Well, to answer your first question, it does seem that when a boy and girl date, the boy is more likely to "push" the issue more than girls do. But you are right, a boy needs to be able to say no as well, and I need to remember that. In highschool, my dh girlfriend wanted to have s*x, but he didn't love her and said no. So it does happen. In a nutshell it would be both. I just don't think it's right to place all the responsibility on girls. And, yes, absolutely girls should be respected on their on their own merits. I guess I've just been trying to figure out a way to personalize it for my own son. I've always been struck how protective some fathers and brothers and other male family members can be towards their own female relatives, and then turn around and be total pigs (so to speak) toward girls they date. I've been lucky to have a dh that really values women and doesn't see women as s*xual objects, and part of that has been because he a lot of strong female role models in his own mother and older sisters. Obviously these are simplistic answers to more complicated issues, and I realize that. I hope I've explained myself better. Thanks though for helping me see it slightly different than I have been. :)

I'll go the secular route...I wasn't allowed to date until I was 16, and that's the rule I want to enforce for my kids, but my dh didn't have the same rule, so he thinks 14-15 is okay for things like daytime movies or something. As far morality goes, I do have the same expectations for both my kids...that is I'd prefer them to wait till marriage to have s*x, but in reality, I'd prefer they wait until they left my house (just meaning I know I can't control what they do as adults). My focus though is going to be different based on gender. I feel like I need to teach my dd to be the one to say no more than I need to teach my son. And yes, I'm more worried about my dd getting raped or something along those lines than I am for her having consensual s*x. For my son, I think I need to teach him how to behave gentlemanly (is that a word???) meaning he needs to realize that every girl he dates is someone's daughter, sister, and potential mother, and should be treated with the same respect that he'd want his sister and I to be treated. In other words, I want to teach him how to not be the jerk that we all don't want our daughters to date. Personally, I think the "daughters need to be the gatekeepers" because "boys will be boys" theory is a bunch of hogwash. Boys are just as capable of controlling their own actions as girls are, and I'm sorry, I was a teenage girl once. Teenage girls are just as affected by hormones and stupidity as boys are, (and in general become more boy crazy earlier than boys become girl crazy) and to place all the responsibility on one gender is wrong.

No, I saw it around my junior/senior year as well. Ah...memories.:001_smile:

That's where I saw it too! How funny! One of the "performers" (for lack of a better word) was an old friend of mine from jr high and saw me in line, so our plan of sneaking directly into the seats and not going through the ritual at the beginning of the movie was totally foiled. :glare: I'm totally laughing over here. I do think the actual experience of seeing the movie in the theater is completely different than renting it now. And, I'd probably think it was really lame today at the tender age of 38. I must admit though, it did give me a certain level of "coolness" at the time to be able to say I saw it.

as I need another hole in my head...of course, I just put it in my cart to purchase later. ;)

I put 3-4 hours, but only because you included the kids rooms. Even then it wont be perfect, but I might be able to help them pick it up enough to run a vacuum though there. If it were just the main rooms of the house, I'd probably say 1-2 hours.

This is going to sound morbid but it's actually pretty funny. When I was about to turn 5 years old or so, I told my mom that I wanted to die for my bday. My mom was a little freaked out and horrified at first, but then I explained that God already had a son but didn't have a daughter. I thought if I died I could go up to heaven and be his daughter. My mom had three daughters, so I thought she wouldn't miss me as much as God would miss having a daughter. (This was the same time in my life that I thought we all lived in a dome and wondered when we'd drive to the spot where the sky met the earth.) :lol:

After a very moody day with my dd, I got very frustrated, picked up the phone and started looking up the number for the middle school she'd be going to. Even though I ended up not dialing (it wasn't an empty threat though...I was about to), it did open up a good discussion about homeschooling. I explained that I couldn't homeschool her when she was being moody. She said she was lonely but also afraid that she wouldn't be able to academically keep up if she were to go to PS. I explained that she shouldn't let fear keep her at home, and to think about it, and when she truly wanted to go back to PS she could. It's been a little over a year now and she's still home. Since she knew she could go back when she wanted to (or when I needed her to) her attitude improved dramatically. Anyway, I don't know know how my story helps you but just to let you know that I understand and hope things get better.

but I think part of the problem was that I didn't know Latin myself so I couldn't explain anything myself when my dd got confused about something. However, I didn't even know there were two different teachers manuals, so maybe if I had gotten the other manual things might have been different.

The two spiral programs I know of are Saxon and Abeka, but I'm sure there are others out there. The biggest thing with Abeka is that it's geared toward classrooms and not homeschool. The worksheets have TONS of problems on them...don't be afraid to cross a lot of problems out or your son might get overwhelmed, whereas with Saxon I know you're not supposed to. I'm pretty sure that Singapore is more mastery, and MUS is completely mastery.

What about making your own mixes? I'm starting to try to do this more, so it's on my mind. Even if you're not ready to go the whole nine yards with the "grind my own flour" type thing and use plain ole all purpose flour, you could make your own pancake mixes, muffin mixes, whatever mixes that doesn't contain preservatives or other chemicals that they put in commercial mixes. I'd also be willing to bet there'd be a lot less sodium and sugar in your mixes than store bought, and still be completely sweet enough for you. (and there'd be no HFCS in them either.) I've heard a lot of talk about King Arthur flour on these boards as well, maybe you could do half all purpose, half whole wheat flour using King Arthur flour if you wanted to make your mixes more whole wheatish. (That's a word, right??)

When I pulled her out of school in 3rd grade, I started her in Abeka because that's what a friend of mine was using. (I had no clue what the difference between a spiral approach vs a mastery approach was.) When we hit a road block with fractions, we switched to MUS fractions, which was good for learning fractions but then she'd forget everything else. I realized it wasn't enough for her to learn something, she had to use it every single day of her life for it to really sink in. Now that she's in 8th grade we're in Saxon, and even though it's not her favorite program (well, I don't think any math program would be her favorite!) the constant review has really been helpful for her. Also, my dd sounds EXACTLY like your son in memorizing math facts. If all I did was worry about memorizing math facts, we'd still be stuck there. She'd have all the 7's memorized, and then we'd come back to the 7's a few days later and it might as well been written in hieroglyphics for all her recall. However, now that she's older and is having to find all the common factors and common multibles and factoring etc, she's really started to own her math facts like she never really did when she was younger. I think with some kids they have to use math to own it and not just memorize. Anyway, I dont' know what Saxon is like for the younger grades, but I liked Abeka and wish I hadn't switched until middle school. The workbooks are very colorful and really laid a nice foundation for math. (although I still haven't found anything to beat MUS for fractions.) Both Saxon and Abeka use a spiral approach.

I voted to read the lit suggestions in the AG. Maybe pull out Usborne encyclopedia for a refresher. This way you can still do the map work and other activities you may have been wanting to do.

and to be honest, I don't want to be. I do believe in having no debt, paying for things in cash, and saving for the future, but that's about as far as I want to take it. I think your question was "how do you know when you're being frugal enough." Well, for my dh and I, we both agree that our financial goal in life is to be comfortable. We want to be able to take trips, to have enough money saved up to significantly help pay for our dc college, etc. We do set up a budget so we know when we're overspending. That's how and where my dh and I draw the line. (Rereading this...I don't want to sound like we are irresponsible with our money; we do set up a Dave Ramsey type budget and try not to waste our money but spend it smartly and make our money stretch. My personal goal is to cut down our food budget right now. But I also don't want to have the "we must do without" mentality either, if that makes sense.)

I have no advice, but I hated HO also for the very reasons you mentioned. (UGH) Good luck.

At my house we didn't use the tests as tests but open book worksheets. In a nutshell, my kids were using Reading Detective to help with reading comprehension. You're supposed to read a couple of paragraphs and answer some basic questions. Then you're to go and mark in the paragraphs why you answered the way you did. My dd had a lot of problems with this and knowing my dd, I think it was more of a laziness problem than true comprehension problems. However, my kids didn't quite like reading detective, and it ended up just being one extra subject we were trying to cram into the day. Using the tests made my kids read the chapters a little more carefully and pay attention to details more. I didn't start using SOTW till my kids were older because we weren't homeschooling when my oldest was in 1st grade. My method of having my kids reading the chapter to themselves and filling out the worksheet obviously wouldn't work with younger kids.

Well, I started using History Makers this year, and so far I've been very pleased with the program. My kids don't quite like the questioniarres, so we record the information a little bit differently, but it works for us. When it comes to history, I'm a major curriculum junkie, so using History Makers lets me use all these resources that I've been collecting over the years. My kids much prefer a narrative history like SOTW. Now, for reasons that I'm not going to get into here, we've haven't done SOTW 3 or 4. I'm in the process of lining up History Makers' topics with SOTW 3 and 4 and so far it looks like it'll mesh quite nicely. Hopefully we'll get the best of both worlds. TRISMS was having a sale for Discovering the Ancient World, so I went ahead and purchased it. From what I've seen I like Discovering the Ancient World much better than History Makers. I'm very excited about using it. If you have any other questions let me know, but I'm still rather new to it but I'll do my best! Good luck.

Well, my 13dd is becoming quite the political junkie. I think it's mainly because my dh and I tend to follow politics rather openly in front of her. But as far as teaching both my kids, I just answer questions as they come up. I lean to the left, but most of my family lean to the right so the last thing I want to do is demonize either party. I do not expect my kids to mirror my political choices when they get older, because who knows what the issues will be in 10, 20 or 50 years from now. I try to explain that both sides want what is best for the country, and it's our job to decide which ones we agree with. When my kids ask about specific topics, I really try to explain both sides fairly. I do expain which side I agree with, but not because one side is "wrong" and the other "right." I also say things like "Now, your grandmother would agree with *** because she feels that...." (She tends to be opposite what we are.),

Send the kids away, and have your husband come home to you wrapped up in a big bow or something (and nothing else)? Or a naughty santa's elf? I'm totally blushing over here just suggesting something like this, but I don't know many husbands who wouldn't appreciate that kind of gift.

But in my house, nothing will ever beat making the mumified chicken. EVER.

Okay, I've been bad because I've been waiting to see if any one else's review matched mine. (Being a chicken here.) I bought it to go with Trisms History Makers. My kids are 13 and 11. Just to give you some background...our history rotation is a little off, and my kids really wanted to keep doing SOTW. I thought it was a little young for them, so we're still going to be doing SOTW for the continued history narrative that my kids like, then I plan on adding assigments from TRISMS and other resources to make sure they are doing more grade level work. I thought this kit would make a good companion for the historic science part of Trisms. The kit comes with a book that gives a couple of paragraphs about the different scientists, then an activity to go along with it. This part I've really liked. We really haven't gotten that indepth with the kit yet because we're getting ready to move and I've shelved history and science until after we move. The order of experiments are groups into different fields of science, (physics, chemistry, etc.) Then the scientific discoveries are chronological within each field of science. As far as the actual experiments go...I'm still on the shelf. So far, what I've noticed is that it tends to be somewhat simplistic. When we were discussing the invention of the wheel, we spent a few minutes trying to pull a book with a spring on the table, then pulled the same book with the spring with small siskabob type dowels under it, and compared which one was easier to pull, then discussed why ancient societies were motivated to find easier ways to move stuff. I wouldn't use this as a stand alone science curriculum. It could make history a little more fun adding in some of these activites, and if you have younger kids it might be a little more appropriate. On the other hand, having gone though the book that comes with it with a fine tooth comb, I think some of the later experiments may be more worthwhile than what we've done so far. Also, it doesn't shy away from explaining some of the more difficult scientific concepts (the theory of relativity, for one example) and I figure if they get a simple but accurate understanding of some of these scientific principles, then when we actually do "real" science they may have a firmer grasp later on. (am I making sense?) The kit is rather expensive, so it's up to you if you think it's worthwhile to get. It's already past the point of no return for me, so I'll make it work, and I'm not sorry I bought it. I think as long as your expectations are reasonable you'll be happy with this kit.

Well, that's a tough question that no one on this board can really *answer* for you. Especially with finances mixed into the equation. However, since I am one who pulled my kids out of school (public, not private), here's a small list of things to consider when you do your pros/cons list: 1. You say they'd get a full days worth of academics. Well, yes and no. A lot of school days tend to be taken up with crowd control, lunch and recess, etc. The whole class has to move together, so if a child gets done early he has to wait for other students, or the child that may need more time wont get it. 2. How much homework do they get? When my dd was in 3rd grade, she'd come home with lots of busy work homework that would end up taking FOREVER! Part of the problem was that my dd is a very kinestic child. Sitting still all day at a desk then coming home to do her homework was just WAY to much still time. I don't know what the situation would be like at the pvt school you're thinking about, but you might want to check it out first. 3. How much pay would you really be getting after pvt school tuition? I would think you'd get a discount, but you'd still probably have to fork over some mula. And is the day care free or taken out of your paycheck? Don't forget to account for the money you'd need for your working wardrobe. 4. When one of your kids is sick and can't attend school or daycare, is your husband able to stay home with the kids so the responsibility isn't all up to you? My dh is military, so he couldn't just "call in sick," I always had to miss work. I don't know what your husbands work is like, but that's something else to consider I completely agree with Joanne. I like how she phrased it: the grass is rarely greener. It's just a different terrain. I had just as many hassles and headaches when my kids went to ps. When people comment how hard homeschooling is, I just say it's no harder than having them in ps, just a different set of problems. I do think that there are a lot of good things that can come from ps or pvt school as well. I miss the sense of community that we had when we attended ps. You've already listed some of the pros in or original post, so I'm not going to go there, and I'm sure you can think of more pros as well. I just wanted to give you some other things to consider. Good luck!

You know...I don't remember exactly how much God once being a man was talked about, but I do remember talking about it in Sunday school when I was in highschool, so maybe that's why I tend to remember it better. I also did a lot of extra reading on my own, and I know I read about God once being a man as well. But you're right, that wasn't discussed as much as the As God is, man may become part. I like how you phrased it..."the ultimate point of everything." I was trying to find a way to say the same thing but didn't know how. :001_smile:

I'm not good at multi quoting, so I'm just going to respond to a couple of the threads going on. When I went to church, we talked about becoming Gods. NO ONE ever said, no, that's not official or accepted doctrine. I'm not trying to be argumentative, but when I was Mormon I accepted it as a basic belief in Mormonism. (keep in mind...Mormons don't believe it's a "right" as a member of the faith. It's supposed to be only the most select few who have proven themselves, the most righteous.) And yes, we talked about it in Sunday School, in Young Womens, etc. Of course, when I say we talked about it all the time, I don't mean it was the only topic of sacrament meeting or whatever, but it was mentioned a lot. When it comes to various items concerning the Trinity and other things, Mormons believe that the Prophet of the church can and does receive further revelations from God, and Mormons do have other books of scripture, so just because something isn't mentioned in the Bible isn't always considered a "valid" arguement for or against. Does that make sense? :001_smile:

I hope you don't mind if I respond to this question, and I haven't currently read below this post, so it may already be answered. I'm not an active LDS as an adult, but I was raised LDS and most of my family are. Growing up, I was told COUNTLESS times how I didn't believe in Jesus Christ and therefore I was going to Hell. All LDS I know have had examples of this as well. Many people have also asked me why we worship Joseph Smith and not Jesus Christ. This was ONGOING thoughout my childhood. Now...Mormons DO have different theological beliefs which can be discussed, but when Mormons are always having to defend against false perceptions about them, they (we) become defensive. (When I was 17, my future SIL, in all seriousness, asked me if it was true that on a girl's 16th birthday, she was taken to the temple and devirginized by the presthood members of the church.) :blink: So in a nutshell, Mormons get tired of being told they don't believe in Christ when the backbone of the Church is about Christ. Mormons are the first to say that many of their beliefs aren't the same as other Christian demoninations. But if they are Christian or not: The American Heritage Dictionary defines a Christian as "one who professes belief in Jesus as Christ or follows the religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus; one who lives according to the teachings of Jesus."