My older two are at school and I understand completely your anxiety about academic standards. I don't think you're being at all selfish. Would he be willing to afterschool in those subjects you're particularly concerned about? I know it can be difficult to find the time to afterschool at the end of a busy school day, we often do our afterschooling over the weekend. I, myself, would be very nervous about taking the responsibility for homeschooling my boys at this level, even if they wanted to. Despite my concerns their school achieves excellent results overall. I would do my best if they were begging me to homeschool them though :tongue_smilie:. While I understand that not everyone would agree, I believe that at 14 yo he should be more involved in making the decision himself whether to homschool or not. I feel that he is at an age when he should be becoming increasingly independent and responsible, and I would be encouraging that all I could. It is so difficult to know what's best for our dc. I often wish I could look back on this time and see what would be the best course of action. I do hope you arrive at the best decision for you all :001_smile:.

Funnily enough this question came up for us just recently when we had our boiler serviced. The engineer recommended leaving it on constantly at a low temperature, but DH (a chemist by training, but with a good understanding of most of the sciences) felt that this didn't quite make sense, saying something very similar to transientChris's DH. We do have very thick walls, but we're not double-glazed and have very big windows. Fuel bills here in the UK are getting quite scary. We also bundle ourselves up in lots of warm layers of clothing to keep warm and have our open fires and wood burning stove going a lot of the time.

No, I think that makes you very easy-going, well-balanced people :001_smile:. The problems arise when certain members of your family are always over-stepping the mark, pushing at boundaries, taking advantage, upsetting others, etc, etc, and then it's maybe in your best interests to confront ... or not, as suits you. The people I deal with do everything to avoid confrontation, including totally ignoring you, manipulation and emotional blackmail. I have so wanted to run away from them all so many times. And yes, they do live a good long way away :glare:.

My mother was very confrontational, about anything and everything, to the point of bullying; it wasn't pleasant. At first I rather appreciated the fact that DH's family just ignored problems and kept smiling and being polite. In recent years, though, I've found it infuriating that real problems are either swept under the carpet to fester, or are dealt with by A asking B to ask C if anything is wrong, even though C hates B and would never tell them anything. Their insincerity and superficial 'niceness' has many times made me wish I'd never married DH, even though he's a wonderful DH and we're mostly very happy.

I really couldn't imagine anyone not agreeing with you :001_smile:. Nor could I imagine that she might have any valid point of view that would make such comments even remotely OK. Your response was pretty perfect.

DS11 started the cornet when he was 9 yo. I seem to remember that his music teacher recommended the cornet because he was smaller. His older brother started the trombone at 11 yo. They both have piano lessons too, but find their brass instruments the most fun :001_smile:.

Excuse me? Why not? I'm confused. Can I use lots of these :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused: I'm guessing I've missed something.

This is not entirely true. My next-door neighbour is 68 yo, she's tall, slim, wears her hair in short bob, and has a perfect, almost wrinkle-free complexion - she's beautiful, and really doesn't look a day over 40. She almost certainly hasn't spent a penny on any cosmetic enhancements, she's far too wise and down-to-earth. Her own mother died only last year, aged 101, so I suspect excellent genes has something to do with it. I have tried my best to find out if she has some secret formula for eternal youth, but she assures me it's just good luck :tongue_smilie:.

I don't think it's FB. I know someone IRL who behaves in exactly the same way your MIL does and I find it incredibly annoying.

:iagree: You look ... amazing! :001_smile:

I don't know anything about Oak Meadow. My DS5 has gone through RightStart A over the past year and has just started on RightStart B. We spend about 20 minutes to half an hour doing math each day. RightStart is quite strong on teaching concepts, but does teach facts as well: counting in twos with both odd and even numbers, combinations of numbers to 10, days of the week, months of the year, shapes, hours, half hours and quarter hours. All these facts are learned slowly and steadily, often through math games, which he loves. RightStart feels gentle and fun, but very thorough. Not everyone is a fan though :tongue_smilie:. Singapore math is another very thorough curriculum, which we sometimes use to supplement.

Well, I think it's actually very impressive. I always plan to get organised early, but end up rushing around at the last moment, then spending most of Christmas feeling ill and exhausted. So far this year I'm doing quite well, but only because we have a couple of big parties planned over Christmas week, with a number of guests staying, so if I don't do as much as I can now I'll resemble the walking dead by the time our parties take place.

I like the flexibility of just doing the next thing. However, I do spend a lot of the summer working out what I want us to cover over the coming year. For History and Science I then divide the lessons up over the 39 weeks we do school, usually leaving a couple of weeks clear for catching up after life has got in the way. We mostly use RightStart for math and I plan on completing four lessons a week, usually Mon-Thurs, although we will do math on Friday if we haven't covered everything Mon-Thurs. Likewise for WWE. For reading, French, Art we just go with flow. My only absolute, inflexible rule is that we MUST cover reading, writing and math every day (apart from Fri, obviously). Even if it means that we're still doing school at 6 pm in the evening, we will cover the basics. My older two are at school, if I were homeschooling them I think the 'basics' would be a lot more involved and we'd have to be a lot more disciplined.

DS13 and DS11 have agreed that they'll share an xbox this year. They both need new tennis rackets, so I'll probably get them these too. Among last year's favourite presents was a pen knife and the 'Make Electronics' book along with electronic supplies. Both DS13 and DS11 have MacBook Pros and DS8 has an iPad, while DS5 has pretty much unlimited access to our main family PC. We keep an eye on them and have installed parental controls. The time they have available for just messing about on computers is limited as they have so many other things they enjoy doing and lots of outside activities. So far we've had no problems. If you decided that a laptop was a possibility maybe you could offer him a certain amount of money for Xmas to which he could add any gift money from other relatives, from his pocket money or money from a part time job?

Ugh, the very thought :ack2:. Maybe I'm not as committed to my children's education as I like to think I am :tongue_smilie:.

Absolutely not. I'm willing to make many sacrifices for my children's education, but there are limits ...

All of mine are in bed by 9.30 pm to 10 pm, but are often awake until 11 pm or later. It works for us.

The one I've had three years is an Ektorp three-seater in Svanby Beige. I've also bought a matching Ektorp two-seater this year to replace my last ancient Klippan sofa.

I had two cheap ones that I bought when I was in my mid-twenties for my first home. They lasted 20 years. They did look a bit tired towards the end of their lives, but DS5 cried when we finally got rid of them. I've had one of my current ones for 3 years and it's still looking lovely, even with 4 boys bouncing all over it every day.

:grouphug: We have family like that too. I've made it very clear that I really don't want to be bothered with any of them, so when I invite them all for Christmas I know that'll mean I'll be let off the hook for any other events for the rest of the year :tongue_smilie:. I hate Christmas anyway, so I may as well be done with all the misery at once :D. I think as far as the backlash goes you've just got to grin and bear it. For myself I'd rather suffer others' annoyance than hate myself for being a pushover yet again. Oh, and vent away, I find it very cathartic :001_smile:.

:party: Warmest wishes on your birthday :001_smile:.

I had a friend when I was a child who spent six weeks in Australia and when she returned you would have sworn she'd been born and bred there. Many people considered it an affectation, I was rather impressed. This same girl moved to from Britain to Texas in her early twenties and from then ever after had the strongest American accent imaginable. On one trip home she had to assure an airport official that she was indeed a British citizen, to which the airport official responded "Then shame on you!" I still consider it a talent, and as a pp commented it will be a great strength when it comes to learning foreign languages.

:hurray: Congratulations! I'll be your bee :D. I'm a big fan of your excellent, always candid, advice.

The lady who wrote the article seemed to be only thinking of her own 'value' and 'worth', and how she was perceived by others.

:iagree: Yes, my thoughts were similar.