culture of the school. I will not say, "Go to X school," but I'll tell him what to consider as he looks. It's very likely that he'll tell his parents he wrote to me and they'll say, "That's nice, Roger, but we already have a consultant." He's young and for all I know just thought on his own, "I know an American! I'll ask her what she thinks!" His family seems pretty capable. As far as the tier of the school, he was given a list based on his knowledge of English. He took the TOEFL test which tells how well a person can speak English and based on that score, he got the list of schools. I didn't know these were further down the list of schools. They all look marvelous to me, as they're all equally out of my league. Which is why I mentioned his wealth. To me, they're all great. To someone who hopes their son runs a company one day, maybe not so much. (Many of the parents of the kids who come here are high up in their companies.) But if anyone has any more info I could toss his way, that'd be great. Thanks, hive. I can see why so many people stay on the boards post-homeschooling. The hive knows everything. :)