@Bocky-Thank you so much for the encouragement. I really appreciate it. I’ve been very stressed about HS, but I’m trying to take a deep breath and relax some. Thanks for the info about NARHS. I will look into that!

Thank you so much! This helps a lot! I didn’t even think about residency requirements for state schools. Ugh! Feeling so overwhelmed with all this right now. So much to think about for HS. But I really appreciate your response. Thank you!!

Hi- We are missionaries and live overseas, but are American citizens. Our oldest dd will be in 9th grade at some point by Christmas. We are trying to finish up 8th grade, but between furlough and traveling, we are a bit behind schedule. I’m looking at requirements for a homeschool diploma. The problem is, we aren’t really “residents” of any particular state. On our furloughs (usually for 8-9 months every 2-2.5 years, we “live” for several months in PA (my home state) and WV (my dh’s home state). We’ve never officially declared our intent to homeschool because we mainly live outside the country and bounce around while home on furlough. However, I’m wondering what we should do for high school? Since we don’t officially “reside” in the States, will our dd’s diploma be valid if we don’t “declare” her as being homeschooled in a particular state? Do we need to look at an accreditation to make her diploma/transcript look more “official?” I’m really not sure what, if anything, we need to do. Does anyone have any advice?? Thanks so much!

Thanks so much for the info and advice. I will check these out! I appreciate it!

Thank you all SO much for all the advice and encouragement. It means a lot to me. I don’t know how to pick out quotes from the above advice, so I will just write a general response to everyone. @birchbark-thank you for all the curriculum advice! I will spend some time looking through everything and see if it will fit for her. One big thing we have found in the last year is that she learns best when she can listen to something being read while she reads the same thing in the book. So, MP has been great for lit because we can get the books on audio and then she reads along in her physical book. This is one reason we are considering Apologia for science, because it’s Christian (which we want) and there’s an audio component to it as well. But I will check out these other curricula and see if they would work. She also likes short lessons to help keep her focus. I will also check out your math recommendation. I haven’t heard of Learn Math Fast. Maybe that would be what she needs. Thank you! @cintinative-Thank you for your help as well. I really appreciate it! I will look through the thread you linked to see the review of CTC math. She loves the short, focused lessons, but I’m not sure about long term retention with it. Thank you for your encouragement! @Lori D.-Thank you so much for taking the time to think/write all this out. To answer some of your questions-our dd is medicated now for anxiety. It has helped a lot with her sleep issues and general relaxing. She has a psychiatrist in the US. We tried Straterra briefly before leaving the US to return to the field after our furlough, but she hated it. She had bad stomach aches and begged to be taken off. I’ve asked her a few times since if she wants to try a different medication, but she says no. We are hesitant to give her too many meds as she’s already on something for anxiety. But, I’ve told my dh that we may want to consider a medication if it would help her to focus in school. We are returning to the US in the fall for a couple months, so we will talk with her psychiatrist and maybe her pediatrician to see what they recommend we do. She currently has counseling online with her US therapist twice a month. We try to get all our prescriptions filled in the US to bring back with us as it’s very costly (and difficult) to find the same meds here where we live. I’m not sure if we could even get adhd meds filled for a year at once??? Maybe that’s something I could ask insurance. But then, again, it’s a matter of convincing our dd to even take the meds. We will see what we can do. Thank you for the advice about looking at foods. I hadn’t even thought of that! I should’ve! Mom fail. We will try reducing some things from her diet and see if it helps. And I will also check into supplements. Maybe there will be something we can get here in our town for her, rather than waiting until we are back in the US to stock up. And she does use fidget toys. She has several that she enjoys “playing with” while she works on school work. I get so upset with myself for not recognizing the signs of ADHD when she was younger, but we really had no idea. I hate that she’s been through so much school without us knowing what the issues truly were. She’s not hyperactive, in the sense of bouncing off the walls or being unable to sit still, so ADHD just never crossed our minds. We didn’t realize how much she struggled with focusing. School has always been tiring for her, but we didn’t know why. Now I feel like we’re finally figuring out some ways to help her and the types of curriculum that work better for her, but I panic that it’s too little, too late. I worry that we’ve messed things up for her, even though I tell myself we just didn’t realize. Plus we wouldn’t have had the option for online counseling several years ago, as that just became a possibility with Covid and the telemedicine opening up. But still, I feel so bad for her. We will continue with where she is and move foreword from there. I will look into the curricula that’s been suggested thus far and see what will work. Thank you for the suggestions for the math apps and some supplements. I will def look at those and see what we can get online and then what we can get when we return to the US for our visit. I will also start to keep records this next school year so that we have them in case we call next year 9th grade. We’re not adverse to her taking an “extra” year for high school, I just don’t know what that actually looks like in our situation. Another thing she hasn’t had much of is history. We’re using MOH right now because, again, it has the audio component, but she’s so tired after doing her other subjects, that we haven’t done much history this year. And I don’t know what to use next year. We need something with the audio, but MOH doesn’t do world geography, and that’s something I think she should have. Sigh. Thanks everyone!!

I apologize in advance for the length of this post! I am asking for some help planning for my soon-to-be 9th grade dd. Our last few years homeschooling have been a bit chaotic. We are missionaries. For 4th and 5th grades, our dd was in a school here in our town that I was trying to start up with another missionary. Long story short, we used American curriculum (mostly BJU), but the Kenyan teachers struggled to teach it well. Covid happened and we had to shut down the school. We then went home for furlough while dd was in 7th grade. During our furlough, dd was diagnosed with inattentive ADHD and anxiety, which helped explain a lot of the retention issues she had had up to this point. She struggles with reading comprehension, writing and math, primarily. 7th grade, then, was spent trying to get help for our dd and while we did school, with her adhd issues, she wasn’t able to focus very well and again didn’t retain a whole lot. Now we are up to the current year, 8th grade. She struggles with math. She has low working memory and doesn’t retain info very well. She’s used MUS for most of her elementary years, but for 7th grade (zeta), she just wasn’t retaining anything. She would pass the lesson for the week, but if we reviewed something from earlier in the year, she wouldn’t remember how to do it. So, for 8th we switched her to Saxon 87, thinking it would be good for the spiral teaching. We got to lesson 45 or so and found it was just too overwhelming. Part of it was probably because some of the concepts in Saxon hadn’t been taught by zeta in MUS. She did really well on the tests (in the 90s), but it took her 2.5-3 hours a day to do each lesson. Being overseas, it’s difficult to just order a new curriculum, so I found CTC math online. This has been great as she is able to go back and forth between grade levels to try and close some gaps. She loves the short lessons and does fairly well on the assignments. However, it’s mastery, and I’m not sure she’s again retaining a whole lot from the earlier lessons she’s done. She scores usually in the 80s-low 90s on each days lessons, but again, I’m not sure she’s retaining long term. It may just be passing that days lessons and then moving on. For next year, I don’t know how to proceed for math. She’s currently in pre-algebra. I’m planning for her to continue pre-algebra through the summer, and even into the fall if needed. But then I don’t know where to go. Should I continue ctc math for alg 1? Should I go back to MUS? Something else? I feel like she needs some review built into her lessons, but ctc math doesn’t have that. She likes the short lessons, though. It seems to hold her attention the best. Should we “re-do” 8th grade to further build up her foundation more since she had a chaotic 3 or so earlier years? She uses BJU earth science, but isn’t quite halfway through the book (we split lessons up over 2-3 days when she has a lot to read in the book, questions to answer and a video to watch). We are considering Aplogia for next year as it has an audio component she can listen to while reading the text book. But, I’m not completely sold on it, either, as I’ve seen mixed reviews. We are using MP literature with the guides as she can read them with audio books, which helps her focus while she reads. She still has 2 more novels to read for the year. MP is going well for her, so we will most likely continue with that for next year. Should we stretch 8th grade until Christmas time? She uses EIW for writing and will finish it in the next month or so. We could just get some other writing activities for her to do until she officially starts 9th grade. Do we not assign her a grade level for next year and just see how it goes? I’m panicking because of doing transcripts and making everything official next year. I’m probably over thinking all this, and if so, I would be relieved for someone to tell me that! If anyone has read through all this and has any advice, I would appreciate it! TIA!😊

How fun for your ds! It’s really cool when students are able to live in the culture of the language they are studying. It sounds like you did some things that are similar to what I’ve been thinking about doing-the museums, etc. We don’t have an official curriculum, but I like the idea of reading from the paper and different books and doing some translation work. Thanks for your input!

Thank you! Those ideas are great! I can definitely talk with our tutor and have her work on some of these activities with my dd. I’m excited for her to be able to do this for her language credits. I really appreciate your help!

Hi- We are missionaries in Kenya. My dd (currently in 8th grade) has a local teacher come to our house once a week to do a Kiswahili lesson. I was wondering if it would be possible to continue lessons and turn it into credit for her high school foreign language classes? I know we would need to increase the number of lessons, but even if we did .5 credit a year for 4 years, is this a possibility for her transcript? We don’t have an official curriculum. It would be language practice and cultural trips into different places in Kenya over the next 4 years. I’m not sure how to provide evidence for her lessons. Maybe have her tutor give her some physical written tests? I’m just winging it here and wondering if anyone has any advice on how to do this and give credit for it. Thank you for any help and advice you have!!

Wow! Thank you so much for all these great ideas! I like the idea of letting her study whatever she wants for this next year. I will have to see what we can find online for some resources as we are missionaries in Kenya right now and don’t have access to physical books at the library. I also like the idea of switching the progression of science she takes. I will have to think more about that one. Im thinking she may take alg 1 in 8th, so that would give her a lot of the math skills she wud need for science in 9th. So much to consider! @Ellie-thank you for the extra resources. I will check these out as well! I appreciate all your help!

Thank you so much everyone for all these suggestions. I will have to really think about them. I know BJU ramps up in 7th grade, and I love their science for the older years, but I wasn’t sure how it was for 6th. If it’s like 5th, then it’s not enough for my science loving girl.😊. And the the history for 6th. I may pick something different for those two classes for 6th grade and then go back to them for 7th. We really like BJU overall. And maybe just adding some different things to supplement will help. I hate to change curriculum she’s familiar with at this stage. Lots to think about. Thank you!!

Hi! I am a chronic lurker on these boards🤪. I have two dds. The oldest will be in 9th grade next year and the younger will be in 6th. My oldest has adhd and anxiety, and I must admit I have spent the majority of my focus on finding appropriate curriculum for her due to her probable LDs. My youngest has done BJU DLO for all her schooling years. It’s always been a great fit for her. However, this year (5th), she seems to not be enjoying it as much. She’s very bright and she completes all her lessons in 3-3.5 hours. She has straight As. She’s been complaining that the history is boring and the science is short. She really enjoys science, but BJU science lessons are only about 15 min long and involve reading about 2 pages of the textbook. The math is good for her. It’s been challenging for her at times, but she is still maintaining her A. Anyway, she is on the opposite spectrum of my older daughter, and I’m at a loss of different curriculum options for her. Does anyone have some suggestions? Should we continue with BJU next yea4 and supplement with some other things, should we switch curriculum entirely, or a different option I haven’t thought about? I need her to be a bit independent as her sister needs me to work with her a bit more for her classes. I love BJUs science in the middle-high school grade levels as it ramps up in intensity. Anyone have any thoughts? TIA!

Thank you all so much for all the advice. I really appreciate it! As a quick update, we took her to a developmental optometrist this afternoon (someone cancelled, so our dd got bumped up) and everything there seems ok. We are getting her some prescription reading glasses with special lenses to help her reduce eye strain and headaches while reading and using the computer. At this point, we are planning to start her on meds. We agree that she really does need them to help her not feel like a failure and to help her focus better for her school work. I’m guessing she will have to have testing done to be put on meds. I have some basic info for a place that may work with our insurance. We will see. I am planning to ask her therapist if she can continue to do sessions with our dd after we return to Kenya. That is one blessing we have had through this pandemic-being able to do her sessions online! It would be a huge comfort for our dd if she could continue her sessions after we leave. Her CAT test results weren’t great (we do that online as it’s what we could do while in Kenya), so my head is swimming with how to change some of her curriculum. Her math scores weren’t great, but she does well with MUS that I hate to change that on her. I’m trying to keep things the same as much as possible due to her anxiety, but I also realize we need to change up some stuff. History and science are two of them. Also lit. I’m at a loss for lit. But, some of this may need to wait until we do testing and see what the results are. Thanks again for all the time everyone has taken to offer advice and thoughts! I am listening to you all and processing what you’ve said.

Thank you SO much for both these replies. There is so much I need to process. I really appreciate the detailed responses and help!! I have never heard of developmental optometrists, so I have started looking for info about this and to see if there is one in our area we could get in to see. This could definitely help us learn more about our dd’s issues. I have often wondered if her headaches were related to her eyesight, but at her dr appt this past spring, the dr did a basic exam and she passed, so I figured that wasn’t the issue. But maybe there’s more going on than we know. It may explain a lot. We are not opposed to meds, but would rather try to avoid them as long as possible. We hate to start her on the meds as we would prefer for her to learn ways to cope with the ADHD and anxiety naturally, but if she needs meds, then she needs them and we will get them for her. We do not view any of this as a “spiritual crisis” or having any spiritual basis. We believe that meds are useful when needed. Anxiety definitely runs in the family. I am on meds for it, as well as my mom, dad and sister. My husband also struggles with anxiety, but is not on meds at this time. My other sister (I have 3) probably has ADHD but was never diagnosed. My dad has aspergers (diagnosed as an adult), so we are aware this could be an issue for our daughter as well. In fact, her therapist suspects she may also have some ASD and conducts their sessions on this basis, but again, nothing is “officially” diagnosed. Another “issue” in all this is that we are missionaries. We are in the US right now on our furlough “time off,” but plan to return to the field in Sept. So, we don’t have a lot of time to figure out a plan for all this. Our field home is in Kenya and there is limited help for these issues there. We have a lot to process and try to figure out and resolve before we need to return. Regarding curriculum, I’m glad to know that BJU science really ramps up in high school. Better to know that now, rather than later!!! She’s enjoyed life science this year, but maybe we need to start looking for a new program. Same with history. She’s never really done American History. She’s bounced a lot between programs and seems to always do the ancient/middle ages cycle, but never going beyond year 2. We’ve done some TOG, some MOH and this year, BJU. We really need for her to have American History and do some geography. I’d considered MOH, but I’ve read that it’s a bit “light” for HS. Is that correct? BJU 8th grade history is the American Republic, which I was excited about because it would give her focused American history for the year. Should I still plan for this, or reconsider? And for science-I’m lost. We’ve always done BJU, but Peter Pan confirmed what I’ve suspected about it ramping up in difficulty. We are trying to lower our dd’s stress, not add to it. As it is, we’re finishing the year without doing tests. Just reading, lessons and the section reviews in the chapters. What other science should we consider? I will take a look at what Timberdoodle uses. Would Apologia be a good option? I think they have an audio book option with their books. My dd has difficulty focusing on her reading, so maybe the audio option would be good for her. I just feel lost in all this. This has all thrown us for a loop. I will continue to think about all this over the next few days. I definitely see the benefits for the testing and evals suggested. Thank you for allowing me to just “throw this out there.” We desperately want to help her and feel lost in navigating through all this. Please let me know any suggestions for history and science going forward. I was thinking about Excellence in Writing for....writing. Her writing skills are a bit below level. Not bad, but she hates writing, and so it’s a battle getting her to work on it. And we were considering MP for lit next year rather than BW. I need a bit more hand holding than BW provides. Thoughts on these options?? Thank you so much!!!!

Hi- I’m writing because I need some help. Our 13 year old daughter was “diagnosed” with inattentive adhd and anxiety by her therapist. I say “diagnosed” because we haven’t done official testing with a psychologist, but her therapist has said this is what the issues are. She has difficulty focusing on her coursework and finishing her assignments in a timely manner, probably because of the difficulty she has focusing. She is an extremely anxious child who fixates on things in the past and has difficulty changing her thought patterns. She also complains almost daily about having headaches while doing school. She wears blue light glasses for her online classes to help with the headaches, but it doesn’t seem to help much. She gets very stressed out while doing her work. We use a mix of curricula right now for her-math u see, BJU for history and science and bravewriter for lit/grammar. She does fairly well with her classes, basically solid Bs, but can’t seem to get anything higher and is very anxious about tests. I’ve been wondering if we should switch her curriculum for something else. Wondering if something different would help her feel less stress about school. I’ve looked at MP, but she’s getting older and I’m not sure it would work for her to start it now going into 8th grade. Does anyone have any suggestions about what to do for her? Should we look at switching curriculum, or would that cause more anxiety? Would she be stressed regardless of the curriculum we use? I hate to see her have headaches so much (she’s been to the dr twice and the dr says she’s fine) if there’s a different way we can do school with her. Any advice would be appreciated! TIA!! Carrie