When is their 18th birthday? If it's well before traditional graduation in June, I'd make a deal with them. They can CLEP or DSST math, English (comp or lit) and government or econ (micro or macro)-their choice. If you just need a social studies, there are also psychology, anthropology and sociology options. Once they've passed these 3 exams they're done. The advantage of CLEPs over DSSTs is that Modern States has prep courses and downloadable textbooks. You're more on your own to prep for DSSTs. There are also resources for both at: http://www.free-clep-prep.com/index.html Math choices: College Math CLEP, College Algebra CLEP, DSST Statistics. The easiest is College Math and it's a wide ranging test that they've probably seen parts of before. College Algebra would line up with their pre-calc, I think. Statistics is a tougher test, but it might be more interesting. English options: CLEP Composition, Analyzing Literature, American Lit, English Lit, DSST Technical Writing and Public Speaking Any of these will work for an English credit, it's a matter of picking something interesting and studying it. Social Sciences: There are so many options here unless they absolutely need government and/or econ. Some of them are reputed to be very easy, some are more challenging. They could focus on one subject at a time and intensively prep for that, take the test, move on to the next and be done in 3 or 4 months. Maybe you could show them how Thomas Edison State works so they can see the goal of earning a BA and how they're moving in that direction. They may just be done. Done. But they can't just get into a fast car with a ticket to anywhere unless they look forward to living in a shelter and working as a check out girl. They can make a better plan and execute it. ETA: Modern States offers vouchers if you complete their courses. This makes CLEPs the cheapest option. DSSTs will cost more and be tougher to schedule, but they offer some cool courses. Dd really enjoyed reading the World Religions text and managed to prep in about a month after work. There are many other courses offered that might pique their interest. In the meantime, they can be looking around for career options that include room and board or working to save up enough cushion to move out.

So, this is from the perspective of someone whose parents do not have NPD. They've got their quirks, but they're not toxic. My parents are really old now, my dad is going to be 88 and my mom is going to be 83 in the next two months. They don't complain about aging. Ever. They complain about their aches and pains a bit, the weather a lot when it's too hot or rainy to do their daily walk, politics sometimes (but we're on the same side, so this is commiseration not passive aggression), bad customer service (hats off to their internet non-provider they eventually had to dump), the vole that killed my mom's hostas (this is annual, but hope springs eternal) and the sudden sharp increase in the price of x (milk, eggs, the same stuff we gripe about on here.) They spend at least as much time telling me happy stories about the fabulous deals at Publix (2 for 1 Siggi's, yippee), something cool they saw on their walks, how well my mom's garden is doing, etc. I think they're really grateful to still be relatively healthy at their age and focus on enjoying what they can and not dwelling on what they can't. My mom has rheumatoid arthritis and my dad has macular degeneration, so they have their issues, but they look at being really old as better than the alternative.

Americorps has a volunteer gap year program called City Year. It might be a good fit for M.

With this much writing, I'm wondering if this class fulfills a writing requirement? If that's the case, I'd count it as your English for the year and let them take history next semester. Many high schools do a block schedule where students take 4 classes each semester. It wouldn't be very different than that. When you write your course description make sure you emphasize the amount of writing they did.

If they want to get out of their hometown, they need to make a plan. That's almost certainly going to require a hs diploma to execute. Maybe you could spend a week or two formulating a realistic plan to get out of Dodge next June. That might give them the impetus to finish up. They might also be more motivated if they know they can double dip by doing PreCalc for their high school graduation and, then, CLEP it for college credit. Modern States has free prep materials and vouchers so it's free if you put in the work. I don't remember their health challenges, if they've resolved and weren't self harm, they might want to consider the military. It's the quickest ticket out of town for young adults who have major conflict with their families. There are many enlisted who chose the military for this very reason. Feel free to DM if you need help researching this possibility. Keep on keeping on. It's such a stressful time for young adults and the older ones who are trying to launch them.

I went through the UF course catalog for their required Quest classes (one humanities, one biology or social science, I looked at bio) to see what they offered. They had a couple of asynchronous options, one that was obviously a check the box to fulfill this requirement, and one that seemed more interesting but was recycled video from a live class that's no longer offered. I was looking at it from the opposite perspective. Dd is in Guam, which is literally on the other side of the earth, 12 times zones away from EDT. If a class is not asynchronous, it won't work. In fact, I hope she'll be able to find classes that unlock all of the content from the beginning so she can accommodate any underways she'll have without having to drop a class. But, tbh, she's looking for the relatively easy class that checks the course requirement box and gets the degree that checks the box on a job application. She's already got a "real" job that has to take priority. This isn't ideal for traditional students, but it is what the non-traditionals are looking for. (As a an extra point that probably only applies to military, but you can't always count on having good wifi. I was checking the Quest classes and sending dd screenshots because she doesn't have access to good wifi on board her ship or on the barge they lived on while they were in the ship yards. She had to rely on me or take her phone to a McD's or Starbucks to really use anything except email. This makes asynchronous even more important to her. She has to be able to download stuff and watch it offline.)

8 is right about the importance of developing good writing skills. I'd just like to add that you don't have to sit and watch him write a paragraph. You can sit with him for 5 minutes and make sure he has a topic sentence and knows where to look for supporting details, then send him off to write. When he's finished, you can sit with him again for 5 minutes to make sure he's used the topic sentence, that his supporting details work and identify any punctuation or word choice issues. Rinse and repeat daily (that stack of science books is an awesome source of paragraph writing material) and by the end of the year, you'll have a master of paragraph writing who is ready to move on to essays. PS: At 10, he should be learning to type if he hasn't already. That is something he can do by himself using a game.

Their online high school classes do not fill out the entire workbooks. They use them to guide class discussion and use them selectively for written practice.

You get the Gold Star for Exceptional Mothering for that.

The major problem I see with that price is that all the Smithsonians are free and that's more than you can hope to do in a brief visit to WDC. OTOH, I pay almost that much for special exhibits at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, so if I really wanted to see it, I'd pony up. I know about their provenance problems. It's clear the Hobby Lobby dudes were marks for every biblical scammer out there. But, I don't think the Museum of the Bible is the same as the Creation Museum or that Noah's Ark thing. They at least were trying to make a real museum and doing a crappy job of it, not blatantly making stuff up. I've seen the Elgin marbles and the Benin bronzes (before they were returned) and I wouldn't boycott the Smithsonian even though they have those Peruvian skulls. I wish the HMNS would not display their mummies (it's disrespectful IMHO) but I'm not going to not take Astroboy to see the museum because I object to that one display. I'm a hard-core none that deconverted from Christianity before puberty, so I'm not that sensitive to how they make American Christianity look. But, I'm not going to shell out $30 when I haven't even seen the African American museum yet and I'd want to spend a day at the National Gallery.

My dd graduated from MP's online academy so she did all of her high school level classes with them. (She also did dual enrollment classes at our local CC and graduated high school and her AA at the same time). We DIDN'T use many MP products before high school. She used their Latin prep stuff and did a year of Henle before she started their Latin 2 in 9th grade. We read a few of their books with their study guides and that was all. It didn't make any difference. I think if you plan on doing their online high school you should do a couple of classes online throughout middle school, but they don't have to be with MPOA. We used the defunct Landry Academy, WTM Online and Art Of Problem Solving classes and dd was well prepared to do handle a full load at MPOA when she started. (OTOH, check current reviews when it's time to enroll. Dd had some excellent teachers but MPOA is so big that quality varies.)

The article didn't mention Covid, but I think it plays a bigger role than it's being credited with. My dd was so sick of lockdown and online everything (not just classes, but Model UN, Asia Society camps, violin lessons). It ruined her last two years of high school and the thought of going off to college and maybe having to lockdown again definitely weighted the scales in favor of enlisting. She's gotten what she wanted, a real job, sailing on a big ship, visiting a lot of ports and living all over the place in her two years of Navy life. Now she's ready to go back to school. That means finishing her degree online at a highly ranked public university, but I don't think she regrets missing the freshman experience.

I live next door to a middle school. They are currently doing their cross country unit and I see kids out all the time when our highs are consistently above 100. So far, nobody's died but I imagine that we might be heading for that. I don't know why they schedule running in August in Houston, it's really stupid.

I missed the original post, but I LOVE the new screen name and avatar. That llama is fresh from the salon and ready to deal with all the drama life can hand her. You are too.

No, my dd has been in the Navy for two years. She used the UF Online app (this may be different than the regular UF app, I'm not sure) and when she entered her AA information, it automatically categorized her as a transfer, even though their written rules are quite clear that she is considered a freshman and her AA graduation date is before her high school graduation date. She had to email and call a couple of times until they changed her over, but once she spoke to the correct human it was an easy fix. Another thing to keep in mind with UF is that their list of acceptable classes to fulfill distributional requirements is really wonky. My dd's 2 semester survey of British lit didn't count as a humanities course and neither did her Film Appreciation class. They accept a lot of CLEPs and DSSTs for credit though and dd is planning to fulfill her humanities requirement with the World Religions DSST. They also require 2 semesters of biology for a CompSci BS. She'll be CLEPping one of those too.

Dd just uploaded her resume to UF. She had to hound them to change her application from transfer to freshman because she completed her AA during high school, but their system treated all AA holders as transfers. This had implications for courses she was required to have already taken (two semesters of physics) but it also changed the requirements for attached documents. For the freshman application, she needed to have provided SAT scores (they had them already) and a resume. In this case, I think the resume is clearly meant to highlight activities since they require them of freshmen but not transfers. Dd has worked for two years in a full time, responsible adult job so she did a standard work centered resume with DH's help using his template. If she was a high school senior I would have told her to center her extracurriculars to highlight leadership roles and selective activities instead of her part time job making supermarket sushi.

Have you ever seen Triumph of the Will by Leni Riefenstahl? They're referencing Hitler's torchlight processions.

It's not from the Ringo Starr song, it's a joke about the Second Civil War referencing Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo. The proponents of a Civil War 2.0 started putting igloo patches on their tactical vests (think Proud Boys, Oathkeepers, III%ers, if these don't ring a bell for you, google them, it's important). Then they flipped the igloo to a tropical theme and started using Hawaiian shirts as identifiers. Here's an image from Wikipedia, but the Wall Street Journal and New York Times also have pictures of militia types in Hawaiian shirts.

Carrying this argument to its logical end point, someone could display a swastika and say that they're honoring its original meaning as a symbol of the sun. How many of us would accept that at face value?

We're living through an epochal era in American history. I can't say I'm loving it, but I do think it's important to pay attention even when it's painful. I'm sure that Americans in 1860 or 1940 or 1973 weren't enjoying their bits of American history either, but they paid attention, fought back and made it through to brighter days. We can't do less. It's a shame that we've allowed the Insurrectionists to coopt symbols that should belong to everyone, but that's the reality of what's happened. Once something becomes popular with that crowd and they display it everywhere, that's what it references for most people.

This. I had to explain to Astroboy that he should not ever mention El Sapo Pepe at school when he used the character in a practice sentence during after schooling. To him, El Sapo Pepe is a silly preschool cartoon character with a frog friend named Juana. He had no idea that it's an avatar for the Boogaloo. That was a whole 5 minute detour into the muckiest of swamps. How the heck do you give a short explanation of White Supremacism and the Great Replacement to a third grader without freaking him out, especially when he's the target? He needs to know this stuff so he can stay safe, but I don't want him to feel like he's in danger all the time either. Ugghhh, things have gotten so much worse in the ten years since my youngest was this age.

80

No, they're monthly, but they are on top of your salary and Basic Allowance for Housing. BAS and BAH are not taxable. BAS is only supposed to buy groceries for one adult. I don't know why the difference between O and E. I know that officers are expected to pay into the Wardroom's budget (where they eat) while enlisted just eat in the Galley if they're on a ship or living in barracks.

The military's Basic Allowance for Subsistence is about $310 for officers and $450 for enlisted. They adjust it annually based on the USDA's survey of food costs, not just general inflation. It's not a bad place to start when making a budget for an off-campus college student.

Could you suggest the caregiver spend some time on https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForceRecruits/ this will give them a more realistic view of the teen's chances and what they could expect from the Air Force.