We're allowed 8 female chooks here, in the city (Australia). No roosters though. I would love a goat! No cloven animals allowed , unfortunately. We rent. This morning dh took the kids to get dd16 a car at an auction, so I used my unexpected freedom to make a 2nd vegie garden bed with limestone blocks from a building sits bin across the road. I am exhausted, but very happy with myself. I am finding my personal income far lower than it used to be. But there is something very satisfying about saving money, growing your own vegies (I used compost I made instead of spending $$$ on bought stuff), eggs from chooks etc. But it often is quite expensive around here- to buy chook food, to buy manure or fertliser.Our soils are sand...they need a fair bit of help.

I think it is very hard to judge. The unschoolers I know are very creative and dedicated too. I am not against some sort of government moderation- as I have- in a once a year visit just to check that some sort of progress is being made in some basic areas. My moderator tells me some real horror stories of some of her cases...so there are some cases out there that really have nothing to do with homeschooling...it is just neglect, as well as deep ignorance. However I can say I think not learning algebra is probably not the end of the world..or composition. Its probably heretical on these boards amongst such academically inclined people....but I am teaching my son algebra at the moment and I remember algebra from highschool really well so so far its easy for me to help him. However, the few times I have had other people around while he was doing his maths, and I asked them if they could do this level of basic algebra (just order of operations, solving basic equations) they have so far all said no, they forgot it all. That includes his dad. One of the friends that was here is 53 and a retired millionaire builder. And composition is not something that is actually taught directly in Australian schools much anyway. Theres a lot of creative writing and some essay writing...but not much structure is taught. I would be more concerned if he couldn't fill in forms, write a letter of complaint, or check his change quickly. Many adults I meet do not read....including my dh. I cant relate to it. But I wonder if they burned out in school. Or maybe not everyone is naturally interested in reading. I have friends with a one year old who are presently raving about how they are going to homeschool him...or rather, go with "natural learning/unschooling". I love their passion and enthusiasm for wanting the best for their kid. And they are partially inspired by my kids being homeschooled. We will see how it pans out in the long run. Idealism is great but projecting too much onto kids- that they are isnt of any use I think a lot of people feel like the mother in the OP who says kids can teach themselves anything at any time. They put a lot of trust in their kids' abilities and in many cases it seems to pay off. But....thats if they know how to learn in the first place, and have the patience and perserverence to teach themselves what they need to learn to get where they want to get. Considering how hard my LD son finds some things....if I didnt push him through, he probably would never voluntarily choose to do those things which feel too hard to him- ever. He might not read (and once we got past a certian point with a lot of hard work, he loves reading). He almost certainly wouldn't write voluntarily. It took a lot of serious consideration- revisited many times- whether to unschool my son, because he does have a quirky personality and just maybe it would fit him. But....I have decided against it again and again because I couldn't put as much trust in the innate desire to learn what was necessary for a child's life...as unschoolers do. I would be going by an ideal, rather than something I had experienced as working. Too great a risk. But...its easy as a classical homeschooler to judge others who do it radically differently, and I do think its probably better to reserve judgement most of the time. I also know a man whose two now grown sons went to Sudbury Valley school- an unschooling school. I asked my friend how they turned out...and he said brilliantly. He only sees them a couple of times a year at most becuse he is in Australia, but he is in regular contact and they are having amazing lives- one travels, the other studies. I suspect many kids can get by without algebra and composition and still live wonderful lives that never need algebra or composition skills. But I think you would have to walk in their shoes to really know, in many cases, whether it was neglect or a deep belief in an ideal that actually does work for many of them.

Or.....maybe there is nothing wrong with him at all and he just doesn't like to read? I mean, they will probably make up a condition with a fancy name for it soon enough, as soon as they can find a medication for it....and if you take him for more and more tests, someone at some time will most likely come up with some sort of diagnosis to pin his "problems" on.....but not liking to read, and reading less than brilliantly, may just be his personality uniqueness, not a pathology of some kind? I am no expert of course, but my ds14 doesn't like to draw, and when he draws, it is sick figure stuff. If we lived in a community where everyone drew a lot, and well (like his sister) he might be considered to have a problem. But we dont, so it's not focused on. Dont take me too seriously...as a mother, you might have an instinct that something is wrong....and that is more valid that anything. But also....not being excellent in all areas is human nature, and as homeschoolers sometimes I think we set such a high standard that kids who are average - who have weak areas- stand out as if there is a problem, wheras in school, they would just blend right in as part of the spectrum of abilities.

I have had mine of the verandah outside the kitchen door. No smell, no flies. I know someone who keeps their in their laundry. If its done prooperly, there is no smell. It needs to be fairly accessible (for me at least) to actually get the food scraps out to them regularly. I tend to cook mine. I have had 3 successful worm farms. Its gets very hot and dry in summer here and black plastic worm containers get awfully hot :sad:. I intend to start a new one soon.

I think being true to yourself and your child is more important than being true to a husband who is being unreasonable. Being true, doing what you feel is right, is more important because you have to answer to your own conscience, not your husband's- he has to answer to his. I truly value my husbands opinion a lot of the time and he is truly a deep and wonderful friend to me...but I do not give authority to him to override my own integrity and wisdom, ever. Even with our children. No, we do not always present a united front, though we endeavour to as much as possible. When I stand by what is right or best to the best of my knowledge, it always works out best, and dh comes around eventually. He has learned to trust me too.

Yes, dd16's room does get that messy..seriously messy. Pigsty messy. We call her a piglet in fact at times because her desk and every space she occupies grativates towards extremely messy. Once we had her clean out from under her bed. Wow, that was an experience. However....she also regularly tidies it and has developed a sense of pride about her room. When she cleans it she comes and gets me to ogle it with her, and ooh and aah. Within a day it will look messy again. As long as she cleans it regularly, and keeps up with her dirty clothes, it is not more than 15 minutes from basic tidy. I try and support and encourage her sense of "room pride" rather than impose too much on her...but we do have a certain standard. Ultimately I think she is happy that we push her every week or so to get a handle on the mess...otherwise she might not find the motivation to do it. Part of the problem is having too much stuff, of course. And I encourage...but dont force...her to let go of things.

I also sense overprotective, but perhaps there would need to be more of a bridge first. Also, your kids might pick up on your anxiety and get stressed about it. If you were going to do it I would make sure you werent also sabotaging it by being too fearful- kids are sensitive. I would have no problem allowing my kids to stay with my mum and her boyfriend...but i live too far away. We go together every few years. MIL lives down the road and has never even babysat, but its because she is tied up with a severely autistic daughter and has little left over for gandkids- she tries. I think staying at granma's is a great thing to do generally speaking, (I hope there is no swimming pool though) but also 2 and 4 are a bit young...maybe just the oldest as a special treat? I agree with your dh...time with grandparents is often limited and precious and even a brief relationship can touch us our whole lives.

Perhaps your nose is trained to think that "fresh out of the electric dryer" is what clothes should smell like.....and so fresh air smell is foreign to you? We have never owned a dryer so I can't compare. It's normal to line dry in Australia and clothes don't stink. I can't see that washing powder or anything like that would make a difference if the only different factor is how it is being dried. Perhaps you need to widen the experiment...maybe it was just coincidence that the loads you happened to hang outside were the ones more likely to be smelly? If I have smelly loads, or ones I want to disinfect for some reason, I add a tsp of eucalyptus oil, which is pretty cheap here.

I would leave it too, since he is so busy. My son was 9.5 before he grabbed an evening read aloud book from my hands and asked if it was ok to keep reading it after I finished. He was hooked from then on. But before that....very reluctant. I kept reading aloud- books I felt would spark his interest. He is 14 now and up until recently has been an avid reader. His interest in reading in his own time has dimmed, so I dont push it. But I do require reading for school and I add in books I know he will love. He is just reading Shakespeare. He was supposed to read Act One Scene One of As You Like It and thought he had to read the whole thing. I only just discovered he was 3/4 of the way through the book. I asked him how he was enjoying it and he said he really liked it except he felt that some of the characters were superfluent. *I* cant stand reading Shakespeare, but I never told my kids that. So....the fact he didnt like reading at 8 isnt reflective of his ability right now. I also read aloud during school time. My son is a fantasy reader. He loves dragons and imaginary lands. So I fed him in that area- both for him, and in our read alouds. Hang in there but if its holidays....maybe back off somewhat and let him be free of too many obligations. Kids need time to dream and do nothing, too.

Well so far my kids are better than I was as a teen, so anything else coming is probably just my karma :) Yes, its tough, sometimes exhausting, and surprising to realise it might actualy be a relief when they move out, even though I adore them to bits. I think that all important phrase" building relationship" holds true just as much or even more when they are teens. Trying to parent the same doesn't work. These are young adults now and they need to be met on a different level. As a parent I flip flop between too easy going and too strict- I probably always did. But I have a good relationship with the kids and do my best to see things from their perspective, and pick my battles. I give them as much freedom as I can without having a fit myself. There are things I allow I never thought I would. There are things I don't allow yet that I thought I might by this age. Lol, I allowed my dd16 to get a belly button piercing this week. I think I earned lots of Brownie Points saying yes to that :) One day, one moment at a time. In some ways its less work, in other ways, more. I get a lot more time to myself..but when they are around, it seems more intense. They opinions, and their bodies, take up more space than they used to :)

I use a ring binder with plastic sleeves, and I have sections for mains, soups and desserts. I would like to do something more visually aesthetic but it would be a big job and I havent had the inclination. I print recipes or cut them out of the newspaper. I have way too many recipes to consider handwriting or even typing them onto index cards. The plastic sleeves are good though for protection from splashes.

No....not judgemental, and definitely not blaming her. Just BTDT, offering my perspective, from my own experience. If one wants to share about homeschooling's harder moments, or parenting, with a mother who is negative about homeschooling or your parenting style, one is likely to cop negative criticism...and yes, we are then "attracting" that if we continue to share those topics, no matter how unfair that seems and how much we want our mother to be different. Isn't it freeing to realise that? We can stop! We are not a victim to the situation! OK, not all cases of criticism are so clear, but in this case, I was spot on. I think the OP got something from my post, and if not, that's ok.

I have a lovely Flylady COntrol Journal which I never open or look at :) What seems to work at the moment is a HomeRoutines app on my ipad/ipod. Whatever I use has to be very visible to me. Thats why I have a huge squared calendar to my right on my desk, a pin board above that where the bills get pinned until paid, a box to my left where all tax receipts go, a tray on my desk for all miscellanous paperwork that doesnt need urgent attention, and a page to a day diary to my left on my desk where I do my brain dumps, To Do lists , phone messages etc. I have tried various computer based systems and I have found I need visual, pen and paper type systems. Except the HomeRoutines one...that works. My systems ahve changed over the years and I love looking at new organising systems...but I find I can never jsut use someone esle's system...I have to individualise it a lot. My favourite recent read was teh 7 Habits for highly Effective People book...that gave me some great ideas...but I ended up simplifying it and going back to something basic that I will actually do. I think the main thing is to have a space where you can keep it all organised. Even if your desk gets messy, it can at least be a place to keep all your bills and things. Stuck in front of me next to the computer screen is my Flylady Zone laminated card with the Zone of teh week on it, and 7 jobs I could do in that zone. Visual. If I have to open to a certain page in a journal, it wont happen. This way, I glance at it. As well, I am getting the email reminders again because I need them. I used to be very disorganised. I encourage you to play with different systems until you find something that works for you.

Workboxes are a very visual method and I love them with my teens. I set up the system as directed, but it has since morphed into a much more relaxed version, where basically they just go through the drawers each day and put the work back into the same drawer they go it out from. It has helped with mess considerably, and just simple orgnaisation. We don't use the velcro and strips...too complicated. I ended up putting subject labels on the front of the drawers. Simple. No, you definitely dont need 12. I have 10 drawer carts and we dont even use all of them, so I do slip something fun into some of them at times. The thing about workboxes is that it stores their books, their work, and is such a visual system. I have a folder in each drawer that stores photocopies and/or past work. On top of the folder is whatever they are to do each day.

I have been through phases like that with only two. If you need sleep more than anything...can you book a weekend at a hotel to just go and sleep? Sleep deficit is a seriously unhappy-making condition. As for interests...I have plenty, but my main one over the years has been to read..even if it was just moments before falling asleep. Reading has kept me interested in various things, even if it was parenting, housekeeping, organising books. Sounds like you need a break though.

It doesn't worry me that he is not in the same bed, obviously, since we dont sleep together anyway....but there have been times over the years when he has been away when I have become frightened and realised how much just his presence in the house makes me feel secure.

I wouldn't like to live like that, always upset and stressed. Sure, mothering and homeschooling and housekeeping is a fair amount of work...particularly when you add in a part time job....but I think the quote is referring to our tendency to martydom (and not the silent, stoic type, but the expressive, whiny type), and I have worked hard to overcome that one. Again (I say it frequently)....Flylady helped me significantly to set my boundaries and change my attitude, and get basic routines down so that I am not overwhelmed and always busy.

Perhaps its not so much the offering of advice but the way in which it is done, which can make the parents feel criticised. Often, its the mother who needs more support, and to feel mothered herself...she is generally doing her best even if it isnt such a good job. "Advice" is cheap. I remember reading about how we judge badly women who throw their babies into waste bins because they just cant cope....but if we arent caring for those women, we are throwing them in the waste can just as much. There are plenty of issues which would press my buttons and I guess I hope that I have done a good enough job educating my kids now, that later they will have the sense not to do too bad of a job...but also, I hope to have a good relationship with them and their spouses. That's all hope of course, and life does its own thing. But if I don't have a good relationship with them, I can't see how I would be able to be of any good as support for them. If they choose to go a completely different parenting route to me...at least I can set an example by my behaviour, rather than my words. And maybe I can learn from them too, and let them know the things I think they are doing really well, rather than focusing on what they arent doing well. My point is that criticism is probably not the best way to deal with it anyway...giving advice that is unasked for can come across as criticism...but forming a good relationship and being around and available, having a relationship of trust built over time...would be more effective. You can tell I am not there yet :)

On a personal level, it's difficult. We are feeling it too. But on another level...it was never a sustainable thing in the first place. We cant consume, and have the whole of Western society based on consuming and shopping and wanting and borrowing to get what seem like necessities now, but really aren't....and continue indefinitely, generation after generation. It had to change. We just happen to be the ones living through it. I am a bit excited by it. I love seeing what this is bringing out of people- the learning to be responsible financially, the homemaking skills, the creativity, the going back to basics. The movements towards healthy eating, taking care of the environment (when I was growing up, my greeny parents were considered very radical- now at least it is considered ok to care about the ecology of the planet rather than just economics)....change is change and there will always be change. I see things getting worse in some ways.....I especially dont like the idea of more and more power/money going into the hands of fewer and fewer.......but better in others. There is a counter movement. The internet has opened so much. Consider microfinancing to women in Bangladesh and other places ...where a loan of $200 can mean a woman can set up a proper business and support her children...my understanding is that the repayment of loans is 100%. Consider the organic movement- it is huge. The movement towards healthier living. SO many awesome things are happening at the same time as the collapsing of economic structures that have outlived their day. But they are happening at such a grass roots level that without the internet, and wanting to know, we can miss it and only see what is affecting us, and the bad stuff. I try and see this stuff from the broadest, most impersonal perspective possible, to keep it all in perspective. Who cares about the middle class anyway? Maybe once society readjusts, we will have something completely different ..and even better.

I tend to write....free flow writing. I have done things like write down all the things I love to do, and all the things I am good at. I have also filled out career assessments but they dont tend to be incredibly helpful to me. I think in this day and age....it is possible to make a career doing something quite out of the ordinary, so it is worth thinking beyond the normal ideas.

I just exclaimed to my dh that we aren't so unusual after all! Its amazing how many people would like separate rooms, and I am surprised that we are not the only ones on these boards who actually do have separate rooms! Actually this thread has heartened me because there have been times over the years - 18 years of marriage, sleeping apart- that I have felt that perhaps I was "missing out" and perhaps it was because of my dh and...basically, grass is greener syndrome. I have been through phases of feeling sorry for myself about it, even though we have at various times retried sleeping together and BOTH of us end up very keen to go back to our own rooms again. We went to Bali in February and enoyed sleeping together (I had earplugs and a special mask on) for 3 nights. I was determined to try sleeping together at home but we didnt even make it one whole night. And...we really do like it this way. It is more the concept that sometimes has upset me. I have felt that something must be wrong with us. But even though it wasnt snoring that initiated it...more that I felt smothered by him :) in my youth and jsut wanted my own space- and him too....nowadays, the snoring IS an issue. SO...thanks for sharing everyone. I can happily let go of the idea that we are quite so unusual and freakish.

I think you can kind of learn an in between way. We tend to want uncondiitonal love and acceptance from our mums....and we frequently never quite get it :) Yes, I think you do get to a point where you dont discuss things that will trigger advice giving or negativity. Even if that is just about everything. It comes with the territory of living differently, doing things your way. You get very discriminating who you can share it all with. And some friends drop away if there isnt something else to talk about. Many of us have learned that one of the best places to come and vent about homeschooling and kids is a place like this. Even husbands can be a challenge if they are not 100% on board- you cant then whinge to them about the kids so much because they take it as evidence that you cant cope, or possibly give them a good education. But if you can whinge to dh, that works too. But...no, not to people who are critical of your parenting choices. Unfortunately.

Is there something in you that is attracting that? Because I never get it. I dont entertain people's opinions about my parenting. I dont ask for them. This is how I parent, and I dont need anyone's approval or disapproval. Neither does dh. We are friendly, but we don't put out a vibe that says we need you to give us your advice ...even when we struggled with littlies. I *did* however have asupport group of parents who parented like me, and that helped a lot with learning to deal with the critics. Its true when kids are little people sometimes love to give advice. I am sure my parents wanted to admonish me for long term breastfeeding...but I just never gave them the opportunity. I had an aunt who did it, and my mother let me know how innapropriate she thought it was to have kids running in from the sandpit for breast, but she never said a thing to me when I did that with my own kids. But...she is pretty tactful generally, and not interfering. It sounds like you might need to learn how to handle the comments so that they stop. There is a term used "pass the bean dip"....where you basically just change the subject because you don't want to engage with on that topic. People generally learn you are not willing to listen to their judgements.

I make my own rice flour with my Thermomix (not available in the U.S.)- if you have a wheat grinder, I am sure you could use it for rice as well. Yes, I dont understand why alternative flours cost so much...but then again the price of rice has gone up in the last couple of years, and brown rice especially is expensive here.

Things got pretty bad here as dh is an authoritarian type and was just getting more and more upset with ds as ds's behaviour deteriorated. Once dh realised he needed to be firm but also find ways- new ways- to connect with ds and be actual pals with him, things improved dramatically. I cant add anything to what others have said. It wasnt much of a change around here- a challenging child just got more challenging. I dont think there are any clean cut answers....you muddle your way through trying this and that...more discipline....more connection....more love...more patience....more discipline. Lately I am finding that ds14 loves to come and sit on my bed before he goes to bed- which is about the same time I go to bed- and talk. He will distance himself a lot....then I will find he wants deeply to just sit and chat about things. He loves lately that we do a ritual of putting our feet in a bucket of warm/hot water before bed, and then rub essential oils on them. So....yes, we withdraw priveleges including screen time. We give fines. We also pay him to do his maths well. He has a part time job. He loves his newfound freedom...and struggles with his responsibilities. One thing I think is important is to start fresh each day, and let go of the bad days. I greet my son with love and cheer each morning because I think this is difficult for him too- and the tone set in the morning can at least get us off on the right foot. I try to remember to keep seeing the best in him, and not get too dragged down in the negative stuff. But...I have had lots of practice :)