Lol, that is very cute. Not so cute is my 13yo son pretending to do his schoolwork while playing computer games, or pretending to read a book at night while playing on his ipod chatting to friends. Enjoy your 6yo! :)

:iagree: I should know better than to enter into these threads because it seems all the most conservative people respond. I dont have a problem with sex before marriage, or if my kids never get married.The marriage thing is a non issue for me, and that doesnt mean I want my kids to be promiscuous or to have sex early- its more the emotional health of the situation that I am watching for. So if the OP is a conservative Christian she is going to resonate with all the conservative Christian responses more than mine. But I find them way out of my experience. I don't find my teens, when they spend time with a person of the opposite sex, rushing off to have sex with them, honestly. They have plenty of self esteem and we have open communication- my dd does share with me, deeply . I was a teen- and a promiscuous one- so I am not naive about what can happen, or the ingenious ways teenagers can keep secrets from their parents. But it is more likely to happen in certain situations- alcohol, low self worth, too strict parents, too lenient parents, bad peers- than in a situation where kids are nurtured and the communication is open, and reasonable boundaries are also set. Doesn't mean its not going to happen, but the projections people make onto teens seem rather that they have a deep fear around it all and want to control it far more than I feel comfortable with. I am into setting some healthy boundaries, watching like a hawk, but not that much into controlling my kids bodies and lives, after a point. At 13? I just wouldn't worry. I would deal with things as they come up and use it all as a teaching and learning experience. The more open you can be about it, the more likely the kids will share with you, if they dont feel shamed into secrecy.

Exactly. I don't really promote yelling, but it happens a bit around here at times....and honestly, I dont think it's so big a deal. I sometimes wonder what happens to kids who are never smacked or yelled at...do they curl up into a little ball when someone yells at them? Does it roll off like water off a ducks back, or does it really impact them? I am all for making sure kids respect themselves, but the yelling works both ways around here- when the kids get really emotional, upset, or feel we are treating them unfairly, they might yell too. I am personally glad they feel supported and loved enough that they can do that and not fear being beaten or rejected. We can all handle it. I am not saying I think its ideal...I am just not going to lose sleep over it.

I am using Connect the Thoughts, which is secular, and I have used and still use the booklists from Ambleside Online, secularly.

I try and read some books ahead of my kids (now teens) and I read aloud the ones I want to cover in depth with them, often. However, as far as self education goes, I follow what I am drawn to. I dont read fluff, romance novels (well, apart from Twilight recently) and I dont read novels much at all, but I am always reading something. I tried to be systematic for a while, but I gave up.

I cant see how it would hurt, but I am not aware of B12 being absorbed well through the skin. People get injections of it because its often not well absorbed through the digestive system.

My dd15 has ringlets. She cant use a brush, or shampoo very often. She has a broad toothed comb for combing conditioner in in the shower. She wets it every day, sometimes twice, and conditins it daily. She sleeps with it in plaits otherwise it gets frizzy. She uses a straightener sometimes for a change. She gets tired of it and sometimes woudl like to do something radical like her straight or wavy haired friends who colour and do things with their hair. But hers is just lovely as is, and honey blonde. I say, enjoy and celebrate your curls! My hair has done wierd things over the years. I had simply wavy hair when young. I have photos of me in my teens with very curly hair, thick and almost frizzy. Then when I had kids- my hair went quite straight and lifeless. Now it's just wavy again.

My son is still only in the beginning stages, although he is playing great musica already. I have two friends who are SM teachers and I know many kids who have used the system including some who went all the way through. I don't know them well enough to know how well they read music etc though. I have had a few lessons myself and I have learned more about accompanying music (using those chords at the top of sheet music) in those few lessons than I learned in 6 years of classical music lessons in my childhood. SM is much broader in it's repertoire than learning classically. I am glad for my exposure to it so far, butI already have a classical foundation. I dont really know how the later levels work but I have learned a lot just in the first levels, even though I already read music.

Well I know a lot of people here have very strong plans and I respect that...but my own idea has been to "wait and see" and deal with issues as they come up. And that has felt right for us. Dd15 has had a few crushes and experimented with having a "boyfriend", most of which she barely got to see. Nothing seemed serious at all and I didnt interfere. Then, a month ago, she got the real thing. She and a young man from Scouts have a fairly serious connection now. She is 15, mature, he is 18 months older (just 17) and the truth is I couldn't wish for a better young man either. She is not allowed in his car (he just got his license). He is respectful toward her. I am secular. I have rules around it all- they can go into her bedroom as long as they leave the door wide open. She visits his place- about an hour away on public transport, and I trust the situation there. I suggest you don't really need to work it all out ahead of time. Deal with it as it comes up. I feel what is happening in my family is a natural unfolding. Dd15 is behaving responsibly with it. I see no need to get in the way too much, beyond making it simply clear that its better to "wait" for a physical relationship, and we are clear that we insist on that. Dds boyfriend knows we are fiercely protective of her and seems to really respect that. However my family's values may not be yours, of course. But if your child already has a "friend"...it may cause more harm than good to stop it if it is sweet and innocent.

Oh Congratulations Lucy! I hope you are bringing her to Science for a show and tell soon! (kidding- rest!).

We love our chooks and we have 4 in a pen about 2 metres by 2 metres. I used to call them battery hens because for quite a while they lived in a much smaller pen, which was in fact a rabbit hutch. We used to let them out regularly before I planted out my vegie garden. But even if they do escape they dont tend to go there - but I dont want to risk it. We have two dogs. They have chased and killed our pet rabbits before, but not our chickens. They seem to find them intimidating :) However, I owuld watch your dogs closely and train them well before just leaving them around your chickens. Chickens are a wonderful pet. We have friends who cuddle their pet chooks daily. We dont go that far, but I talk to them a lot when I am down there. The kids take turns feeding them our scraps and their pellets, and collecting eggs. I think it s a wonderful, wholesome activity for city kids. A while back one of our chooks got a fungal infection and wesprayed her with tea tree solution. It went. Other than that, we have had chooks peck a mate literally to death, but only once, when I added two new chooks to the pen. Mostly, they are very low maintenance animals. My dream would be to have 20 or so chickens and breed them.

I think you have to have a narrow definition of family to think that the family is dying. There is a lot of change happening, some of it good and some of it not so good. My father was not involved with my life as a child- he was an absent father. My husband is involved with our kids, yet our kids were born illegitimate. My parents divorced. And both are with new partners much more suited to them. I think if you look around you can see a lot of amazing and beautiful things happening every day in families as people try and liberate themselves from constrictive values such as staying in unhappy marriages no matter what. Or, you can look around and decide what is happening is immoral (divorces, illigitimacy etc) and condemn it, and miss all the amazing stuff. I have single mum friends- and was one myself for a while. It's not the end of the world. Life goes on, many kids are brought up well in single parent homes- and others are brought up well in two parent homes. Who is to say what is right and wrong, really? I had this conversation with my teens recently about whether they would prefer to be born 100 years ago. We all agreed strongly that we prefer the freedom and values of today than the ones of 100 years ago. It is nice to be idealistic, but really, women and negroes didn't have the vote for goodness sakes. Kids could be abused and no one would say anything. Lots of horrible stuff happened. It's easy to idealise the past but not very useful or practical. Times are changing, and I feel it's a good thing, but it doesnt matter what I think times will always change and there will always be people complaining about the immorality of today compared to the past. I tihnk its a way of trying to avoid growing and moving - trying to stay in some snapshot view of the world.

Where I live in Australia, admitedly in a well to do suburb of a state that has a mining boom, we haven't felt the crash at all. I stocked up a year ago, but we eat better now than we did then. We have more spending money too. But that is Australia- many of us have not felt the economic crash much. What has always surprised me though on these boards, where I get educated about U.S. culture, is things like people using disposable nappies as a matter of course, and also using electric clothes dryers as a matter of course. We live well, comfortably, and have always enjoyed buying 2nd hand rather than new for most things. More for the fun and challenge than our of necessity nowadays. The kids dont expect new clothes, ever- and they enoy getting 2nd hand ones (and ocassionally we will buy ourselves something new). But, I do try to limit our footprint, to live as close to the earth as my suburban lifestyle allows, and to be mindful of using unrenewable resources like plastic. But at this stage, it is not out of necessity that I try and live more and more simply- it is just how I prefer to live.

127 Super Nutty, Ultra-Crunchy Granola Earth Mama That me. I lost points on the homebirth thing- I would have, dh was adamently against it and we compromised on a birthing centre. I love that term crunchy- it's not used here in Australia, that I know of. Here we are just "alternative", "hippy", or even "feral" in some areas.

I can definitely see both sides of the argument and have taken the defensive position of my child recently with a Scout issue. I took on all the leaders and was quite fierce- even though my child was not innocent, their way of handling him became unecessarily brutal, and he was treated far worse than the other kids for the same incident. But then, after I knew they knew I would be watching, I have backed right off because I don't want my kid to feel he can get me to come and protect him at Scouts when he is hardly perfectin his behaviour there, and one of the reasons we have him there is to learn how to behave in groups. So I think there is a place for kids to learn the rough and tumble of groups and a bit of unfairness etc, otherwise we are raising kids who are a bit too soft, I think. It's been good for my son to come home from Scouts and tell me his leaders picked on him again, and instead of crying and complaining, he sucks it in and we help him realise- they are only human, its not easy to be a leader, they are doing their best, he presses their buttons with his attitude at times etc. In other words- life is not always fair but sometimes you just gotta go for the greater good and go with the flow with it. Its all a balance though- I am not advocating allowing abuse- just not picking on every incident. Maybe the gym teacher was having a hard day and running out of creative ideas of how to deal with the discipline issue as well as get the class happening. Doenst make it right but I would cut him some slack. ANd I wouldnt be a teacher in a school for anything!

I try and use the organic but good quality stuff, for the sake of adding less chemicals to their sensitive systems. We absorb chemicals through out skin. I also have to buy a really good quality conditioner for my dd with Botticelli curls. She is 15 now- a few years back when I learned about Curly Girl on these boards (probably the old ones), I borrowed it from the library and bought it home. Dd read it too and it made a huge differences to her- she has looked after her hair relaly well since then. She rarely shampoos- just conditions daily. So I buy her good quality organic conditioner. I am trying to train my kids in the value of using organic products as much as possible.

Sometimes I have wondered what would happen if someone poisoned the city water supply with some terrible chemical. I have even bought a huge water barrel in case that happened. ANd we have our swimming pool in an emergency. See, I have thought about it, so there must be some fear there. I do check regularly about the raw milk. Dh and Ds drink normal store milk and it never runs out because dh is obsessive about it. Dd and I drink raw milk and I do get a bit funny about it because I dont like to run out either. On the other hand, I have cloth pads and a Keeper so even though I buy disposable feminine supplies for my daughter (who is mortified by my feral behaviour) I don't panic if I run out. Of course, she may develop a phobia around running out since her mum is so relaxed about it :) or she could just do as I do. :lol:

I have always prioritised the kids' social lives because my kids are very social and without a good social life, they become miserable. However, I try and combine it with educational activities as much as possible. Both kids do Scouts. It involves a lot of weekend activities but it's important for them. They also go to a science class and the day involves a fair amount of socialising with other homeschooled kids. We've always done things like that. I guess every family has to find its own way with this. I try and only do afternoon activities, but some years, we have done one or two mornings. Its all about finding that right balance- for the kids, for getting school done, and for making it so I dont burn out.

In the classical or CM type of thinking, you wouldnt try and force a young child to write creatively unless they wre happy to. You just have them do copywork, dictation and narration. Its hard for many kids to think about what to write, at the same time as physically writing, and it can take competency at physically writing before it becomes easy to write imaginatively. YOu can read Charlotte Mason writings, or The Well Trained Mind, or Ruth Beechick, for more detailed info on this approach, but I am attest to the fact that this approach is very effective.

:iagree: I am not convinced the anti praise school are wholly wrong or right, but I think they have some really good points. I also think it's a hard pattern to undo as a parent because we are brought up in a manipulative parenting culture where praise is used as a commodity and currency. So I am pretty sure I praise a lot with unconscious manipulative motives I just havent seen, and its a hard habit to undo.

My dd15 has been my easy child and she sometimes glitches and has a mood but overall....its actually still an easy ride with her. She didn't get her periods till a bit before she turned 15. She gets moody sometimes beforehand, but she's not a generally unreasonable person. My 13yo son on the other hand! Dh has stepped up his parenting a lot in the last year or so though and I have really seen that make a difference to both the kids- they have a stronger connection with him, and rather than just being the overbearing authority figure, I know they feel he is really on their side. They lean on him more, rather than just me. We just did a 14 hour each way road trip to Ningaloo Reef here in Australia, and dh and I were dreading the car trip with the kids, who always said they hated long drives, so we avoided them. But it went so well, and both kids expressed a lot of appreciation for us as parents which quite surprised us. They still quibble and fight and argue but I just tihnk thats normal teenage stuff and I dont take any of it personally. The hardest part for me is my son not accepting my affection so much anymore. Even if he cries in anger or frustration, I cant coddle him the way he always used to want. He won't accept it. So I am finding creative ways of expressing my love- sneaking up on him and kissing his cheek, telling him I love him at odd moments. I do the same with dd. For me, I keep checking I am letting go of my own resentment if it starts to build, so I can be fresh with them rather than negative patterns building up because everyone gets so jaded. Sometimes it's hard but its better than the alternative. I had a rough teenagerhood- so far my kids have it easy!

My weight has crept up lately and I want to lose a few kgs. I am doing a liver cleanse- eating lots of fruit and veg, no sugar, no restrictions on quantity but eating sensibly...and taking some liver herbs. I dont know if it is popular in the U.S. but I have used Sandra Cabot's Liver Cleanse regime several times over the years and it has always been good for helping me get that zip back and trim up.

I mostly use our CC responsibly and there is usually something under $1000 on there, although I did just pay it off completely. I know many peopel wil large CC debts though. I keep our CC limit under $3000 because I use it online, and also because, even though they keep offering to throw money at me, I just dont want the temptation.

I don't call us classical anymore even though we have some aspects- probably mainly because no one asks, and I just do what I do, not concerned with labels. We still do Latin but terribly slowly, we do history in depth and chronologically. We study classical literature- but not in anywhere near a systematic or rigorous enough to deserve the label classical, at this point. We certainly have a classical flavour. My older is specialising in her interests now...and they are along artistic lines. She is studying multimedia, art, photography..I keep her doing business and basic math, history and literature. She is finishing up science now and probably won't do any more- she is 15. I want her to focus on her writing too. Ds13 is still doing a broad study. I dont try and do "classical"- I try and do what feels best for us each year. It is very influenced by years of reading about classical learning, as well as other influences.

Oh yeah, that would be good too :)