Yes. There is someone in my family with classic anxiety symptoms, but doesn't seem to think he has anxiety (FWIW, we have lots of familial experience with mental health issues and are pretty good at recognizing classic symptoms of common disorders). Like others have said, it may not be anxiety, but having anxiety without noticing it is certainly possible. Sorry you're having a hard time. These psychosomatic responses can be so deeply ingrained they are 'normal' to us, but they are still causing us harm. I hope your natropath and/or MD can help.

This is what I'm thinking, too. If I go to someone's house, I am not analyzing their housekeeping skills. I am going there to see the person. After reading these replies, I hope that people visiting me aren't critiquing my housekeeping skills, either. We are tidy and generally clean, but there are six of us here (and a dog) and we are all busy with work and school. I am a shy introverted person. The few times someone has come to the house unannounced, I wasn't able to put my best (appearances) foot forward. But the visits were nice. If I don't have any food to offer, I just say so. I always have tea to offer. If someone knocks and it's not a good time, I tell them so. If someone knocks and it is a good time, that's a win-win. No need to overthink it, right? I don't visit homes unannounced because the one time I did, I woke someone up from a nap. Even though the person I visited repeatedly told me, "Stop by anytime! No need to call!" Lol.

How about Thinkwell? Easy Peasy's High School Comparative Government? If you can wait until next year, maybe FundaFunda Academy's Am Govt would probably work. It's not live, but you do have assignment due dates and seems to be exactly what you're looking for!

We've used and loved Speedy Spanish as mentioned above. It has a great audio component and if the student follows the directions, he/she will be speaking a lot. My library has children's audio book kits in Spanish-it's a Spanish book along the lines of A Pocket for Corduroy, Harold and the Purple Crayon, etc. with Spanish audio. We listen to the book while reading along. Since they are books we have already read in English, it's a great way to increase vocabulary and hear the language spoken well. Some other things I like: News in Slow Spanish podcast, Easy Peasy's Spanish lessons, Salsa Spanish episodes by Georgia Public Broadcasting, and the Pre-k and K phonics workbooks in Spanish from Rod & Staff. Enjoy!

I ❤️ my Forester. It's our first non-Toyota in 20 years. We drive a lot of dark, winding roads and can have heavy snow October-May. Most of our activities are in a town 45 miles away, and I have to say the Forester has been awesome. The ground clearance is an issue for us because we live in a rural area with lots of dirt roads. Sometimes the snowplows cannot keep up with the rate of snowfall and the Forester does fine. It's very stable on icy roads, comfortable to drive, has a nice big cargo area for hauling sports equipment and if I go 65 MPH, I get 31 MPG. I am usually driving more like 75-80 and average 28 MPG. Your son could carry lots of realtor signs and fliers in his Forester, but maybe not in an Outback or Accord. If my realtor drove me around in a Subaru, I'd be impressed at his choosing substance over style. Lol. (I'm joking...mostly)

Last year, I read The Count of Monte Cristo for the first time with one of my children for school. I fell in love immediately! It had been so long since I loved a book like that.

Right?! Sign me up for a honkytonk badonkadonk! I would've bet my child's transcripts that I'd never, ever own a pair of leave-the-house jeggings. But I'm totally buying a pair of these.

You can use the "Explore Destinations" option on Google flights to see cheaper flight destinations on the dates you'd like to travel. It's a fun way to come up with new ideas and maybe wind up somewhere new! Southwest airlines doesn't populate into the Google flights tool, so you should search that site separately. Same with Allegiant. And Spirit Air. And Frontier. There is also a fun tool on Kayak.com that will allow you to compare flight prices at a glance. I just found a $90 round trip flight from CLT to Orlando the first weekend of October and a $172 ticket to New Orleans for the same weekend. You can try Travelocity's search engine for romantic getaways from Charlotte. Have a great trip!

Great points. He talked about being able to work another job as a firefighter, but I think he'd be far too exhausted. There's a reason they "only" work that much, right? But that would be his call to make, of course. DS currently works for a construction company. DH is a builder (retired and moved on to something else) and has taught our kids everything he knows so that they can at least build their own homes one day. I feel compelled to say that when I type out the things ds can do and likes to do and wants to do and has done, it makes me feel a lot better about his complete rejection of the academic/classical education I dreamed up for him 12 years ago.

@Lori D. Thank you again for so much to think about. I've encouraged ds to go in to welding, actually. Such good money, high demand. Our high school has an amazing instructor. It's a possibility. @Melissa B I love that course title! I am going to use it!

@Lori D. Thank you so much (as always) for the fantastic information. There is a lot to think about in what you wrote. I'm going to forward your response to my son. My ds is not interested in wildland firefighting. That is a very popular job in our area, even for teachers. We live in one of the largest national forests in the country and we have a lot of forest fires! He's pretty sure he's more interested in urban firefighting. That was very helpful info about doing more EMT work than fire suppression. There is a community college about an hour away (the closest one) that has fire science courses and EMT courses. Our public school only does free DE at the CC if you're a full time student, and only for a few selected programs/classes. I'm also surprised to hear that promotions might potentially go better if you have a degree. I'll chat with him about these things soon as possible. I feel much better about having fire science as a science course on his transcript. He has welding and construction already as vocational courses. Did your son seriously take SIX credit hours in 3 weeks?! Whoa. Intensive is the right classification. It's so nice to have my friends to talk to about this stuff. Ha! 🙂

My rising senior is on our local volunteer fire department. Since he joined, he has started to seriously think about firefighting as a career. As part of his training for the volunteer FD, he has to complete quite a bit of online coursework regarding building structures, fire behavior, blood borne pathogens, wild land fires, communications, fire suppression, vehicle stabilization + extrication, and on and on and on and on. It will work out to be enough hours for a class credit and I would like to make this his science credit for year 12. He already has 3 lab sciences (biology, chemistry, physics) all taken online. What do you all think? Would that be 'sciency' enough? Is this a great example of homeschoolers shining? Or a great example of homeschoolers slacking? 🙂 My goal is for him to be able to attend university if he decides against firefighting. He hates school with a white hot firey passion, though. He already qualifies for admission and free tuition at the closest university based on his grades and mediocre ACT scores. He would attend that university if there is nothing else that he can reasonably find to do with his life. The closest university is known as a party school and has pretty low admission requirements, so he wouldn't likely have trouble with a fire science credit there. However, I don't want to close any doors for him. And I want to think long term about what his transcript might look like to other schools. Has anyone done a more creative science credit like that before? How did it work out?

I'm not sure we need to adapt for individuals. I think the individual needs to make the adaptations him/herself. It seems like these things typically sort themselves out in every work environment I've had with people naturally gravitating towards careers/jobs/projects/field of study that suit their natural bent (usually after some trial-and-error). I'm thinking we can all just be who we are and not have to be who others prefer us to be. Or am I missing your point completely? I'm not sure how these difference make things difficult for the whole, unless we are expecting others to be just like ourselves.

Yay! Welcome to the family! 🤗

So, I think that the majority of us with more than one kid has dealt with this. First of all, hugs to you. It's exhausting. It's depressing. It's frustrating. It made me crazy when my kids fought and bickered all day long. I have boys that are extremely competitive with each other. And they seemed to somehow see themselves as superior to the other when they put the other one down or win in some sort of water-fight-type-game like you posted above. I think I even posted similar questions ten-ish years ago. One of my worst parenting moments was when my two oldest sons (13 & 12 at the time) were arguing/bickering/fighting. I had had enough. I opened the back door and pushed them outside. I told them to settle their fight like dogs if they were going to act like dogs. I locked them outside (we live rurally, surrounded by national forest) and I told them they could not come back in the house until they could behave. One went for a three hour walk and came home in a much better mood. One sat on the back porch for a long time and came back inside in a better mood. They way they acted towards each other broke my heart on a daily basis. I read through the replies and there is a lot of great advice already. It's so important to separate childish/immature behavior from meanness and malicious intent. I think what it mostly boils down to is, kids are immature. Some kids get along and and some don't. My oldest two hated each other (I think) until recently. It was awful. I did everything I knew to do and followed all kinds of expert advice. But they are very different and don't have much in common. They annoyed each other, pushed each other's buttons. These days they get along so much better. They'll even spend a Saturday together from time to time at 17 & 16. Now they are able to be friendly and polite and respectful and live together peaceably most of the time. But it was a looooooonnnnnnngggggg time coming. A few things that worked kind-of, besides time and maturity: the book, Siblings Without Rivalry was ok. It has some good ideas and helped me see places I was contributing to the problem. I talked to them often about learning to get along with people we don't like, and how it's a life skill. We talked about being men and women of integrity and learning how to see the good in others. Lots of space away from each other. Different friends. Different sports. Different clubs, whenever possible. This was a huge burden for me because of where we live. I had to really lighten up and not make their squabbles as big of a deal to them as they were to me. Copywork. When they were just being mean, I would give them a Bible verse or quote to copy 50 or 100 or ? times that dealt with their behavior issue. I still do this, actually. Extra chores. When my kids were younger, I gave each of them a certain number of Popsicle sticks (usually 5) each morning. And whenever I had to get involved with something that shouldn't have required my attention (a "She's looking at me! Make her stop!" kid of petty squabble), I would tell the involved kids to bring me one of their sticks. If they lost all their sticks before dinner, they went to bed straight after dinner. This was effective because it broke me out of my rut and I stopped lecturing (they weren't actually hearing my lectures anyway). It was also effective because my husband is definitely the fun one, and the kids really looked forward to being with him in the evenings. When they were successful keeping their sticks for a period of time, I would tell them they had earned the privilege of starting the day with 4 sticks, then 3, etc. Eventually I didn't need them anymore. Best wishes to you! I wish I could take you out for a coffee and encourage you in this. It's so hard when your kids don't get along.

No, I don't take a day off. Usually when my husband is home, he is focused on our kids and really wants to be with them and do things with them, so I end up with more independent time when he's around. My husband is gone weekdays for work and typically home weekends, thought not always. I say that to let you know that it's not an irregular thing for us for him to travel. He's just gone, most of the time. I also stopped thinking of it as holding down the fort until he returned and started functioning as a single parent. If I need a day off/day out, I find someone to watch the kids.

DROP! For sure. No doubt. So many red flags here, especially for a condensed summer course.

The summer before senior year is turning out to be a bigger panic (for me) than the summer before freshman year-which was a decent panic. I'm suddenly keenly aware of all the stuff we *didn't* do. 😞 Writing: 1 credit with Potter's School Lit: 1 credit @ home. Ancient lit list on audio + 2 Great Courses. I hope I'm not doing him a disservice by letting this area be so light. Math: 1 credit Pre Calc probably at the high school. I'd appreciate some feedback on this. The PS has a somewhat easy Pre Calc class that I'm pretty sure he can ace (very small school, one high school math teacher, we all know her classes aren't rigorous), but what good will it do him? He's not going into a STEM field. He just needs the credit on his transcript. It feels like cheating to give a credit for Pre Calc that isn't really Pre Calc, you know? If not PS, then Thinkwell. Science: 1 credit AP Environmental Science with Potter's School. He may or may not take the AP exam. I dunno. I'm tired and overwhelmed and not sure I have the energy to make it happen. There aren't any local places to take the exam. Elective: Welding at PS Social Studies: Govt & Econ - not sure where or how. I like Thinkwell.

But it's perfectly respectable? It's so hard to say. Such a sticky situation. I haven't been faced with anything like that. If I was asked to do something that is clearly immoral/illegal, I hope I'd have the awkward conversation and not do the job. It would be exceptionally difficult for me. I would be anxious about what it might cost me professionally. It might work out; it might not work out.

If I'm understanding correctly and the client is not doing something immoral or illegal, I'd probably do the job to the best of my abilities. That is such a hard place to be in.

I found this old thread and thought I'd bump it for more input. @Garga , did you end up using College Prep Genius? Something else? How did the SAT go? My oldest took the ACT last year and did significantly worse than we expected him to. I'm looking for specific test prep recommendations.

In my area, FSBO is hot partly because of the stupid realtor stories like Dawn has (What a lousy agent! I'm so sorry!). We have listed on Trulia/Zillow and FSBO.com has a good following in some areas. These websites have templates you can fill out to list your home. Once in a hot market, we put a "For Sale" sign in the yard and we got our asking price soon after. You cannot list on Realtor.com or on the MLS without a licensed realtor.

I'm thinking this. And I'm thinking she WANTS to be BFFs so she's doing what she knows how to do, to make that a reality. Best wishes to you and her. I'm always so sad when I read about a bitter divorce with kids involved.

I feel really dimwitted, but this never occurred to me before. Of course, this is the better plan! And from now on, I'll offer to make a donation. win-win

You guys are making me feel better. The parent seemed surprised when I said the dough was probably rotten. To be fair, she did say I could get a refund, but I thought that would punish the kid for the coach's mistake since the money goes to the kid's team. It's not a lot of money, but I don't like to waste food if it can be helped. It's not that big of deal to me. I just wanted to get some objective voices.