Since you're looking for habit training, maybe start with something simple as you go through your day. 1. Everyone must make their bed upon rising. 2. Everyone must be dressed with their pajamas in the laundry basket before breakfast. 3. Everyone must put their breakfast dishes in the sink or dishwasher after breakfast...etc.

I am fairly secular and use VP because it's not preachy (at least for K-6, I'm not sure about Omnibus). I feel it is truly a "spine". You can add your own theology to it, or not, and not have to edit out or re-teach. I think you would find it a great program to launch into discussions about how your family interprets the Bible.

I was in a community theater play with 2 of my friends, they were in high school & I was finishing 8th grade. We carpooled together. My friend who was driving was grounded for getting a B in her dual credit college course, so she wasn't able to go anywhere after the play ended. My now-husband came to see his friends (who were also my friends). It ended up that he drove me & the other friend to Pizza Hut and then home. We hit it off right away...but he was entering his freshman in college years, and I was entering my freshman in high school years, so things were purely platonic and friendly for a number of years. We both dated other people and eventually lost touch. He moved to Iceland and right before he left, called me up. We started emailing and were engaged before we had our first official date. Now, I like to tease him and tell him he was my mail-order groom. I was 4 days shy of being 21, he was 25. We'll be married 12 years this July.

One thing that I've recently added in for my oldest is iconography. We take a white board and he draws icons to represent the different elements of the story as I read to him. We only did this for one week, but he is able to mentally 'draw' where he wasn't able to before and is still making progress 3 weeks later. Just an idea :)

I'd also like to chime in that there is no place where you daughter "Should" be. She is where she is. She was there with you & she was there with the school. The difference is you can meet her where she is, so embrace that.

Right now, in this part of the year; yes, I am too busy to give even 2 hours to someone new. It's really not anything personal. I would (gently) suggest waiting out the spring and trying again in the summer to fall. Sign up for a co-op, look for homeschool support groups, all those things get started in the summer. For me and most of my friends we kind of stick with the same people by school year. Then at the end of the year we re-evaluate which activities we want to keep doing. People we connected with but we don't want to continue said activity, we find other ways to get together. I think you just made a change mid-year and now just need to wait for all the commited-to activities to wrap up.

I haven't done all 12 years, but have stayed with VP for my oldest all the years I've been homeschooling (since the beginning). With my middle son, I used Sonlight's preschool but really didn't like it for a variety of reasons. With Sonlight you read one page out of 30 different books every day. With Veritas you read for a variety of different subjects, but you stay with the same book until it's done. It's not as jumpy as Sonlight (in my opinion). Veritas is also less preachy than Sonlight. With Sonlight I had to do quite a bit of editing even at the preschool level with the (again in my opinion) weirdness of the missionary stories they included. They also inserted quite a bit of theology. With Veritas, even as a Unitarian Universalist, I don't feel the need to edit out hardly anything. I think I've run across one historical fiction book that we stopped reading because it was so preachy. Veritas presents only the Bible stories, no theology. As someone who lives in the U.S. (and has a large amount of Biblical literacy) I think knowing what the Bible says is important. I appreciate that they present the material as "In Genesis, the Bible says God created the heavens and earth in 7 days. On day one, He created...etc" Not "The infallible word of God says God created the Earth in 7 24-hour days 6000 years ago. The entire Christian faith rests on this being true." I agree 100% with the first way it's presented and disagree 100% with the second statement. With VP, even in Omnibus they have a round table discussion with 3 Christian scientists. 1 acknowledges evolution, 1 believes in intelligent design and 1 believes in a young earth. All 3 are given a chance to speak and all 3 are not presented as not "real" Christians because of their views. Hopefully that helps as you explore your options.

I've always found Stephen Guffanti to be an inspiring speaker. I didn't see him listed for Cincinnati this year, but if you have the chance to listen to him speak, it's well worth it!

I don't know if this will help....but could you look at it as a perspective thing? For me, birthdays, holidays...basically any family gathering involves food. So, specific food is what I now look forward to for those events. Since your daughter is also needing to follow a restrictive diet, if you look at it as starting something new for her, so as an adult she won't attach food meaning to holiday meaning, would that help to not be disappointed on your birthday? Maybe instead of a special cheat treat, the holidays & birthdays will involve a special outing to the mall for a new outfit, the makeup counter for a new look, etc. It kind of stinks for the parent in identifying those connections between love & food & special-ness. But, for your daughter, when she gets to be an adult she'll be saying "I can't wait for my birthday to get my new outfit" or "I love Christmas because we always play board games" or something to that effect. I'm not trying to say it's not hard!!

I agree with bolt. Additional children in our house require 2 yeses but only 1 no. At times in our life, I've been the one to say no. And at times in our life, my husband has been the one to say no. Right now, we're both saying no!! It is hard. However, thinking about your life moving forward as a completed family can be liberating!

I think all of the reasons you listed above are reasons for doing copywork. I don't think it necessarily *has* to be from WWE though. For many, they are using something like Handwriting without Tears, and while it gives practice for letter formation, copywork is beneficial as a separate task because it gives more in the direction of complete sentences whereas HWOT is really light on sentences in the early years. So, while WWE is a great resource for both narration & copywork in increasingly difficult progression, since you are already doing narration and copywork within other curricula, I would say you do NOT need to do it as a separate study.

kbutton, my library had Reader's Handbook, so I ordered that to read before I buy. I'll be at convention next month & will look at Inference Jones. Thanks so much for your recommendations!

I really like this idea. I'll see if that makes a difference. Does anyone have something that they use to help with comprehension? So far, we've done Adam Andrews' curriculum, Evan-Moor Passage Comprehension and now we've started WWE, which I was really wanting to use to help with comprehension. Anything else I should be doing?

:grouphug: First, take a deep breath. It sounds like your son has made incredible progress in the past few years and that is to be celebrated. For your first question about meltdowns, I have found (and this is just my experience) that I need to go into a Zen-Like state when interacting with my oldest. I mean, super calm. All the time. It does get exhausting but I've learned from experience that anything else just makes the problem worse. If he's angry & I get frustrated, we'll never get back to task. If he's angry and I just sit there and calmly tell him the next step to calm down, he can re-focus himself. I know it sounds crazy, but the calmer I am, the better. I don't want you to feel like I'm putting all the responsibility on you. I'm not trying to add to your stress. For me, I would get frustrated out of fear that something so trivial was going to ruin the rest of the day. If I let that fear go and let myself believe this is a momentary hiccup, I can retain that zen-like state much easier. I hope that makes sense. For your second and third questions, you may not like this, but you may not be able to see the joy your son has for learning for a few more years. It's so hard for some of these kids to understand the depth of feeling they have, nonetheless articulate it! In the example you gave of the picture of Santa, did he say he was disturbed or saddened by it? He may have cried because he felt empathy with the child in the photo. He may have cried because he was expecting to see something else in the picture (especially if he had seen something by that artist before) and was surprised it wasn't exactly what he thought. He may have cried for some other reason totally unrelated to whether or not he was engaged in the lesson. So, if I were you, I would start looking to see if your son is expressing all of his strong emotions through crying. He may not be able to properly process them yet. If that's the case, embrace that his tears show he is feeling something that is not necessarily negative. If you approach it with that mindset, do you think it would change how you react to him?

Ok, I really need some help. My 10 year old son is really struggling with comprehending what he just read...but only when it's school-related. He will read The Genius Files (all 264 pages) in a single night and be able to retell the entire story. I have him read 1 chapter of Robin Hood or The Hobbit? He cannot answer even the most basic questions (ie. What was Gandolf?) We also just started WWE 3, and he struggles so much with the narration exercise. I know he's reading the passage, but when it comes time to answer a single.question.about it, he can't. I understand that comprehension can be a real struggle for those on the spectrum due to not naturally making generalizations nor internalizing stories. However, what things can I do with him to help him get better with this? Or, is the best next thing to stop assigning him books to read and just let him read what he's interested in and therefore comprehends? As someone who identifies strongly with the Classical Model, the 2nd option gives me a slight anxiety attack. However, I can get over it if others have seen success going that route. I just never know (especially with this child!) when to push and when to go with it, does anyone understand that? Any help would be appreciated as I just don't know what to do next. Thanks!

I use it a year behind too.

Could you do a merge between interest-led and box checking? Like, get Real Science Odyssey and find the topics that will be covered. Then, let your son pick the 9 topics he's most interested in. Then, work with him to create a pintrest board of all the projects he *could* do for each of those topics. Then, narrow down with him what is feasable, one per week (4 projects a month), or whatever you are comfortable with. Would letting them help more with the planning be a solution to the problem you are having? That way you are still involved in what they are doing/learning, but they have input in the things they actually want to do.

I second using the refund for the $1700 in needs, balance #1 and then put the rest in savings. The savings will allow you to not rely on credit cards anymore. Paying in cash instead of financing can also get you deep discounts on things like unexpected car repairs.

See, I would be getting creative with this. Each patron means each library card. Each family member has a library card. Since I have a spouse, myself and 3 kids, we can rent it 5 times a year. And, if you have a friend, she can rent it with her spouse, kids and self for a number of times per year. And, if you have 2 friends, you can meet once a month for an entire year in a free rental space. Of course, this requires some organization. I realize I'm kind of the anomaly as I am incredibly Type-A and would be willing to do this sort of thing.

Has anyone looked into libraries for meeting space? You just need a library card & it's free to rent a room. You just aren't allowed to sell things from the room.

I'm in Columbus, but my group isn't listed on any of the websites since it's currently run through meetup.com. My oldest just turned 10, so we have a lot of kids 10 and under in the group. However, it does seem that in Columbus and the surrounding areas at least, there are many teens being home educated. The local libraries are always running book clubs and craft clubs for homeschoolers during the day. The rec centers sponsor dances for the high school homeschooling teens. I think too, that when there are so many opportunities for homeschooling families, it's a lot easier to meet people you click with at those. At the local science center, you can start volunteering when you're 12 (and they actively recruit those being homeschooled), so if your teen participates in that, you could quite easily meet others who value science. Or if you do the homeschool classes at the art museum, meet those who value art. I think it's harder to find those kindred spirits when all you have in common is homeschooling. If you can add even one more layer to that commonality, it can be easier to keep going. I've always thought I didn't need 100 families to walk with me in my homeschooling journey. I've been very fortunate to find about 20 families that we can consistently meetup with and do different activities. If you don't have something like this in your area, I would strongly encourage you to start one and see what happens. We use meetup because it has an amazing calendar with RSVP feature. The group just turned 5 years old and this month we'll host our 1000 meetup. I never thought I'd find anyone "like me" when I started it and have been pleasantly surprised.

I would have to say Ohio :D But that's only because I started an inclusive homeschool group that I think is amazingly awesome. Also, we have more musuems, zoos and science centers than people. Seriously, you can't drive 13 miles anywhere in the state without hitting some kind of attraction. Columbus seems to be the mecca. And all the museums, zoos, science centers and parks have classes for those homeschooling.

I've been working out with a Beachbody video (so lots of cardio!) for 47 minutes at night. My husband & I usually start at 9 pm...because that's the first time we can fit it in! I go to bed at midnight. But, I sleep so much better when I've exercised. And, I wake up feeling better because my back doesn't hurt. So...I would say to exercise at night because the benefits will FAR outweigh any burst of energy you may/may not get after finishing.

I don't think the new catalog gets mailed out until June. They do their free shipping special in April & then the new catalog comes after that.

Depending on how large the group is (I'm assuming it's you & one friend?) you could call ahead. Otherwise, just decide on a restaurant and show up. It really is that simple :D