Lots of hugs. All these replies are making me very glad we didn't try the ACT. We only did the SAT. because I was pretty sure that my boys would have bombed anything that tested anything but math and English skills. They excelled at thinking up perfectly legitimate but nonstandard interpretations of test questions. They also excelled at misreading questions. Hurrying made that worse. To get high enough scores to apply to the technical colleges they needed for the careers they wanted, they had to do a significant amount of test prep. I think the most useful thing they did was go over practice tests one question at a time with someone else. That way they learned what sort of answer certain wording wanted. They also learned how to skip or guess via elimination questions they were unsure of and then go back to them at the end if there was time, which there probably wasn't. That way, they at least answered the questions they knew, rather than not getting to them. If test prep fails, there are some 2 year college programs that lead to some very cool careers. There is a cc in Maine that has a wilderness guide degree, for example. Our cc has a pilot program. There are certificate programs that lead to interesting careers, too - tugboat captain, ship's cook, professional diver, paramedic or emt, welding, cameraman for a film crew... Knowing those things are a possibility might help combat the self esteem issues. At least they did for my middle one. Nan

Congratulations, Juie! I remember my grief at the end of 8th grade as I thought about how much education we were going to have to give up in order to jump through hoops for college admission, and my panic as I thought about how to fit my brightish but not very academic minded, lopsided, atypical children through those hoops. Eventually, I realized that giving up a good education just to keep all their university options open did not make sense and I gave up on that strategy. It was scary to apply to college with an undated, ungraded transcript with natural history and other dubious classes on it, minimal standardized testing, and cc classes instead of AP classes, but it worked out in the end. The relief when they graduated!!! I am so glad nothing I said messed anything up for you grin. Nan

Congratulations, ThisIsTheDay and Vida Winter! I have one graduating that homeschooled 1-12, too. And I am teary, too. : ) No honours here. Just grateful he is graduating and has a job. Great job on those honours! Nan

Yes, Lisa. That one. The one you had to keep telling me not to panic about. The one who built the laser pointer that had to be kept locked up so nobody would mistake it for an ordinary laser pointer and start a fire with it. The one who turned off our refrigerator in an experiment to see if bacteria can hear and didn't remember to turn it on again until he happened to overhear me complaining about the milk going sour faster than usual a MONTH later. (Refrigeration is obviously overrated.) (Corraleno-I blame you for that and various other scientific misadventures. It was you who told me that he needed to do real science, not a textbook.) This is the one who had history textbooks from France that I had to read with a French dictionary. (Thank you Joan.) This is the one who panicked a few weeks before his community college physics class and asked my father to teach him high school physics while we were on a sailing vacation. Dad did it, but told me that next time youngest asked him to do something like that, he was going to refuse unless youngest came with a textbook. It was a wild ride. Nan

Phew phew phew! Grades are in and he didn't flunk anything at the last minute. It was a near thing. He was borderline in biofluids then flunked the final then stayed up for two days straight studying and got a 94 on the retake and messed up the grading curve. The prof had warned him he would just flunk again and was flabbergasted. Just as well he did the retake in her office with her right there. Phew. I will put a few more in here. Phew phew phew. Maybe it will reduce the migraine that built up yesterday. He also wrote a 10 page music paper in 2 1/2 hours to turn in at the last minute. Thank goodness he chose a school that focuses on whether the student can apply the material rather than whether the student has mastered learning in a classroom. We are not die-hard homeschoolers. Homeschooling was a mutual yearly decision. The children chose to homeschool each year. I refused to homeschool anyone unwilling. Somehow, we wound up homeschooling youngest 1-12, with some help from the community college at the end. When he called tme a minute ago to say he was graduating, I asked whether he was glad he had homeschooled. He said he has thought a lot about that this week, and that homeschooling has its advantages and disadvantages, he is glad he did. (More phews. ) Among other things, he said that having watched his classmates solve so many problems and do so much math the hard way, he is very grateful for having done Singapore math. He says that he also seems to write better and more easily. He wrote a 10 page music paper this week to turn in at the last minute in 2 1/2 hours. (The research was done earlier.)(More phews. I feel like I spent a good half of high school teaching him plain technical writing. ) And use tools. His team just built a large 3d color printer for their big senior project. And more major phews because he has a job lined up already and began working two weeks ago doing some CAD work and buying and assembling test equipment. A nice unintimidating hands-on beginning. Can you tell I am massively relieved grin? A huge thank you to everyone here in the hive. I would hate to have had to do it without you. I thought some of you might want to hear where this child that you all helped me with so much ended up. Middle one has one semester and 2 coops left until he graduates. : ) Who else has a graduation this spring? Nan

Phew phew phew! Grades are in and he didn't flunk anything at the last minute. It was a near thing. He was borderline in biofluids then flunked the final then stayed up for two days straight studying and got a 94 on the retake and messed up the grading curve. The prof had warned him he would just flunk again and was flabbergasted. Just as well he did the retake in her office with her right there. Phew. I will put a few more in here. Phew phew phew. Maybe it will reduce the migraine that built up yesterday. He also wrote a 10 page music paper in 2 1/2 hours to turn in at the last minute. Thank goodness he chose a school that focuses on whether the student can apply the material rather than whether the student has mastered learning in a classroom. We are not die-hard homeschoolers. Homeschooling was a mutual yearly decision. The children chose to homeschool each year. I refused to homeschool anyone unwilling. Somehow, we wound up homeschooling youngest 1-12, with some help from the community college at the end. When he called tme a minute ago to say he was graduating, I asked whether he was glad he had homeschooled. He said he has thought a lot about that this week, and that homeschooling has its advantages and disadvantages, he is glad he did. (More phews. ) Among other things, he said that having watched his classmates solve so many problems and do so much math the hard way, he is very grateful for having done Singapore math. He says that he also seems to write better and more easily. He wrote a 10 page music paper this week to turn in at the last minute in 2 1/2 hours. (The research was done earlier.)(More phews. I feel like I spent a good half of high school teaching him plain technical writing. ) And use tools. His team just built a large 3d color printer for their big senior project. And more major phews because he has a job lined up already and began working two weeks ago doing some CAD work and buying and assembling test equipment. A nice unintimidating hands-on beginning. Can you tell I am massively relieved grin? A huge thank you to everyone here in the hive. I would hate to have had to do it without you. I thought some of you might want to hear where this child that you all helped me with so much ended up. Middle one has one semester and 2 coops left until he graduates. : ) Who else has a graduation this spring? Nan

I guessed sleeves just based on modern clothing grin. I suspect this is why shoulder pads exist - they allow a bit more room while still giving a smooth look. "Good" clothes are awful about letting you move your arms. Skirts, on the other hand, have their disadvantages but also have advantages when it comes to comfort and freedom of movement. Nan

Dp

Here here! There is a good chance it will. Nice!!! Nan

This would have been a major problem with my boys.

I have had my hands lit on fire using the fuel from a lighter. My boyfriend-now-fabulously-responsible-and-trustworthy-husband did it to me. It didn't burn me at all. If we had done arms instead of palms, I suspect I would have burned the hair off. Drugs had nothing to do with it. Why did I agree to let him do it? Because he demonstrated that it didn't hurt and because I knew enough science from being taught about the various types of fuel used on our sailboat and their advantages and disadvantages that I believed it was possible. And I had been shown by my parents when I was little how to run my finger through a candle flame so I knew that fire doesn't always burn. Why did my husband do it? Because he had the same scientific knowledge base I had, because his older brother had shown him how to do it, anx because he was a 16yo trying to impress his girlfriend. Thank God we didn't have YouTube lol. I would do it again without thinking twice about it, but this was not something we demonstrated to our three boys. Or at least, something *I* didn't demonstrate. I did tell them about it. OP - I am not saying you don't have a problem. The fire stuff could just be normal teen stuff and since your son is mad at you right now and wants to demonstrate that, you get to hear about it. I am just saying, having been there with the fire stuff, that that part of your son's behavior would not particularly worry me. Or at least, not worry me nearly as much as the being very angry with me part. Just in case that is comforting ... One of my sons had some extremely rich classmates in his public high school. He swung the other way and decided to befriend the few who were the exact opposite. That, too, had its problems and he was angry at the world for years. Disparities are a hard thing to deal with when you are a teenager. Holding you and your family in the light. Parenting teens is so hard. I am so glad mine are past that now. My only advice would be to try to keep communication open, make sure he knows that you hear what he is saying, and no matter how untrustworthy he is, make sure that YOU stay utterly trustworthy because once he stops trusting you, your influence on his decisions dramatically diminishes. This is one of those places in life where the two sides are not at all equal. Best of luck Nan

Rocking chair? Something super soft to rub on his face? A fidget cube? Nan

As long as there is nothing wrong with the land itself, I would do it. I would assume I could fix the house so I wouldn't worry about that. 2 hrs away is a nice distance - close enough to go up Fri night and get a swim in before bed and to not have to leave Sun until after supper (provided you work a typical schedule), but far enough away to feel like a retreat. I vote you move quickly on this before it disappears! My dad bought something similar on an impulse when we were little and he says it was the best thing he ever bought. Nan

Rosie! I associate cravings for sweets with migraines and I associate not getting enough magnesium with migraines, but I didn't link the sweets and magnesium together. Thank you for putting together two rather large chunks of my migraine puzzle. Nan

Nice picture, Jane! We see pitcher plants and fly traps sometimes. I can't remember where I have run across pitcher plants but the fly traps I have seen on dead stumps at the swampy edges of lakes in New England. Nan

I have a light New England accent and I don't hear an accent in the voices of the Californians I know, not as much as the locals who have a stronger New England accent or some people I know from New York. I use a glottal stop for a t in the middle of words and I think dropping the middle and end of words gets worse in a stronger New England accent. Something turns into sumXm. "U bah sle[silent p] thah lass nahX." (I used a X for the glottal stop since I don't remember the symbol for one. ) Nan

: ) Tell him that I am starting on strengthening now, with teeny tiny weights. And that about 2 weeks ago, suddenly life got easier. I think it had to do with being more stretched out and being able to move that arm more normally, even if I wasn't allowed to do anything with it. Last week I began sleeping on my side again, which was pure heaven. Best of luck to him! Nan

A boat. We have had a banged up wide too-heavy dinghy upside down in the yard for over 20 years, ever since oldest was 7 and had it to get to the summer program across the lake. Oldest lent me his little electric fishing motor and voila! A boat I can handle. The dog and I can go for rides, which is awfully nice. I haven't driven since Thanksgiving. Nan

A boat. We have had a banged up wide too-heavy dinghy upside down in the yard for over 20 years, ever since oldest was 7 and had it to get to the summer program across the lake. Oldest lent me his little electric fishing motor and voila! A boat I can handle. The dog and I can go for rides, which is awfully nice. I haven't driven since Thanksgiving. Nan

I CAN PAINT!! And write and type. I just can't push, pull, or lift anything heavier than a coffee cup.. And I can't eat because I had a molar out. But the painting part is good. : )

Stacia and Jane, thank you for the book rec! Jenn, my son strongly identified with Bartimous, too. I was afraid to read the books for fear I wouldn't like his role model and would interfere somehow. It seemed like an invasion of his privacy. He is old enough now that it wouldn't matter now, but I am still not sure I want to know. : ) Nan

I purchased diplomas for my children because I wanted the most official looking thing possible in case they had to show it for a job some day (especially a non-US job). The paperwork from our school system is their proof of a high school education, not their diplomas, but I wanted them to have diplomas just in case. And they were a fun marker of their achievement. Someone here helped us put our school motto into Latin, and I drew up a school seal. We have always had a school name, to simplify conversations where we didn't want to get into homeschooling. I had my father, who was heavily involved with their education, sign their diplomas. Nan

In my experience, adults fidgeting with things is widely tolerated in the tech world, either to prevent more distracting behavior or to help concentration or stress. If it is noisy, you might be asked to find something quieter to do. Acadia, I would find those textured teething rings highly satisfactory. : ) Nan

It was mostly pretty tame as adventures go, for which I am profoundly thankful. We alternate between "Pretty idyllic, hunh?" and "Whose stupid idea was this?" with the occasional adrenaline rush ending (hopefully) with "A miss is as good as a mile, right?". Our boys are grown now but they still try to come sailing with us for at least a few days every summer. The stupid bit is a joke- we all have sailed ever since we can remember. It was never an idea, and weather or equipment failure, the reason for almost all problems, aren't choices. They just happen. Nan

Vegetable oil?