This is me, too, which is why it is bothering me. I totally get that it was innocent though. I just don't want it to happen again, you know?

After the fact, your 10 year old daughter told you her young, female soccer coach had videotaped all of the girls doing flips and cartwheels for "her college stuff." I'm trying to decide if I should say something to the coach about it not being appropriate, to get permission next time, etc. I also want her to know she doesn't have permission to use my dd's footage for anything. I feel like it's totally innocent, but it's still a big deal on principle. I talked with my dd about never allowing anyone to videotape her without my permission. What would you say or ask without sounding too snarky or blowing it out of proportion?

This.

:iagree::iagree: excellent advice

:iagree:

And, knowing my kids, I think you are completely right. I've been reading some stuff online and it sounds like we should be just fine. Thanks.

We have an amazing opportunity to see the live opera. I want to go because our friend is one of the main performers. We'd get to go backstage and everything. The girls would learn SO much about the opera and I would do a LOT of prepping with them. What do you think? At the end of the day, is it just too intense? My husband thinks because it's an opera, in Italian, it will be way more abstract than a movie and he reminded me could always leave at intermission. I bought the tickets before someone reminded me it's a pretty intense storyline. Now I'm torn!

Big Bang Theory! I could watch it all day.

This is exactly why I won't put my kids in the summer YCamp. I am shocked at how the adults speak to the kids. It breaks my heart to watch them when they are at the pool.

I went to the school this afternoon to watch a friend's kids on the playground while she was in a meeting. The afterschool program came out and I was shocked at their behavior!!! The girls were saying things to other kids like, "what's wrong with you? Re you dumb?" I had to stop a FIGHT between two fourth grade girls because there was no adult around. I mean, full on hair pulling!! I only saw that once and it wasn't until high school. There was just so much nastiness it was disgusting. My kids were in shock. We got in the car to go home and my dd said, "Mom, that was a really good reminder to me that I like homeschooling. I thought I wanted to go back to school next year, but I definitely don't. I'd forgotten about all that!" She also told me the kids told her, "I thought you were easy, but I guess you aren't." She couldn't tell me what they meant, only that it made her feel bad because she could tell they were trying to be mean. There was more and I was just so disappointed by the behavior, and lack of supervision, I saw. We live in a GOOD area! This is an excellent, and fairly small, school. I really hope this was a bizarre, off day and not an example of what the rest of the school day is like! (Excuse my iPad typing...)

SOTW, hands down. It's changed our life.

My dd needs see hands on practice with fractions. What are your favorite manipulative or games? Thanks.

Sorry, but I don't think you are being selfish AT ALL. I also don't understand why this wasn't a joint decision. It sounds like it's spiraled out of control and it probably won't be easy to fix it. I'm sorry you are in this situation. Perhaps I'm not as compassionate as others, but I also know my limits. Find yours and set them!

I'm so sorry. We recently had a 9 year old friend die from brain cancer. It was awful.

The FB page says they are doing updates to the message boards.

Crazy 8 or Gymboree for winter jammies. They get down to $10-12 a pair and are excellent quality. I buy them a size big as they tend be snug.

Ugh. I'd rather buy 100% juice and dilute it myself, thank you very much! Since when did Stevia become preferable to fruit?

Ahhhh, she actually wrote it all out like that! I see now. This is my big concern with the Common Core. Schools are dropping their math programs left and right and just "teaching the standards." Well, that doesn't fly for teachers who went to school for elementary and took ONE math methods class!!! They have no clue where the kids are going or where they are coming from, math wise. It's absolutely absurd to expect them to create a way to teach x, y, and z. There are schools doing the same thing with language arts, as well.

This is interesting. My husband and I waited and in a perfect world it would be nice if my dds did too. However, we also got married young and I don't necessarily want that for my girls unless a wonderful situation presents itself. I have no regrets about how we got married, but we were lucky that it all worked out. I guess I just want them to be happy and not have too many regrets. I definitely don't want them sexually active in high school, by any means, but I don't believe that making good decisions always has to end with being a virgin at marriage. It worked for me, but it might. Not be the right choice for them. No religious expectations here, fwiw.

Yeah. That's how I learned. What am I missing? Fill me in quickly before my kids get there!

:iagree: Live and learn. Not worth a fight. Now he knows better.

I'm feeling like our homeschool is a lot less warm and cuddly lately. We are doing more "work" so we have fewer hours in our day for the fun stuff. It's not awful and we certainly aren't working much past lunch time, but with soccer, girl scouts, and speech eating up our afternoons, our homeschool is feeling more like "school at home" than ever. Perhaps that's not a bad thing, but I miss the long walks, baking, and all the little extras we used to do. I'm feeling more like a manager than a teacher these days. Is this just a natural transition into middle school or do I need to remedy this by scheduling in the fun stuff so it actually gets done?

:lol::lol::lol: Our dds would get along well! The other day she came in and said, "I fell out of a tree, but I'm ok. I'm not bleeding." She falls, trips, and drops things multiple times a day. And sometimes her decisions make no sense at all!

If it makes you feel better, my dd is 10 and we still struggle with language issues. We are frequently saying, "I don't know what you are talking about. You need to give us more information." We'll be driving in the car and she'll say something like, "It's a big one," out of the blue, referring to something we talked about earlier in the day. It's very frustrating, but it has gotten better. It really just takes time and a LOT of correction and prompting. I am NOT the nicest, most patient parent when it comes to this, I'll admit it, but if it were our house, I would respond with, "Yeah right is not an answer. You may answer with ______ or _____." Feed him the language and make him practice, even if it's just canned responses. He'll get there. I TOTALLY hear you about it being more obvious around peers. I cringe sometimes. It has gotten better and she is catching up, but she still needs patient friends. Oh, and about the bOOks comment, I would have immediately said something about that being inappropriate, but explained why. Have you ever read the book It's So Much Work to Be Your Friend? It was excellent and really helped me to see that it's *ok* that they make these blunders, but it's how we handle it that matters. He walks you through how to become a social coach for your kid without embarrassing them. It's wonderful. Good luck. My dd still wasn't speaking in full sentences at 7, so hang in there!

Thanks. I guess I'll see how much of it the girls want to do.