I'm helping a kid here in NZ take the SAT. He will not have done an American style curriculum in math or English. He will need to do more than test prep, he will need to learn test content. NZ does NO grammar or puncuation in school ever, and it uses different notation, wording, and approach for math. Are there prep books out that cover only the content on the adaptive exam? Like, there is no reason for us to use old prep books with the longer written passages. I think he will need to drill up the content first, and then use the 4 available practice exams to train up testing skills.

My younger has dysgraphia and was struggling with English in highschool. There was no way we were throwing in another language. We had decided that if he wanted to go to America like his brother and needed 2 years of a language, it would be New Zealand Sign Language, which is an official language of this country so we could argue it was a valid choice. Since overcoming most of the effects of dysgraphia, he has taken a year of Māori in university and enjoyed it way more than if he had tried to do it in highschool while still struggling with English.

Correct. ALL indigenous people in NZ are Māori. They came frome one location in eastern Polynesia in 50+ large canoes around 800ish years ago. Many can trace their ancestry back to a specific canoe .

When my ds did an English paper on the characterization of Jim in Huck Finn, he was very uncomfortable with using the word Black. So we did some research into the current usage (3 years ago). What we read was that the term African American was no longer preferred, and now the African diaspora living in America perferred the term Black. In addition, Black is capitalized. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/05/insider/capitalized-black.html African diaspora living in NZ prefer the term "African.'

I am sure there are exceptions, but in my 25 years hear, I have only heard one person describe himself as Black. This was about 15 years ago. He was Indian. So I asked him about it, and he said that he did consider himself Black because he had dark skin. But that is the only time I have heard it used by someone to describe themselves. I only hear people here calling themselves by the location/country they originate from. Or calling themselves Māori. Not Black. The word 'black' to describe a person has a bit of flavour of American cultural imperialism. Also, the word 'aboriginal' is used in Australia, but not used in NZ. Indigenous people here are Māori. Always.

Population growth leading to catastropic environmental outcomes was used for decades to target Global South countries. There was no equally intense attack on Global North countries that may have fewer babies but use so many more resources that their impact on global environmental health is worse (think Climate Change and who is producing all the CO2, it is not Africa). So there are a lot of scholars who focus on Justice that dismiss population growth as an issue that should be focused on.

Also, to call someone Black here in NZ is not really OK. You would say they are African. Black actually refers to all people with dark skin like Indians. So much more of a racial term. So to a NZ ear, listening to American news or media, the word Black really stands out as yucky. We get it, we know why it is used that way, but it just means something different here.

Definitely cultural. Here in NZ, you would not use the word autistic or autistic person or person with autism to describe someone, and they would not use those words either to describe themselves. You would say 'on the spectrum' - I was corrected multiple times before I realised the change in language. Queer is the preferred term here or rainbow community as both are holistic terms. LGBT+ and all its other forms is considered too much about putting people in little boxes of L, G, B, T etc. So I would say someone is queer before saying they are trans or gay.

I've remediated 2 kids who did not know the multiplication tables at age 14, which caused quite a bit of struggle in algebra. Both were dyslexic. The key seems to be parent/teacher involvement with making plans, checking up on progress, encouraging, keeping a chart of progress etc. Took these kids about 3 months of daily work with regular checking up, encouraging, and tracking progress.

MEP is full K-12 curriculum out of the UK that is free online. It is well designed and has lots of different type of work. You could just do the pages that you want and not buy anything. It does have very good puzzlers.

Is he a motivated kid? Could he guide his own study if he had a syallabus and goals?

no cook chocloate coconut-milk mousse is delicious. basically, melt the chocolate and mix in the coconut milk, add flavours if you want (vanilla, quantro, etc). Easy to google variations. Put it in pretty little glasses the night before in the frig. Then whipped cream and strawberry on top makes for quite an elegant dessert.

.

I think that is the point. It really depends on the parents' philosophy and the child's needs. For us, if we were not doing violin, we would have needed to be in therapy for his auditory processing problem. I worked quite a bit back in the day with the learning-disabilities section of this board, and they were all about therapy and metronome work and other remediation methods -- hours and hours a week to deal with it. Violin was fulfilling all these remediation needs. We had known about ds's auditory processing problem since he was 4 when he had developed a major speech impediment which required intensive therapy. And it had impacted his spelling in a horrible way because he learned to read while he had the speech impediment, so he had mapped the wrong sounds to the letters (that was a massive remediation in and of itself!). Plus, with the on-the-spectrum-thing, music seemed the most efficient way to attack all these problems at the same time. By the time he was 9, we realised that we could also use music to remediate his executive function issues and teach him these critical skills. I think that homeschooling is rarely silo-ed in skill development. We weren't supporting his music, we were supporting the child. And violin allowed for a synergy that was extremely effective. But the weightings would be completely different for other families and other children. That is why IMHO parents need to take some time to *think* about what they need to accomplish and how they plan to go about it.

Who had a dd who was the irish-style fiddler? She was touring throughout the country really young, like age 12. I bet she would have some good advice.

I wanted to add one more thing. Violin for my ds was more than just an instrument, it was his pathway into friendships and camaraderie. He was an akward child whom many thought was on the spectrum. Music was critical to his social development. Here is one of his university application essays about what music meant for him, and the impact it has had on his life: ------- Prompt: Describe the world you come from; for example, your family, clubs, school, community, city, or town. How has that world shaped your dreams and aspirations? Throughout my life, maths and music have been my constant companions. Maths has given me passion and purpose, while music has given me my community. I am lucky to be a part of a family who appreciates mathematics and loves science and technology. However, from the age of twelve, I have outpaced both my parents and my peers in maths, requiring me to study independently. My peers came from music. For the past six years, I have been actively involved in a series of chamber music groups and small string orchestras. These ensembles have given me my community -- a collection of quirky, outgoing individuals who aspire to become professional musicians. Through their friendship, I have become more outgoing and less self conscious. I have learned how to handle disasters on stage: I have forgotten pieces of music played from memory, had to improvise when my trio skipped a section, and had to reassemble twelve pages of sheet music off of the floor. Music has also given me opportunities to practice public speaking, lead a small string orchestra, and mentor younger students. The music community has helped me to develop the people skills critical to all endeavors, and has convinced me that I love working in groups. I love the people and the camaraderie. Music has made me realise that I don’t want to do mathematics in isolation, that I want to be a part of a collaborative project, working together towards a common goal.

Thanks so much for that, 8. So few people truly understand the difficulties and struggles of homeschooling. As you know, it is a long hard road but incredibly rewarding.

I say this carefully and with full understanding of the ramifications. You may need to learn. It really depends on how much you want to support your son. And I don't mean that in a snarky way, more your parenting philosophy. Philosophically, do you want to support his weakest skills so his best skills can fly; or do you want him to develop more evenly and with more of a focus on independence? Both are valid choices, and both lead to good outcomes. I think it depends on the parent and the child. For my family, we chose the first option. I learned how to support his violin. I could not play, but I could study what needed to be done during practice, what I should look for with how he was playing the violin so he didn't fall back into bad habits. At one point, after he broke his arm at age 11 and it finally came out of the cast, I stood with him for Every. single. moment. of. every. single. practice and held a pencil next to his wrist to make sure his wrist did not pancake. That was for 4 full weeks. My dh even researched how to support him develop a better vibrato. Because ds had broken his arm, it was tricky to do vibrato (his was too jerky because the nerves had been impacted by the break) and his teacher was struggling to give specific instructions as he had never taught a kid vibrato who had a broken arm heal that way. My dh watched videos of different techniques, and then worked for 2 full years, trying this and that with our ds until he was successful. As for preparing for competitions, ABRSM is similar to competitions, in that there are winners (ds won top scorer for all instruments and all grades k-12 when he was 13). To prepare, I went through the syllabus and studyied what the judges were looking for, how each step could improve his ability (not just his score). I sat with him while he memorized 50 scales (which on the violin is quite a thing), we tracked with a little chart how each one was progressing, what he could remember first time accurate. It took him 8 weeks of 30 minutes a day on scales only to get them done (separate from all the other preparation). The chart was a very visible remind of what needed to be accomplished. In addition, my dh did all the ear work *with* him at night - 100s of hours. My dh didn't know the ear work, but learned it with him. My boy had an auditory processing disorder, so ear work was close to impossible to master. In fact, violin itself was close to impossible to master given he couldn't hear the notes. He could not hear what was in tune. He became such an amazing violinist through sheer drive and intellect. He used other parts of his mind to compensate for his learning disability, and then slowly every so slowly rewired his brain to overcome it. And throughout all this work, we were in it WITH him. BUT we did not force him to play, we did not nag him, it was all directed by him. We would tell him what needed to be done by the exam date, then lay out the plan together that we thought would work. We talked about buffer time at the end, and mental well-being in the middle of the frustration of the picky details. We drove him to lessons, rehearsals, string group, orchestra, and performances. We lived violin. This was our choice to be this involved. There are different parenting philosophies and the above was our choice, made with much reflection and self-evaluation along the way to make sure we were the parents we wanted to be. But I will say that there is NO WAY that my ds would be so accomplished and find violin his best friend if we had not walked this path with him. The auditory processing disorder was a major hurtle to overcome, and it was not one he could have done by himself. So I guess what I am saying, is that maybe you need to sit down and have a good hard think as to what it is you believe about the role of a parent, and what you think is best for this specific child. And then implement that approach.

My older boy played enough that he developed fiddler's neck, an infection of the practice mark on the neck of violinists. In the end, the solution was a antimicrobial silver-infused cloth that he wears every time he plays/practices. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiddler's_neck

I sure you know all about asymmetries in highly gifted kids. Mine struggled with executive function skills for years (as in until he was 20 or even 21). For my high asymmetric kid, I acted as his executive function piece of his brain for years, but I did it *while* training him to do it himself. I described above the types of questions I needed to ask. We tried writing it, drawing it, orally talking, sticker charts, paper chains, self-rewards, we basically tried every single thing I could think of. For us it was an unbelievably long process -- 10+ years. My ds was taking grad-level math classes at MIT as a freshman while still calling me for help on trying to figure out how to prioritise homework each day. But slow and steady wins the race, and it is obviously a valuable/critical skill to learn. IMHO, there is some indication that your ds may have a learning disability in executive function skills or at least a major asynchrony. I would suggest you meet him where he is at and work every so carefully and slowly to help him master these skills. I will also agree with 8. You have people in your life who can see your son and give you feedback as to how to handle this very special situation. However, I will tell you that when my ds was about 9, he got super intense with his math. Hours upon hours a day. In the end, I hid the book until we could come to an agreement. Now, he was pushing himself so hard that he would cry for hours while continuing to work and would refuse all help. But I could see that the intensity was unhealthy. Sounds like this is not the case for your ds, but I did want to say that if you see it heading towards something unhealthy, you should intervene. It is just a circuit breaker, not an end to the passion. My ds just needed a week off and a new, more balanced approach.

It sounds like he must love it to play so much. Maybe it is time to stop competitions and just embrace the love.

This is great advice. It is easy to over play a piece. Our ds's teacher had him learn a piece for the performance early, then take a break for a month and do other things, then loop back around before the exam and perfect it. We also used video recording so that ds could critique himself.

Yes, Grade 8 at 16, and Diploma at 17. And he is still taking weekly lessons 5 years later! My ds's highschool teacher thought that going through the exams rounded out a musician's skill set. The 4 areas are: performance (with accompaniment), scales, sight reading, and oral skills. I think ds would agree that these were incredibly valuable skills to learn and was very glad that he learned them. Scales with a violin force you to learn to hear the notes, sight reading allows you to learn new pieces faster, and oral skills teach you how to play with other musicians and appreciate music by ear. As for Theory, ds only did up to grade 5 theory which is the minimum required to move ahead with the higher level exams. Theory helped him to understand how music is put together. Sure he could just play it if he can read music, but to really understand why something sounds good requires some theory. Also ABRSM is not just designed for performers, it is also designed for people who want to compose music. For that, theory and oral skills are pretty important.

My older boy is a serious musician (national level here in NZ), but at age 9 he was still doing the suzuki style and did all his playing with his father who was also learning. At about the age of 12, we were told that he needed to begin the process of learning independently. We were told that he would slow down at first (like for 6 months) and then speed up as he learned to self regulate and self-teach. If he/you want to do competitions, then you need to have the focus be about making a plan and keeping/adjusting the plan. Continual evaluation and self-reflection is key. How did it go yesterday? What should you change? Are you overpractising? If it is getting boring, how can you fix that? What schedule will allow you to meet your goals? How can you handle set backs? How will you deal with frustration? Etc. You need to be doing this type of conversation all the time. Like every day. My older started ABRSM exams at the age of 9, and this is the process we went through. It took until about 16 for him to master it, and be able to prepare himself for one of these exams (they require a LOT of prep - as in 100+ hours). So, basically, at the age of 9, you need to be heavily involved. But your role is not to convince him to practise, rather your goal is to teach him how to self-reflect, self-evaluate, set daily goals. Rince and repeat. This is an outstanding long-term goal and one that will serve him well in all areas of life.

I've been thinking a bit more about this. He and I came to an understanding that writing was a critical skill. We also came to an understanding that his AoPS proofs were a huge amount of writing (2-4 page long proofs each week 11 months per year), and they were graded for clarity, style, and proofreading. Thus, we agreed that for both English and SS classes he needed only about 4-6 papers per year in total (depending on length). We also agreed to work together one hour per day 4 days per week on writing. This could be me teaching him techniques, sitting in solidarity while he wrote independently, or having a competition where we would each write on the same prompt with me have a handicap in time to make it fair. So 4 hours per week, 40 weeks per year for 4 years TOTAL for writing across all subjects except math. This work was done WITH me side by side at the table. My point is that we made a time goal, not a content goal for writing. We also agreed to 1 hour per day 4 days a week on science. He typically could do this independently, but sometimes I taught him how to write essay questions for chemistry or physics, or taught him how to deal with organic chemistry. I wanted him to deal with one class that was a synthesis class based on memorizing content and applying it to new problems, and we agreed on orgo. I taught him how to memorize and apply his knowledge. This was a skill I thought he needed for university. Outside of these 8 hours per week that were mostly with me or with me confirming he was working, he did his own thing. He was a kid with goals, so I didn't have to give him assignments or confirm he was working. This time he spent on math, music, and reading. He was empowered to direct his own learning and was not given grades for this work until the end when I had to make a transcript. What is interesting is that even with this non-schooly approach in high school, he was named a Burchard Scholar at MIT for excellence in his work on philosophy and ethics. So this approach of a HUGE amount of reading (20+ hours per week) with a bit of directed writing (4 hours per week) was very effective for him. What is also interesting is that I struggled to come up with enough 'classes' to look like he had a full schedule even though he did a solid 6 hour academic day +3 hours reading per night. 'Classes' are in the eye of the beholder, and my eyes were opened as I tried to organise and classify his learning into little boxes that admissions could understand.