We have a 'general' snack policy, that is, no snacks. It's my belief that if children are eating three good meals a day then they don't need snacks. Also, I find that if mine are ever given snacks anywhere, then they tend not to eat the wholesome, nutritious meals that I have slaved over :glare:. If anyone here asks for snacks they just get told we don't do snacks. No problem.

:grouphug: Praying.

Yep, my DH went to Uppingham and then Oxford. I find his tendency to try to talk his way out of trouble can be incredibly irritating in an everyday domestic situation. :D

Of course you are. You're Ron Weasley's Mum. Aren't you? :D

:grouphug: I can so understand how utterly draining and exhausting dragging so many small children around must be, in fact I feel quite ill just reading about it. The only difference between you and I is that I wouldn't feel at all guilty about just giving up on it. There's only so much a mother can do for her children and it sounds as though you give 100% at all times, so please don't feel guilty or sad. Some of the previous posters have given some brilliant, creative ideas on practical ways of achieving what you're striving for, I'm sure you'll give some of those a go too, but I would like to point out that not having close friends at this age may not be the end of the world. We have only homeschooled for two years, before that my eldest three went to school and while they did have lots of friends and lots of fun the two who are now at home don't miss any of that enough to want to go back to school (and I have suggested that they should go back, numerous times :tongue_smilie:). It's been wonderful to see how much they enjoy each other's company, and that of their 3 yo little brother, and they seem far happier and content with life than they did when they were at school. On the other hand, my eldest who has always gone to school has had his life made a misery by so-called 'friends', to the point, I feel, of being emotionally very damaging to him. Hope that makes sense, it doesn't seem to quite so much as it did when it was in my head :tongue_smilie:. I suppose what I'm trying to say is that by all means try your best to provide the best social opportunities you can for your children, but don't give yourself too much of a hard time over something which I feel pretty sure may not be all that important anyway. Enjoy your time at home with your children, make the most of every moment with them, that's one of the reasons many people choose to homeschool after all, in no time they'll be all grown up and gone, having lots of fun with lots of friends ;).

Absolutely. I've been thinking the very same thing. At one point I did consider posting a possible 'other side' to the story, just for balance and perspective for the poor OP, but I realised that I'd probably get savaged, which wouldn't be good on my first day here :D.

You lucky girl, what a darling MIL you have! I know it'd take more than a book to make much of an impression on my DH.

I organise tasks according to a rough timetable, allocating the more onerous ones for times when I can reckon on having most time/energy. At the moment it looks like this: Fri pm - clean toilets Sat am - clean rest of the bathroooms Sat pm - vacuum downstairs (2 of the rooms that are only lightly used I alternate so that they get done fortnightly) Sun am - vacuum upstairs (again alternate 3 bedrooms one week, the other 3 bedrooms the next week) Sun pm - iron (while watching documentaries on the TV, with kids out of the way- love it :D) Tues pm - wash kitchen floor, clean kitchen sink and bins Wed - receive grocery shop done on line earlier in the week Also, kitchen floor gets vacuumed at least once a day, as needed, laundry gets done daily, dusting gets done rarely (well, between every 4-6 weeks - I know disgusting, but I don't care - or whenever it gets on my nerves too much). This is the schedule that suits me best, developed after much trial and error, and means that I mostly never get too stressed or exhausted.

Never heard of unpotty-training before. Maybe you'll start a trend. :001_smile:

I don't know how much help this will be as we've only been homeschooling for two years and only have experience of RS over the past twelve months, but I'm sure there are lots of other people here who can give you a more comprehensive assessment. My DS who will be 7 in August, finished RS B just before Easter. My DS who will be 4 at the end of the week has just started RS A. Could it be that your son wasn't working at quite the right level? RS B isn't really much more difficult than RS A, but is pitched at a slightly older child and so is maybe a bit more challenging and interesting. We mostly enjoyed RS B, although I did feel that my son didn't always 'get' everything, but we pushed on regardless. We're now on lesson 12 of RS C, which revises a lot from RS B, and he's really coming on in leaps and bounds. I'm really appreciating now how RS lays a very firm foundation for mathematical skills. I think he made a lot of progress during RS B that wasn't immediately apparent, but now really shows. DS10 is just getting to the end of RS E and has loved it (he hadn't done any RS before RS E) and says he has learnt much more than with any other math program. Sadly, the next RS level is not suitable for him because of our future plans for his education, so we'll be moving on to Singapore Standards 5a and 5b for the coming year. I can't really comment any other math programs as before using RS we mostly used a mixture of different workbooks.