No....it should not fall within any doctor's area of work or expertise to ascertain that sort of thing at all, or try to ascertain it. It can be a social worker's job, or a teen pregnancy youth group's job, but it is simply not my doctor's job to find out if their 11yo patients are having sex. Not their business. Why do we ALL need Big Brother (in the name of "experts who know best") breathing down our necks, because of the actions of a few? Why do we actually buy into that? Because we don't want to be repsonsible. We live in a society where instead of accepting consequences, we want someone else- the "experts" if possible- to take responsiblity, so we have someone to blame. We give up our power. If we do that as a society, we do get what we deserve- others controlling our children and our lives way beyond what is healthy or necessary. I can't understand why people actually want that.

I also had my mercury amalgums replaced recently with white composite fillings, for health reasons. My study has led me to believe that mercury amalgums leak over time, and no amount of mercury is safe. I have had to go to private dentists to have my kids get fillings, as the public dentist (paid for by govt) wont use composite for adult teeth. I wont put poison in their mouths! I went to a dentist who refuses to use mercury amalgums at all, and who uses proper protocol, and is very familiar with, removal or amalgums. Removal of amalgums releases a lot of mercury vapour and tiny particles of mercury- you don't want to be swallowing that. DH did ask his dentist to give him a quote for me on removal of my two amalgums- she wasnt very familiar with using the full rubber dam necessary, so I didn't use her. As always, do your own research, and dont believe the experts just because they are the experts. The experts once thought the sun revolved around the earth, the earth was flat and all that.

Dd16 just completed A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini. Ds14 just read The Kite Runner by the same author.

My boy is still like that. He is 14. So I cant help. SOmewhere along the line he did manage to learn to read. And when he was 9.5, he decided thick books were cool and his reading took off. He can write at a fairly average standard..barely though. Not for lack of my trying, I can tell you. He is stubborn, a perfectionist (which translates to: if I cant already do it, I will fail, therefore I don't want to learn it in case I fail), dyslexic but I dont know if that makes any difference anymore... He has not been easy to homeschool, or parent. He is beligerant today. We instigated a system of paying him to get his maths correct, because he wasnt caring and wasnt trying very hard. Yesterday he got 100%. Today, as soon as he realised he had several wrong, even though he would still get partial payment, he started acting like..a 6yo. Breath, take one day at a time, have FUN, and break things down into small bits. ANd remember you have a lot of time up your sleeve.

My dd16 has a Sony Alpha 380. She loves it. My dad has the same camera- he is an amateur photographer, quite serious about it- and he recommended it.

We love to bargain hunt, garage sale, swap meet. Dh (ok, and I) are always finding a great bargain: a piece of clothing (he bought me a real Bedouin hand made, beautifully beaded vest made of goat hide- still even smells of goat! a while back. He just knew I would love it!); books (many, many books); ornaments; machines, furniture etc. Every week there is usually something. Last week it was a beautiful wooden chest with 2 drawers in it that fits perfectly in my bedroom and my winter sweaters are now in it. Our house has very interesting stuff in it, but as you can imagine there would be no room whatsover for US if I didnt regularly declutter and learn to let go of things. So that is my motivation- to make space for more STUFF to enter and enrich our lives. Who ever knew we would need 3 compost bins? But I use them! We bought a beautiful authentic Persian rug for $25 the other day- didnt know it was the real thing till we got it home and someone told us and showed us. So, out goes the stained rug it replaces. I actually get a kick out of decluttering- it is self motivating for me. A major motivator is having my own room very clean and clear of clutter. Also, I love clear surfaces, especially our 2 dining room tables and our coffee table. Anything on them too long and not being used...beware, it might disappear.

INFP here. Quite introverted but also quite capable of socialising. As others have said, I need to be alone afterwards to recharge- but I still get nourishment from being around people and value my friends, and even the ocasional party. I dont do small talk very well either, but I find I can manage. At the moment, I do not have much of a social life, but I am running a Womans Group one evening a week which is stretching me incredibly. I also do a dance class, and I socialise with my husband's work- his people are friends to us and we have frequent social ocasions. I do have friends but just now don't see them very much. Mostly, my days are spent with the kids, with dh, alone, and with an ocasional social event. However....I would never want to rely on my family alone for social interaction, and I do believe that could be quite unhealthy (not saying anyone here is doing that- how would I know? ). I would really not want my kids to feel they couldn't move away from me to live in another town or country, if that is what they felt drawn to do. I don't want them to feel any sense of obligation to me, to support me emotionally, to needing to contact me regularly. Yes, I would like to be around them as adults, nad I do hope they want to stay in contact, however I dont want my life to revolve around them, or to rely on them too much at all, emotionally or socially. I believe that is quite a selfish way of thinking, and kids need to feel completely free to follow their own paths and dreams. Families that foster too much dependence- and I know some- are not healthy, in my eyes. It puts too much burden on the kids, and usually there is a lot of guilt and manipulation going on to keep the kids feeling obligated towards the parents.The kids then have an unhealthy attachment that stretches beyond childhood,and often manipulate or come home to parents long after they should be standing on their own two feet. Families can still be close and supportive without members being co-dependent. My neighbours are retired, and have all 3 adult children living with them, plus a grandchild, due to divorces. This has been months now- I woudl say those adults are quite disfunctional My cousins had to move far away from their mother to get some healthy space from her, and she has still ended up moving across the country, with her boyfriend, to live with- yes, with- one of them. The cousin is not strong enough to say no, yet she doesnt want it! The other cousin left the country! Family dynamics can be very compicated and messy and I think it is important to maintain individuality and not get too enmeshed. Relationships should support each other to be separate and independent, not create unhealthy dependence. Just my 2cents. I have many friends and aquaintances and have lived in the same area for 25 years...once my kids move on and i am not needing to be with them every day all day....I wont have a problem spreading out, and socialising more widely. I will also enjoy plenty of alone time, but I already get that now. I will probably work more and/or join up to more activities, and/or spend more time with dh and even help with his work. I know I will be ok. Something about teens makes it feel like its ok that they move out someday!

OK, we hadn't got to the point of looking for or seriously considering a tutor yet. However I have this week yelled that he really needs to go to school because I have had enough :glare: (of his arguing when *I* try and help him with anything- as far as he is concerned, it is more important justifying why the answer in the TM is wrong, than looking at why *he* might be wrong) and having a meltdown when after a full week of very bad maths results, he beat them all with 4 out of 20. Yet when I hand them back and ask him to redo them...he seems to miraculously actually know what to do and gets them right. So dh came up with a solution. He pays ds $5 for every math lesson he gets 100% for. $4 for down to 80%. $3 for down to 70%. Guess what ds got today? 100%. Amazing. My kids, unlike me, are such extroverts. Dh felt ds needed some sort of external motivation. Well, as long as dh is willing to fork out the money, I am happy with the results so far! And as dh says, its a lot cheaper than a tutor!

I loved CW and felt so good and like we were so "rigorous" doing it...then I just burned out on how teacher intensive it was. And really...just too much. Too complicated. I think if they rewrote it and simplified it significantly, it could be a good hit. However, I think they have already put so much work- and dedication from the heart- into it. I think they are very sincere and dedicated people. I really really wanted to love it all the way through (and I started with the download version of Aesop and Homer), but it didnt happen by halfway through Homer. If it was too hard for me to get my head around, I coulndt justify doign that to my kids, either. But mostly it was how time and teacher intensive it was.

Yes Jill, I can so relate to that. I often wonder why I am so drawn to spending a couple of hours many days chatting here, wheras in real life I may have one or two social events in the whole week. I used to be excrutiatingly shy and withdrawn socially but nowadays, though not the centre of the party, I can hold my own quite comfortably and "mingle" and make conversation. But...it is so much easier here! And I get to share ideas which IRL, often conversations just dont go that deep in the time available- especially party situaitons. I do have some close friends though- but I dont see them even weekly either. I am an INFP. THats the "healer".

Lol, :iagree: I call myself spiritual. Perhaps eclectic? Its not at all confusing until you start to try to explain it to people who want a label.

I come from Sydney and it is a very pretty city in some places- I havent lived there for 25 years though. I hear its very expensive, and from my visits to family, I know there is a darned lot of traffic. Its crowded and busy. Dont let that turn you off coming to Australia though! Its not all like that! Sandra covered it all pretty well. I live in the west now- no funnel web/trapdoor spiders over here! I think they have an antivenom anyway. As Sandra said, Australians are pretty friendly and tolerant, and Sydney is a multicultural city. The attitude to Americans is generally on an individual basis- we give everyone a go.

Yes, I used it for 3 years and it really, really helped me get through a rough hormonal time. I found a doctor who presecribed it and I found I needed only a fraciton of teh dose on the bottle. And, I could only use it in the evening. You just find your own doseage. For me I couldn't use it in the morning because even a smidgeon of the cream would make me sleepy. But it really helped smooth my nerves and helped me sleep well. I only used it half the month. You do need to find your own dose but it's not so hard. Take whatever is on the bottle and go from there. More or less. After about 3 years, I just felt I didnt want to keep taking it and found I was ok without it. I still have the bottle there for backup.

The thing with refined salt is that it is refined, and stripped of all its associated minerals, many of which we may not even understand yet. Its a bit like the difference between eating a vitamin, and a vegetable. We isolate factors and make a huge hoo ha about them, and then sell them...when we should be eating more vegetables. Sea salt- particularly himalayan and celtic sea salt, are full of extra minerals. 84 minerals in sea salt- 2 in refined table salt. If there is one thing lacking in modern diets, it is minerals- more so than vitamins. You will always find conflicting information about such things. For me, it is just common sense to consume a product that is unrefined compared to a product that is refined. Why take something away? Celtic salt tastes great.

There is probably nothing wrong with Nature's Sunshine then- it may even be an excellent product. It's just that you are paying for a wealth system that plays on people's greed. At present I buy one product from a multilevel marketing company because I really want the product...I havent joined though, so I just suck it up and pay the excessive price until I find something equivalent elsewhere. Here, you can buy naturopathic products from many pharmacies. As long as a naturopath is employed and on duty, you can buy the product without having an appointment. You can also buy online frequently.

BTW I DID allow my 3 and 4 year olds to handle sharp knives and not ONCE did they cut themselves. They also drank out of glasses, not plastic. I learned to do this when I studied a bit of Montessori- they use smaller size adult utensils, rather than plastic versions, and I figured small glasses and a good vegetable knife would be fine- they were. They just have to have a grip or size that a small hand can handle. If you trust an intelligent small kid to handle a sharp knife, and dont hover over them anxiously just WAITING for them to cut themselves- they will amaze you. They have enough life experience by 3, or they should, to know that a sharp knife will cut them if they are not careful and their natural self preservation instincts will kick in. I dont think my kids are so unusual, although neither was especially hyper and you should always know your own kids. My kids never stepped into fires either, or anything like that, because after being taught and shown how hot a candle or a fire is, they just wouldnt! Who would? Fear is not a good guide of children! Fear creates what it is trying to prevent, by focusing on it.

I woudl allow a 2 and 4 year old out into a fenced in and kid proofed backyard, no worries. I would check on them very frequently, but I wouldalso be busy doig something else. We had a huge backyard with a run down tennis court in it when my kids were that age. We coudl see the backyard from the loungeroom. They wouldtake their little tricycles to the tennis court and ride around and around. No, I wouldnt sit out there and watch them. I woudl be doing something else, and staying in tune and checking on them regularly. No swimming pool though- if we had a pool, they wouldnt have been allowed out there. However, I am talking quiet middle class suburbia. However, NO WAY would I allow a 2year old to walk 2 blocks on their own! What? People do that? A 2 year old? With roads and cars and everything? No one watching? I do find that pretty extreme and I too would be out there checking the baby was ok and made it safely!

My brother and I were free range kids- much more so than other kids we knew. Our parents really valued trusting us, and putting us in situations that stretched us. I remember going for a long bushwalk with my parents and another adult couple. When we got back to the river on the opposite side of the camping ground where we were staying, rather than walk the extra mile or two around to cross the bridge, everyone stripped off and swam across the river. My brother and I were around 6 or 7 years old and this was a very fast flowing river. A whole crowd gathered on the beach on the other side of the river, very concerned for my brother and I, especially since we both preferred to swim under the water rather than on top! However we had been taught how to swim a fast flowing river and were fine. We canoed, bushwalked and swam alone, together and with our families, frequently. As we got older we would disappear for half or whole days and even camped in the bush with friends. One thing that made me very independent was having to catch a bus and a train, plus walk a mile, to get to and from school each day, from age 9. It was an hour's journey and I often had to leave home in the dark. Our kids are not so free range in the same way, but also, nor are they "nature kids" the way my brother and I were. They really are city kids. However we put them in Scouts and they sail a lot, and they are very competent both in the bush and on water. They are much more social than I was. They both catch public transport but they didnt start that till they were each about 13. They probably watch less TV than I did as a kid, yet I didnt have a computer and they spend time on theirs. I would happily leave my small kids in the fenced in park to play while I went for a brisk walk. Dh and I would leave them alone and go for walks or to the movies from quite young. I rmember allowing my toddlers to climb the slippery dips alone as soon as they could walk, and I didnt hover underneath them- I am and never was a hoverer, waiting for my kid to fall. I figured their motor skills would only increase every time they fell. Yes, I do thnk kids are overprotected nowadays and I don't know if the U.S. is really that dangerous or if it is the media everyone watches. The media focuses on a lot of horrible things and if you watch it your head is filled with terrible images that do you no good whatsoever. I think there is a criteria for knowing if you are being overprotective, and that is, are you coming from fear and from a space of telling yourself all the terrible things that could happen to your children, or are you coming from a calm and considered place, using the information you have available about your particular area and your kids, to make decisions. I think people come from fear much too often nowdays, and the media plays on that fear and expands it, and it is easy to justify it. But I think the kids pay the price of growing up with fear governing their parents decisions. Fear is what allows people to accept the government making more and more laws "for our own good" and it is what makes parents sit their kids inside at home on the computer rather than letting them out to ride their bikes around the neighbourhood. If we grow up in fearful environments, we spend our whole lives in fear. It makes us easily manipulated. Free range kids are those who are allowed to explore and adventure and overcome their fears, and there is ALWAYS risk, but life without risk is a poor life.

Oh yeah! Lets do that! :lol::lol::lol:

Anything that is multimarketed is going to be much more money than an equivalent product that is not multimarketed. Sorry, I am in Australia- vaguely familiar with your brands, but not enough to recommend or not. I go for naturopathic only brands because I believe the quality is generally higher. The other thing which I always tell people is....when it comes to herbs, and often vitamins or minerals too...a lot of the time, the quantity is sooooo low it really isnt going to do anything. If I ever recommend or buy a health food store brand I often triple the dose. Or, I go through all the brands and check out which has the highest doseage. I will generally buy that one no matter what the brand. I recently wanted to buy some gingko and didnt want to do an order from my naturopathic wholesaler just for that, so I went to the health food store -I bought one that has 7.5 gms of gingko per tablet, wheras most had 1 or 2 grams. Big difference! I dont know about the water/vinegar test. I presume it is to check it is going to dissolve in your stomach acid rather than be passed right through? I think that might be relevant to people with low stomach acid or digestive issues but I am not sure if it would be my main criteria. YOu can look up the companies on the net and see what sort of feeling you get from their website. Overall, I do think you get better quality for the higher price, when it comes to supplements, but of course, not always, and definitely not if it is a network company. And sometimes the higher quality isnt so important anyway.

Beaches here are either marked clearly Dog Beaches or No Dog Beaches. I never felt safe taking small kids to dog beaches even though we had a dog. We even had an awful experience before I had my two kids, where we let our then bull terrier cross drag my step dd, aged about 5, behind her in the water for a ride. Then bull terrier sees another dog in the water and goes for it and starts fighting it in the water, with stepdd behind them. It was most embarrassing and potentially very dangerous- we got rid of that dog before my kids were born.

I am not quite unerstanding why it would be a doctor's job to ascertain these kinds of things in the first place. I can understand a doctor, with discretion, asking a parent if they could give their child a form to fill in, and show the parent the form first. I can understnad a doctor giving that same form to an unaccompanied minor who appears to be at possible risk. I cannot for the life of me understand giving a form like that to a child. I do not see my doctor as having that sort of obligation to my children. Her obligation is to check that they are healthy and devleoping normally. Her job is to SERVE me and my child, not to take control and act with authority, unless it very clearly falls within the guidelines of her duty. And if it does..well, it shouldnt! This is one of the areas I feel people give doctors way too much status, authority and power, and it is not warranted. To me, it is welfare offocials who should be checking on whether a child is being abused- and a doctor might tip them off if they are suspicious due to bruising or things a child or parent says. But I in no way would want my doctor to think it is her responsibility to make sure my child is not in danger of STDs at age 11 or 13, when she is accompanied by me. Asking briefly if she is sexually active might perhaps be appropriate but that would as far as I could ever expect a doctor to go for a child that young- in a normal circumstance. I fail to see why the vast majority are constantly being told to fall in line to testing and various things that are appropriate only to the minority. If in certain districts, certain inner city areas, certain zones where teen pregnancies are high- well, ok, I can understand. But not across the board. Just because teen pregnancies do happen and in 11yos, doesnt mean I want my particular 11yo questioned, tested, or asked to fill out questionnaires! Any doctor can have that much discretion and if they dont, I am sorry, they are just a robot working for the system, and I dont want to use them anyway . If my doctor gave my child a form like that I woudl not return and I would be livid.

My mother took me to a doctor at age 15 because I was suffering depression from my parent's breakup. This doctor was a country doctor and well known to be rather "alternative" and upbeat and she felt maybe I could be helped by talking to him. His answer was to put me on the pill and encourage me to be sexually active, and he absolutely apologised to me that he couldnt himself help me in that way because he was recently married! I didnt tell my mum much about the conversation, only the pill prescription. I felt ...priveleged? to have been communicated with as a young woman rather than a child and I didnt want to spoil it by talking to my mother. In retrospect...whoah, that was so bad. He was so out of line it wasn't funny at all. It happens.

I am a chornic tweaker. We did AO year 7 (and the last part of 6) last year and many of the books were hits, but some were not. When I looked at year 8, I just felt it was a little too hard and dry for my kids. Year 7 is a great year though. Also, I never felt that retelling was enough once they were older- although I still integrate it- and I wanted them to write more meaningful essays and assignments. It ended up being a lot of work to think those up for myself, so I ended up with a curriculum (IEW Medieval) to do it for me...thats how it always starts here...I dont like one aspect....I try to do it myself....ends up too much work....find a curriculum to replace that part....and it goes from there.

Thats the whole difficulty of these years- its not either/or, and there are no easy answers. You just have to live it, and find the balance as you go. I have found that keeping my teens' trust and openness means they need to feel I am not being unreasonable and overprotective. Dd16 has been allowed to attend some parties in the last year (when she was 15) where we knew there was plenty of underage drinking. However, these are her friends and we werent going to convince her to make completely different ones, and she spends plenty of times with them in healthy environments through Scouts. So, the deal has been, we let her go to some parties as long as she doesnt drink herself, and I pick her up at 10pm before the party gets generally too drunk. We will continue to do that probably for quite a while- it is a compromise that works here. She doesnt feel completely overprotected, and gets to experience parties, while we feel we are protecting her from the worst of party behaviour. Ds14 was caught recently planning to take a 13yo friend who was going to sleepover here, to visit another friend 2kms away, at 1am! He so much craves his freedom, and we don't feel he was going to do anything bad- it was just for the adventure and because it was "naughty". We talked a lot. He let it go. He expressed how much he just wants to be free. And we expressed how much we need to be his parents. He cried and the communication channels got better, not worse. Good luck. I find it really hard at times, letting go and letting my kids grow up. It was definitely easier when they were younger and I was just automatically in control. But it is also beautiful watching them own their own lives and there are bound to be some mistakes.