Keep looking for compromise. You shouldn't totally change your diet for that long, even for family. It's bad all around. Also, your family needs to keep exercising while she's here. Long hikes might be too much, since you'd be leaving for too long. But you should still be doing shorter excursions to keep your family healthy. And then do something that includes her when you get home. When you talk to her, you definitely need to explain that you've been doing a great deal of changing for her visits. And while you care for her and want her to keep visiting, you need to have less cooking disruption in your household. Adjusting to a new set of rules for visits will be difficult, so keep reminding her as necessary that you do want her there. Even if it means occasionally cooking something special or going to a buffet.

It's safer to assume that the mother is trying her best and leave things well alone. I know that isn't always the case; I've seen parents trying to reason with two year olds. Since toddlers aren't reasonable by nature, that's rather a waste. Since I now have an SN child, I was blessed by knowing a family at church who had a problem son. Unfortunately with their very limited funds, they were having trouble figuring out what was going on. As I got to know him, his parents, and his two older (and extremely well behaved siblings), I came to realize that something just wasn't right. His parents were trying hard and genuinely confused. They weren't the sort that sit at a restaurant, happily eating while their child runs screaming about, bumping into the wait staff. Knowing them made me rethink the entire issue. I'm much slower to judge now, and I keep those thoughts to myself. I also try very hard not to glare.

We tried it in 6th grade and didn't much care for it. The one live event we attended was just awful. The website kept acting up; that was on their end rather than our connection. The sound quality was awful, and the video simply wasn't there. My DS was so disappointed that we weren't able to get to the rocket launch part of the presentation. I also found that the materials lists for some of the experiments are bizarre and can be hard to find. How many people still have 35 mm film canisters lying around the house? How about bamboo skewers and a foam clamshell hamburger container? (Most franchises around here don't use those anymore.) I'd definitely recommend looking for a sale price, such as through the homeschool co-op as someone else recommended. It's pricey at full cost, even if you decide you love it.

I started my 12 year old in the first level of Math U See this year. We were able to move through Alpha and Beta fairly quickly; we watched the videos together. He finally understood the underlying concepts and, for the first time, is not counting on his fingers. He's also able to teach other people what he's learned, so I can see that he's really learning math. When we started homeschooling last year, we tried Aleks. It was a disaster for us. It's light on explaining the why of things, though I had a friend tutoring him as a back up for this. But in the end, my DS still didn't understand and did lots of guessing. At the end of the school year, Aleks had him working on supposedly a 6th grade level. When we started testing him without the computer (just equations and paper), he was still barely on a third grade level.

I had to pull my son out just before Thanksgiving of last year. I did journal entries last year, just writing what we did on a weekly calendar. It was a very good way to start while we figured out what curriculum worked, and how quickly we could move through it. This year I'm doing a weekly planner for him with one page per day of assignments. It took a little while to set up, but it's easy to keep up with now. For subjects like spelling and handwriting, we just check them off. For English and most other subjects, the lesson is listed. (Next year I plan to make a monthly schedule and make him keep his own weekly schedule to help him learn to be responsible for that.)

I thought GD was beautiful too, but we ended up using HWOT. IMO, it was the least attractive of the styles I looked at. But my son liked it, and he's had lots of success with it. Since his printing is awful, I'm glad that he has some sort of handwriting that's legible. HWOT is designed not to slant. I tend to slant some when I practice with him, but he doesn't slant.

Speech delay is typically NOT a sign of Aspergers. That seems to be the primary difference between the descriptions of High Functioning Autism and Aspergers, with kids with HFA having a speech delay. I'll admit to being one of many people who are confused on the difference(s) in these two diagnoses.

Why do so many people assume that socialization in ps is automatically good? My DS was bullied horribly, especially once he hit middle school. My DS gets much more education in EQ at home and at his social skills group.

We love it. The funniest part is that the year I made a healthier, fancier version with fresh green beans, no one liked it! We hardly ever eat dishes like the Campbell's green bean casserole, so I expected everyone to embrace the fancy version. Now we're back to the simple one, and everyone's happy.

:iagree: That's one of our favorites. My other favorite that's a little offbeat is the Squirrel Nut Zippers' Christmas Caravan. We also love Mannheim Steamroller, but you already have those.

(Emphasis added by me.) :iagree: I agree, yet the plan is to fold Aspergers into autism in the DSM-V. While the psychological practice that has been treating my Aspie has several psychologists who specialize in Aspergers, they refrained from diagnosing him for several years. They admitted to the possibility when he was in 3rd grade and diagnosed as ADD. They waited until 5th grade to assign the Aspergers diagnosis. Based on the DSM-IV description, I objected loudly. It wasn't until I read The Complete Guide to Asperger's Syndrome by Dr. Tony Attwood that I was persuaded. After extensive testing in 5th grade, my DS was also determined to be gifted with LDs or twice exceptional. I didn't even know that was possible. Plus he has anxiety. I think a good, thorough evaluation is needed. A child may have other issues in addition to Aspergers, or something entirely different.

My DS has had some one on one sessions with a psychologist who specializes in Aspergers. However, the most valuable activity has been social groups that are led by the same psychologist and are attended by Aspie boys in the same age range. From what I've heard and what I've seen in my own son, your son is at an age where Aspergers becomes more of a problem. The NTs are continuing to develop socially and the Aspies are often totally lost in this area. The social groups can help by teaching the kids better social skills and introducing them to other Aspies who share their struggles. The other kids attending those social groups are also often a great source of friends. My Aspie doesn't have many friends, but he met only one of them outside a social group.

:iagree: I've been doing all of these things since my migraines returned with a vengeance a few years ago. I rarely have them now, except the hormone based ones. For those, I have to take prescription medication. Doctors like to prescribe estrogen for that type of headache, but that only made mine worse. Butterburr can also be a good preventative for migraines and other headaches. My DS takes it, and it's helped a lot. I wouldn't take it and feverfew at the same time though. (BTW, feverfew can lower blood pressure. I've only read about that being a problem for people who tend to have low blood pressure.)

Absolutely. That first study was faked, sadly starting this false link between autism and vaccines. While it is sadly difficult to obtain, I think it's good for parents to be familiar with the complications of the actual diseases that vaccinations are available for. Most of them are not minor childhood illnesses with no risks. Children can die from some of these illnesses or suffer major problems such as deafness. (I must add that I hate those public service announcements that almost state that you're a horrible parent who's putting their kids lives at risk by not vaccinating. I'm not trying to be that extreme.) Also, many illnesses that are uncommon here, e.g., polio, still exist in other countries. People can and do bring these illnesses into the more developed countries. My husband and I read a great deal before eventually deciding to vaccinate. Parents need to make their own, best informed decision. I don't think for a moment that my younger son's autism was caused by vaccinations. I just recently heard of a study showing that autistic children had a much larger amount of brain neurons than NTs, almost twice as much. Since the neurons develop while the child is still a fetus, that points to something happening before birth. There's still so much to be learned about autism, but I think we can safely abandon the vaccine issue. That dead horse is skeletal these days.

We prefer to roast a larger turkey than we need just so we can have leftovers. We really like our turkey.

That was definitely the case when I went to college at a four year liberal arts school. I majored in Classics with a specialization in Latin. Except for a brief stint teaching in the public schools, I have never had a job related to my degree. But in this part of the country, being able to say you graduated from Davidson is what mattered. No one cared at all about my major or even my GPA. Before becoming disabled, I ran my employer's retirement plans. All of the rigorous training in precise thinking, problem solving, and communication was invaluable. I'm wary of degrees based solely on the job it will supposedly get one. With the job market rapidly changing, turning a four year college degree into an elaborate vocational degree may not pay off well. A few years ago, computer programming with a sure fire ticket to a great job. Now, much of that work is being outsourced to India. For our older son, we're expecting him to want to do post-graduate work. It may be a law degree although he's not certain yet. We talk often about what he wants to do for a living to help him make good decisions. I still hope he spends some time learning just for learning's sake while he's in college. He's well suited to that.

:iagree: My DS has Aspergers and ADD. He's also gifted and has Learning Disabilities. A competent professional evaluation is needed. For a child with Aspergers, early intervention is invaluable. Also, because there is a spectrum, the social dysfunction is more apparent in some children than in others. We didn't see a problem with our son until 4th grade. His psychologist said that wasn't unheard of. With some social skills and an encyclopedic knowledge of the current fad (legos, Pokemon, whatever), an Aspie can be the life of the party until around 3rd grade when the other kids move on to a different fad. If you've seen one kid with Aspergers, you've seen one kid with Aspergers.

My son has ADD. Plus he's gifted and has LDs. He also has Aspergers. So there can be a lot going on. (Though doubtless many kids have less.) His ADD wasn't a serious problem until second grade. At the beginning of third grade, we started being very strict about rewards and punishments to make sure he was taking his school work seriously. After about a month he was convinced he'd never play a video game or watch TV again. I persuaded my husband it was time to have him evaluated. I'm very glad we did. No matter how hard my son was trying, he simply couldn't concentrate enough, especially in a class room.

That's what my MIL used to say about my husband when she'd try to get me to persuade him to cut his hair. Nevertheless, he's been a great husband for over 20 years. And I liked his long hair. With the kids, I just want it clean (and brushed when other people might see them). My focus is on keeping my boys (ages 12 & 15) from doing anything permanent. So no piercing and no tattoos. I've frustrated my older boy because he can't get a rise out of me when he says he'll dye his hair or shave his head.

My Aspie suddenly feels the cold in his feet. He's 12 and that's about the time that I noticed my feet getting cold in the winter. I think he'll like these, and they may be easy enough for me to make. Thanks.

My 12 yo Aspie is doing very well using MUS. I only started homeschooling him in the middle of last year and kept finding holes in his knowledge. Between that and his apparent guessing at all math problems, we started this school year in Alpha. We just started Gamma this week. He's finally stopped guessing and sneaking ways to count on his fingers. :001_smile: My DS is horrible at memorizing math tables, so I know he's not getting through MUS simply by memorizing lots of stuff. We watch the DVD together. My DS really enjoys teaching the lesson back to me afterwards to show that he's really learned it. The DVDs were originally designed, however, for the parent to watch. Then the parent teaches the child without the DVD. If I ever switch to that method, I'll still want the DVDs. I'm not a math person, and I understand the concepts better with the TM and the DVDs. I don't think I'd do well with just the TM.

There was a two day convention in town last year for autism and Aspergers. I talked my husband into going because I'm chronically ill and didn't think I'd make it through two days. It was a great experience for me, even second hand, and an even better one for my DH since he never reads the books I read. Some of the speakers were Temple Grandin, Dr. Tony Attwood, and the author of The Out of Sync Child. Our DS had been diagnosed for about a year when this opportunity came up. I think the main areas it helped us was in coping strategies and better understanding our DS.

:iagree: Wrightslaw.com is the best place that I know of. I didn't pull my son out to HS until last year, in the middle of sixth grade. I found the materials at Wright's Law to be very helpful until I threw in the towel on the ps.

Since my son's hair is curly, we sometimes would let it grow out because it mostly grew upwards. We were fortunate enough to find someone who came to our house cut the hair of both of our sons. That's what we were doing when my Aspie was a toddler. (Our NT DS didn't behave well during hair cuts either.) Sadly she moved, and we switched to the lady who was cutting my hair. It was a small, fairly quiet salon, and the hairdresser was very patient. She also had a very secure booster insert so my DS didn't feel like he was going to fall. She was the one who discovered that using a towel around his neck instead of those paper sheets helped with his sensory issues. By the time he was older, around age 9, we had to go back to Supercuts for financial reasons. Fortunately by then he was much calmer about the process. He'd also needed a buzz cut at one point because he cut his own bangs out of impatience. That made him appreciate a professional hair cut more. He generally doesn't care too much about appearance, but he appreciates the compliments about his coppery curls. Except on the days that he doesn't. :001_huh: Because my younger son's hair is so curly, we've been fortunate that most hairdressers aren't trying to use electric clippers. I tell them up front they can't. For the past several years (he's 12 now), he has been able to tolerate them to clean up his neck and around his ears. He still wants the towel around his neck, and we go to a fairly small location during off hours to keep the activity and noise levels down.

I found one listed on Amazon, O. Henry Biography. I also found several mentioned on a website. Towards the bottom of the page, there is a section for further reading that mentions some biographies: http://kirjasto.sci.fi/ohenry.htm.