Hmm, I think I will adopt your method and drive the realtor crazy!

When we were looking at a house our realtor would walk around with us. I understand that, but what drove me nuts was her commentary along the way. And If I mentioned a concern to my husband, she would come up with a solution. I seriously could not have a conversation with my husband because she inserted herself into everything that was said. I am of the mind that if I am going to buy a house, I am going to examine it carefully and I don't need the realtor's take on every little detail. However, I'm wondering if I should have expected that as normal realtor behavior? I am an introvert and the realtor was an extrovert, so maybe it was a personality thing?

Count me in!

I worked in the field for a short time, and I think she needs to cooperate and do everything she can to show them that her daughter is her priority. Social workers come across some people who treat their children as possessions and are more interested in keeping them than parenting well. She needs to convey that she has her child's interests at heart, not her own. She needs to look into the possibility of her parents taking care of the daughter while she moves out, if it comes to that. It is better to be proactive than have the child traumatized by a removal. She should retain a lawyer with experience, if only for a consult to give her advice on how much to say. My gut says cooperate, but don't volunteer any information. If she has been smoking marijuana she is breaking the law, most likely. Could she be involved in other poor behaviors? Might she be better off with Dad?

Check into Legos for education. I was looking for some plain sets one day and found that the education sets are much cheaper. Google: discount school supply and you will see some generic sets as well as specific ones. I thought I found a source that was even cheaper, but now I don't see it.

Well, simply put I would say he might have diminished impulse control. We have experienced the situation you described since our daughter was small. We required her to obey and disciplined her for her outbursts. Then we found out she had FASD and began to understand her better. People say with consistent dicipline the child will learn self control, but with a kid who has organic neuro issues, that control is much harder to exercise. (She is our fourth, so i can see the difference.) How that plays out is that if someone asked you or me to do something we didn't want to do, we would grouch about it in our head, but some children don't have the ability to keep it inside. I think it is a positive that he does the task. That shows he knows the right thing to do is help someone else. Hopefully someone can help you figure out the impulse control issue. The way I try to have compassion for her is by thinking about how I feel when hormones or situations are pushing me to the edge and then realize that she felt like that the majority of the time before we found meds that helped her.

I guess it all depends what circles you are in. We had international college students visit our home and they asked about some baked goods we served. My friend whose husband worked with the students said that the students didn't think Americans cooked, so I guess they were surprised my daughter did the baking. I thought it was funny that they assumed that, but maybe I was the uninformed one!

That is interesting. I always tell myself I would eat better if I wasn't at home around food all the time. But I would probably be so worn out, I would tend toward convenience foods as well.

Is it still typical? I hear all the time about the typical American diet and wonder if very many people actually eat out several times a week and have only prepared foods when at home. Maybe I just spend too much time one these boards and on reading about whole foods.

I realized this might have looked like an ad. Sorry about that. I think this type of thinking in regard to food was typical of the time and is very much the way my husband grew up.

My 10 yr old boy enjoys cooking. He is able to make homemade biscuits, muffins, etc and stovetop things like pasta and eggs. So my mom gave him the BH&G cook book. He started reading some recipes to me and they were entertaining! Flip Flop Pancakes - Step one says, " Look on pancake mix package directions. Mix batter according to directions to make 12-14 pancakes." Circus Time Lemonade ingredients- lemonade concentrate, cold water, ice cubes, lemon slices. Again, "Add as much water as it says on the side of the can." French Fried Potatoes ingredients- frozen French Fried Potatoes, salt. The intructions are pretty much turn on oven, bake potatoes, sprinkle salt on them. Pretty sure the bag of taters says the same. There are some real recipes in there, but these were too funny.

PT and OT assistant programs are competitive around here, so your experience in the nursing home would be a plus there, especially if you ended up working with the elderly. Both of those careers have good outlooks and very good pay. If they interest you, start asking about qualifications right away. Good luck! Oh, and don't be intimidated by the academics. Since you have homeschooled so long, you are probably more solid on the foundational stuff than most students.

Obviously I do not know Julie's church or her leaders, but church dicipline is biblical. Our church practices it and it is done with grace and very careful consideration by our elders. And it is rare, never to be used as a power play. Matthew 18 describes how discipline progresses. If a person refuses to repent on private levels, witnesses are to tell it to the church. This isn't meant for shaming, it is meant to hold members accountable to a standard they have agreed to and the purpose is to bring about true sorrow when faced with losing your church family. In a healthy church Julie would be supported and I assume the elders would speak to her about what will be said. People are going to know something is wrong and if the elders can make it clear that Julie has been a model wife and set her up as not only innocent, but the example of mercy that she has been other members will have no room to gossip.

Perhaps a nueropsychologist would be able to help you by doing an evaluation of his behaviors and thinking processes. Your pediatrician should have a recommendation of a good one in the area. And I don't know that an MRI is going to show all types of damage to the brain. Maybe someone here knows of another, more accurate way to check for these types of problems in the brain? I'm so sorry for the struggles. I know personally how hard it is to manage a demanding child with serious special needs. You love them and celebrate their good points, but I only get through the emotional storms is by the grace of God.

I have charged my children a quarter for each folded item that comes back through the wash. I am about to re-institute this policy and apply it to all but the 4yr old!

We have adopted domestically and internationally. I fully agree with what you said regarding adoption education. The post adoption support was very limited. I couldn't even get sound information regarding severe malnutrition. On the positive side, our agency has since offered sessions on that topic and others (with a fee, of course). Your whole post sheds light on the realities of international adoption of children.

That's awesome!

We also have chickens and other animals. The 10yr old and 8yr old do the animal chores as well as kitchen and bedroom chores in the morning, but not usually that early. I'll be sure to share your post with my Eeyore! Oh, the other animals are pets; I don't want anyone to think I'm sending them out to milk cows or anything. And I do go out and partner with them in doing the chickens sometimes, especially now that it is so cold out in Michigan.

Well, before this takes a bad turn, thank you to everyone! We actually are slow in " getting ready for the day" as we call getting dressed,groomed, and doing chores, but I do feel more productive once we have accomplished those things. We all do what works best for our families (and change if we need to in order to accomplish our goals). That is fine with me! My point to my son is that being homeschooled doesn't equal all-day jammies. I think I will institute an occasional jammie day as a reward for cheerfully getting ready in the morning. The results made him smile and he wanted to know the numbers of each answer choice. Now he wants to know if other parents make their kids do 15! chores every morning. I told him he was out of luck in that area. Not sure how he came up with 15 chores unless eating, putting clean undies on, etc are chores. Silly boy.

P.S. I know this has been done before, but I found nothing with the search feature. Oh, and my son is a 10 yr old sweet,sensitive pessimist!

My son is convinced that "normal" homeschoolers spend the day studying in their pajamas. People have made that remark to him when they talked about where he goes to school. They think he is lucky to do school in his jammies, so he thinks he has been ripped off because I make him get dressed! So, even though I know home schoolers are all very different, would you be so kind as to answer this poll? (If I can get it up? )

I used to look like Lisa Welchel, and I would probably look like her now if I dropped a bunch of weight. Actually I think I looked more like her older, plainer sister. My husband has been told many times that he looks like Kiefer Sutherland. Frankly I think K.S. is kind of ornery looking and my husband is very sweet.

This happened at our church of 16 years and it was so awful. The pastor turned out to be plagiarizing, lying, and manipulating in order to build his kingdom of people who adored him within our church. When he was exposed the elders and many members could not see the truth and the elders did not follow the biblical model of correction. Not only did the church fall apart, but the pastor claimed depression right up until he took on a new,bigger pastorate one state a way. Heartbreaking is a good word for the whole mess. We now attend a church with a plurality of elders who are willing to obey scripture even when it is very difficult. I was worried about the possibility of the church being legalistic, but it is actually very grace filled. The balance of humility, grace, and truth is a beautiful thing to see.

Our local Meijer in west Michigan is awesome. They always have lanes open and often have an employee walking up and down to help people find the shortest line. If you need to find something in the store they get on it immediately. At Halloween the lady even told me where to go to buy pumpkins since theirs had run out. Returns are a breeze as well!