We were in one not named here, and they were generous and honest and accessible. I wish they were an option as an alternative to employer-required insurance, because it would save us a LOT of money.

Sometimes I have to ask my middle schoolers, "Could you please start with a topic sentence?"

The emperor is wearing no clothes.

Arkangel!

Ah, that's a bit of a game changer. Does dad not want him to become a cowboy?

We'd probably have a conversation with kid (maybe over ice cream), explaining the exact things you typed out here, and ask his mature feedback. You mentioned that he's be willing to do the work but might resent it . . . there's also the possibility that life could take a sharp turn, and he'd actually resent NOT being required to earn the AS. Relationships matter more than academics, but kids can often trust (even reluctantly) that we parents are trying to do the best job we can, and that we're giving them our best wisdom at the time. Does your state have minimum requirements? He still has to complete high school in some fashion, of course. And either way, it's not a forever decision, truthfully; if he doesn't do the classes now, and later changes his mind, he can pay for them himself as an adult and still earn the AS, right?

My kids have done it as 2 or 3 person teams. Not sure individually, but I know the teacher is allowed to play as a non-competitive player / training game. Very low stakes = HIGH learning potential, at least for my teens. 😉

Have you looked at The Stock Market Game? It's been super educational AND fun for some I know in that age range! Its focus is more stocks & investing vs. personal finance (so maybe you'd want to add in a separate personal finance program?). They may not have a summer session, but they do have direct teaching, and their 2nd semester program just started. 🙂

My own kids have thrived on a balance of "easy" / "middle-ish" / "challenging" areas of study / activity. (And then as they grew older / into their teens, they also benefitted from a format balance as well . . . 1 online class, 1 self-study subject from a book, 1 area where they met with a tutor / mentor & discussed, 1 live "class" that met weekly or so (etc / mix and match as opportunities & kids' interests allow) . . . if the kid is able to self-assess, that's SUPER helpful in putting together a weekly picture. In my own little homeschool, this takes us a month or so at the beginning of each year to shake out . . . "Oh, mom, this book is WAY too easy / moving too slowly . . . uh, I'm completely lost on this other one." (Etc) But it's been worth the front-end work to research & implement those balances. YMMV, of course. 🙂 Editing to add a big YES to handcrafts, outdoor skills if possible, meal preparation, home routine maintenance. It's SO GOOD for kids to know how to DO house things. ❤️

To clarify, our "school" day also looked a lot like what wendyroo is describing . . . but yes, I did ask the kids to do a certain amount of math each day (ours was a set time of steady progress vs a pre-planned "day" or "week" of a curriculum). And if the kids WANTED to "go deeper," we never stopped them, but we also didn't require MORE work once the day's goals had been reached. And YES to following interest-led subjects, especially in the content areas (history, geography, pre-high school science, music - things where sequence is less important). The skill-based areas (math, foreign language, music performance, grammatical systems, cooking) were more parent-directed, primarily because some skills build on others (hard to do algebra without basic arithmetic first). One result of a lifetime of interest-led learning is that a young adult may look back and conclude that SO MANY things in life are SO interesting, and that learning about them is enjoyable and worthwhile. That's not a given, of course, but . . . it's a possibility. ❤️

There's a book with an often-misunderstood title that has a whole host of ideas for non-medical ways to address symptoms of ADHD. (The author is NOT suggesting that ADHD is a myth, but rather that it's a myth that ADHD *must define a child / person.) It's been a very helpful list of ideas to me personally and to a few others, though of course every child and every family and every situation is completely different. Maybe something in there would be useful?

Our high school band played his work, too, and the hardest part was not cracking up laughing at the trumpet mutes!

We ended when the day's work was done. Kids almost always had whole chunks of the afternoon to themselves - one of the most valuable treasures of the whole journey, in our home. ❤️

You can still use the HP printer with purchased (not InstantInk subscription) cartridges. HP is proprietary, though, so they do need to be name brand. YMMV whether purchased vs subscribed vs a different printer altogether works best for your situation. 🙂

(I'm not Katie, but our voip/ digital line uses handsets and looks like a regular cordless phone. We didn't even have to get new handsets and just used our old ones.)

But keep the scapes for soup! ❤️

We use a voip service that we run off of our wifi, and it's been excellent. We pay around $6 / month, and the initial setup device thingy was like $90-100. It's worked well for several years. We used to keep a landline in case of power outages (because we do get those), BUT when the power outage is because of trees taking out lines, the landline goes, too (same poles). We needed a phone at home, and this worked out great, PLUS has the customizable blocking of robocalls. Another thing that helped us a lot was switching our registered political party from Independent to one of the registered parties . . . I'm guessing that this is more applicable to folks who live in a swing state. YMMV, of course.

^ I've also found "irregular" Smartwool for deep discounts in outlets - I figure if I inspect it carefully and can't see the irregularity (or if it's just a colorway off), it's good. I've done this for years. Another tip is to buy them in June & July, though that doesn't help RIGHT NOW, of course. 😉

Yep.

I don't understand why they are rolling it out when (a) the changes cause a huge delay, (b) the financial calculations are incorrect by their own metrics, and (c) the rollout has been ... rough ... to put it politely.

Yes, that's the link posted upthread. Frustrating, FAFSA people.

We have offered our kids "all of the above" that we remember being important in high school, but they largely weren't interested. We DID do ... 1. truly wonderful photo shoot 2. special trip 3. small (ok, some were big) backyard party 4. specifically-worded diploma + written-out prayer ❤️

Send him our way, with a shovel!

We tap maples here every year, and the season fluctuates forward or backward on the calendar, but the spring temps are the ones that matter - best conditions are 20 at night and 40 during the day. Some years are good, and some are bad. (ETA: If it's at all reassuring, it's definitely been cold enough at night this year, and the outlook for maple syrup is strong. New technology both at the tree level and also at the production level is quite promising, and the temps are fine even in El Nino years. We harvest in late Feb / early March / sometimes late March.) It lasts forever on your shelf, if properly bottled; it's been boiled for hours and hours, so any living impurities are well and truly gone. 😉 It's our first "garden crop" every spring.

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