Thanks! I'll read it when the boys go to bed tonight. And "off medication" is my other concern. His GP gave no information regarding when it would be time to move him off medication, or at least adjust his dosage. His numbers have been great for a while, and sometimes his sugar levels are low when he checks them at home. When do we know it's time to ask for his dosages to be lowered? Wouldn't overmedicating a problem that is no longer as serious as it was, cause problems on some level? :P Why I think it's time to see an endocrinologist, lol.

Yes. Actually, that's a sticking point for me. I feel like he is frequently fatigued because eats too little to sustain energy... especially now that he's working out regularly. He typically eats only a piece of fruit for lunch, but the only real meal he eats is dinner. Once a week he goes to lunch with a friend from the office, but that's it. To be fair, he's been slammed at work, which is why he hasn't been leaving the office to grab lunch like he usually would. He's literally been on conference calls for 5+ hours of his work day. There are several local restaurants that offer healthy options, so when he is able to go out to grab food, he has choices.

My mother was sooooo concerned about the bolded. Apparently me and my middle sister came back with such different results (although it did list her and my father as our parents) that she felt compelled to call me -- multiple times -- and swear she remembered giving birth to me, only half-jokingly. I'm not even exaggerating. And she was mighty confused and upset that nobody showed up with "Cuban DNA," since my grandfather immigrated here from there. Er..... okay :D

We found the testing to be pretty darn accurate, actually. DH tested in at about 90% Italian (if I recall), which is about what we assumed, considering he is the first generation in his family born in the United States on his mother's side, second generation born in the United States on his father's side. Since he knew both sides of the family, and they lived close to each other his entire childhood and early adult years, and most of them were Italian immigrants, going back many generations, and we had papers that proved as much, it would have been a kick in the pants to hear otherwise, lol. Mine were scattered, which also wasn't a surprise. What did show up was largely expected, considering what we know of our family history.

His doctor just gave him the medication, said "good luck," patted his own stomach, and told DH that if he (the doc) had any actual advice regarding weight loss, he (doc) wouldn't have the same problem... essentially. However, DH tracks his numbers, I'm pretty sure.

I don't think he has listened to her :P The paleo move was more of a natural move on his end, and something some of his friends had had success with. I'm not entirely sure how long he's been at the diet, actually -- I haven't really kept track. I was serving typically paleo meals for family meals before he went that way formally. He's been at the gym consistently, at this pace, for a couple months? Prior to that, he was having trouble even walking the treadmill at home without being miserable. I really think finding a friend to do something interesting -- and rigorous -- with, was key for him. He's happy to put in the workouts now and comes home feeling great.

His numbers with the doctor are good -- and his numbers after meals. Yes, he has a home meter.

DH is diabetic. He is on medication. He has moved to a (typically) more whole foods / paleo diet. He does eat pasta on Sundays. It was a compromise considering his childhood memories of family pasta dinners after Mass on Sundays :P He is involved in fast-paced, rigorous movement 4-5 nights weekly at the gym, with a good friend from the office (usually they play a full hour of racquetball, lol). No matter what he tries, the weight isn't budging though. According to all tests with the doctor, his "numbers" are great. So, everything he is doing, and the medication he is on, is managing the diabetes itself -- but why isn't the weight budging at all? He's getting particularly disheartened. Is it time for him to see an endocrinologist, maybe? At this point he sees only his PCP and I believe he sees the nutritionist every few months or so.

Most societies with homogeneous diets are, well, homogeneous societies in general -- no? I'm not a scientist by any means, but I would think it stands to reason that for the same reason some people remain healthy (and of a healthy weight) eating crap foods, the reverse can be said and that same crap food diet can cause another a host of health problems. And there are some people who lose weight easily on a certain diet, while others have to try different diet after different diet to find one that works. My FIL ate the same Fried-Fish-Friday, Spaghetti-and-Meatballs-Monday, Lasagna-'Til-It's-Gone, Genuine-Philadelphia-Soft-Pretzels-On-a-Regular, Corner-Sub-Shop-Cheesesteak diet that my DH ate growing up. DH is diabetic and overweight -- my FIL passed away in his mid-80's weighing in at no more than 90 lbs sopping wet. And, no, I can't believe that any one standard diet will work for everyone. For example, someone who is much more active than I am would need to intake more calories and carbs -- it's one of the primary reasons for those "calculators" put out by the different "diets." Age, amount of routine energy exerted, and genetics absolutely have to be factored in.

I think it is hard in general. America is a diverse country -- racially, economically, and culturally. The diversity is wonderful, but with it does come a certain amount of, well, diversity that other (less diverse) countries do not have to consider when they holler, "We make it work! You can, too!" and that will always mean, no, we can't agree across the board about anything, really. Culture absolutely does impact diet and I think people really do not give it the credit due for the obesity epidemic. I see a lot of people claiming that it is almost entirely an economic situation that causes someone to eat poorly. And I would disagree wholeheartedly. We are upper middle class, in a low cost of living area, and have access to quality food. But my husband was raised by immigrants, in an area full of immigrants (from the same country), and it's a culture that has a heavy, heavy food influence. His entire life was occasion for "special meals." Sure, they liked their vegetables, too, but the amount of empty carbs taken in daily is insane and can't be combated a few "good for you" foods on the side. And if you were to suggest to any of his family or culturally-similar friends that their diet could use some tweaking, you will be looked at like you personally kicked St. Francis while he was holding a puppy. Even if the majority of them are overweight and suffering medical complications from that obesity. Getting my husband to realize it took a long, long time. And if we lived close to his family and childhood friends (12 hours away), I doubt his habits would have changed at all. And the naysayers about healthy school lunches are right, unfortunately. We're expecting minimally trained cafeteria workers to turn healthy ingredients into appetizing food and the children (who may not have been otherwise exposed) to just take to it? They tried it when DD16 was in public elementary school for a year. The food was so unappetizing that even the teachers ended up bringing their own food. And the children typically threw their trays out or brought food from home. They scrapped the program because, frankly, at least before they didn't have children going to their afternoon classes hungry (and therefore fatigued and unable to concentrate). And even if they turned the tables there and invested in the cafeteria workers, and the food was appealing and eaten, it's one meal a day, five days out of the week -- all other meals and snacks come from home. If my husband were to change only his lunch habits when he is at work, and not his general (overall) eating habits, it wouldn't touch the potential problems. And then we have, as you mentioned, a problem with people not having time or, frankly, the desire to cook from scratch. I fall into the "no desire" category. I do it, because it needs to be done, but I stay at home. I hate cooking in general, though. It's going to be almost impossible to catch the "have no desire" crowd and teach them to cook healthfully. You can't teach me to enjoy cooking; some people do, some do not. And the "don't have time" crowd? We can't add more hours to their day and we have to be honest -- it's more time consuming to cook appetizing healthy meals from scratch, than it is to run through a drive-thru for a few burgers at the end of a work day. Lastly, I think it's important to note that a general "good for you" diet proposed, to everyone across the board, is a bad idea. Different people have different dietary needs (genetics, amount of energy exerted daily, etc.) and there is no one way to eat healthy for every single person. Ask me how I know :p Four of the five people in this house have sincerely different dietary needs.

:grouphug:

Elephant. I guess I believe that success in other areas of life are largely affected by our relationships and what we get from them (more specifically, early in life).

To be fair, it isn't really about what the deceased would want (regarding how others feel about their death). I own my emotions and what I should and shouldn't feel isn't (shouldn't be) dictated by somebody who isn't even here to walk through the situation with me. <----- And it kind of sounds like you are, in fact, saying that the dead person's preferences should dictate the left-to-grieve person's feelings.

I would be hard-pressed to keep my big-as-I-am teenage daughter from running in to rescue her dogs if the house were ablaze. It would be up to DH (who outweighs her) to literally tackle her to the ground to prevent it. Sometimes emotions override logic... and I don't think that makes a person egocentric, kwim? And I grew up in the late-80's and throughout the 90's. We only had one house phone (in the kitchen) until very late 90's or later.

I actually felt like it was pretty "real life." At least in my world. By default, the parent who is home more does more of the "hard parenting" and a lot of it is done by the time Dad gets home. That doesn't make my DH, for example, less of a great dad because he has more "down time" with the kids than "hard times"... it's just the way things pan out, timing-wise. I think most parents do a lot of good things for their kids -- and screw up a lot of things along the way. In most families I know, much of the screwing up happens when the parents are younger and with the first kid, with things evening out to more good and fewer screw ups with subsequent children... so I think it's worth giving Jack a bit of a break that they had all three of their kids at once -- so, no opportunities to have just the one and say along the way, "Well, this isn't working -- won't do it with the next one!" :P

I think we're going to wait to do formal Kindergarten with The Marvelous Flying Marco, until this upcoming year. He'll be 6, but not until the summer. He's technically "doing" kindergarten now, but with his special needs, this year has been spent almost entirely on finishing short tasks, finding a reward system that works for more than a minute, and moving from whatever he is rigidly focused on and into a mom-directed activity for even a very short period of time. We are making progress there, but almost no actual academics have taken place. I'm not super concerned, because he's known his letters (and their sounds), recognizes his numbers through I-don't-even-know (numbers are his "thing"), shows an understanding of the concept of addition/subtraction in play, and enjoys read alouds. So, we'll take another stab at formal K this upcoming year. PAL Reading Memoria Press copybooks CLE Math 1 *or* Miquon (not sure yet about this -- older kiddo uses Miquon, but when I think about the time spent on it, and the time I have available, the idea doing it with another kid, since DS8 is still using it, makes me want to cry) He can tag along with DS8 for literature and enrichment subjects (we use Memoria Press for literature/enrichment and crafts; TAN's Story of Civ 2 for classical studies). All of the kids do "Morning Meeting" together, which is comprised of individual recitations (age appropriate for each kid); picture study, religion, great words studies, and Latin.

I have three kiddos. The boys are 5 and 8; the girl is 16. All enjoy Morning Meeting (even the teenager). All three are SNs, and I would put their skill and cognitive ages more around 3, 6, and 16 (oldest's only SN is dyslexia and adhd, lol). Recitations All do the same picture study, great words, and religion recitations. Each have individual recitations after, which is more age appropriate and pulled from Living Memory and Memoria Press recitation lists. Latin (I Speak Latin, which is multi-sensory and whole body, so the littles enjoy it) ... and next school year we'll be adding in Classical Studies during Morning Meeting, since all the kids will finally be on the same rotation (middle ages). The teenager will obviously have some work for that subject outside of Morning Meeting, but we're using TAN's Story of Civilization together as a core. If the youngest (DS5; will be 6 this summer) proves cooperative, I may add in DS8's literature and enrichment to Morning Meeting for everyone.

Oddly enough, I'm exactly opposite in my preferences for myself. I'm uncomfortable with most women doctors, and even those I'm not uncomfortable with, I just don't prefer for some reason. I have a male primary doctor and a male GYN. My adhd specialist is a woman and I like her quite a lot, but she never examines me other than the basics (blood pressure, etc.).

If you've been on Concerta, or your teen has been, can you tell me about it's progression -- the bad, the ugly, the good? About how long did it take to find the effective dosage? What were the typical side effects and for how long did they last? DD16 was prescribed this medication today by her ADHD specialist. She isn't new to ADHD, and was first dx'd in second grade around age 7, but it was previously handled (and badly) by GPs who simply prescribed her down a list -- first adderall, then vyvannse, etc. The running theme, obviously, was that they tended to defer to the amphets. The ADHD specialist is the only one in our region, that I'm aware of, in private practice and I am already a patient of theirs (two doctors -- one for children / students; one for adults), but I'm on Evekeo, which is an amp mix. I know Concerta is also a stimulant, and we're obviously well versed in dealing with the amphets, but this is our first ride with a stimulant medication that isn't amphetamine or a an amp mix. (She's also done a few rounds on non-stimulant ADHD medication, none of which ended well at all, so we definitely preference stimulants.) She hasn't been medicated in a few years, though. She went off Vyvannse at the peak of puberty when, for some reason (hormones are my guess), her previously tried-and-true medication did a 180 and she started having bad thoughts and incredible mood swings. They tried switching her back to her (again tried-and-true) adderall, but it had the same effect. Hormone interference was the presumed reason for the shift, because she'd been on these two medications back and forth for many years previous with no such issues, and when taken off the medications she was in a much better place, emotionally. With that said, although she hasn't been medicated in years, her ADHD definitely has not been "handled." She was just too terrified to try medication again -- until we found these doctors. Their diagnostics, evaluations, and interviews go far above and beyond any she's had with regular GPs; they preference a much slower and steadier method of titrating dosages, and they will see her frequently (every couple of weeks, at least) until she finds the correct dosage or medication. In the mean time, she had her first dose of Concerta this afternoon and seems sluggish and is complaining of a headache. I know it took a few weeks on my Evekeo for the major side effects to kind of leave off. I know it wasn't a pretty few weeks when we were finding my preferred dosage, so I'm trying to be encouraging -- but she's discouraged. She didn't really have "start-up side effects" when she was younger, with her medications -- it was just a matter of finding the optimal dosage. We were encouraged to give the Concerta a fair shot for a few weeks, but the doctor is absolutely willing to move her to a different medication. And, considering her age, Vyvannse and adderall aren't off the table (if it was puberty mixing with the medications causing the issue, that shouldn't be a huge problem now). Anyway, what was your experience with Concerta?

You've deleted the examples, but I really hope I would only intervene if I sincerely feared for the child's physical safety. Period. No gray area, there. Keeping in mind, of course, that this would include situations of such serious neglect that it would almost definitely impact the child's physical wellbeing. Educational neglect? Not even on my radar. Medical neglect? I would have to know the actual definition of the term before answering. I'm not going to call on friends and family who refuse vaccinations (although I know others who do consider that neglect) and I'm not going to call on family members who, typically, preference alternative care (holistic, chiropractic, etc.). I would consider the medical neglect a direct danger to the child's wellbeing if, say, I knew the child was very, very sick and the parents were refusing medical care. Actually, first I would try to find out why they were refusing it, and if it's something I could help with (transportation, money, etc.) I would do so -- whereas, if it is because they do not "trust" doctors or anything of that nature, it may warrant intervention. My parents were therapeutic foster parents. A sickeningly large number of very traumatized children they received into our childhood home came to them from other foster home situations -- traumatized, abused, and neglected. Including the government in my brand of intervention is a last resort. I know what good they can do, too, so it is always an option -- but unless the child is in direct damage, I think it does more harm than good.

My state allows for religious exemptions for virtually everything that is required in public schools (medically speaking -- physicals, vaccinations, etc.).

I have kids from 5 to 16, and never has the doctor asked me to leave the room. My daughter can ask me to leave, but the doctor never has, so I'm not sure that all (or even most) children have private exams with a doctor -- I've never heard of a pediatrician requiring it. If all we are (hypothetically) mandating is that the parents submit to a physical yearly, then we aren't mandating that parents acquire a regular (and consistent) family physician, so I'm not sure how we would enforce that they provide previous medical records. Even now, if you take your child to a clinic (urgent cares, walk-in clinics, etc.) for, say, a last minute physical for school, camp, or a sport, they do not require all previous medical records. In my area, any one of the dozens and dozens medical offices and clinics could be affiliated with several different hospital systems (or none at all; many of the best are private and unaffiliated), which makes sharing and accessing records between the systems difficult, since records are only shared on online platforms with offices within the same hospital system (at least in my area). It sounds great to want the government to pay out enough to ensure quality, accessible care for all children. However, the reality is that even in countries where there is funding for all children to see doctors, at all times, there are shortages of providers to do just that. Which was the other point to my earlier reply -- accessibility when you suddenly have a ton of people wanting to see a doctor, who have previously not utilized them, or who typically preference other types of primary care (I have a cousin who swears by a chiropractor for virtually everything). Our state has medicaid for low income children, and then they have a "between" program for those in the lower middle class category, but who do not qualify for medicaid. My friend's husband brought in about 40K yearly (very low cost of living area in the south) and they have three children -- and qualified for this "between" program, which is (I believe) sliding scale based for the co-pays, but like medicaid otherwise. I believe most insurances cover well-child check ups (physicals) 100%. So, funding aside -- what about the logistics? I'll pretend that the aforementioned programs do not exist (because they are not accessible every where in the U.S.), and we have (hypothetically) set up some sort of fund that allows for all children to receive free physicals. If the number of children without primary providers to see for this is at all substantial, where do we find the providers? Full physicals are not short appointments at all. My children's pediatrician allots about 45-60 minutes per physical / well-child check up, because we have the standard full body examination, discussion and follow-up of any previous illnesses or new medical history for the past year; discussion with parents and child about school and home (behavior, any concerns, etc.), depression screenings for the teenage crowd, and then you have hearing and vision screenings themselves (if the child doesn't have an audiologist or optometry doctor they see elsewhere for those things). And we require this is done by when, exactly? My children are established in a private practice, but still -- physicals are such long affairs that it may be weeks or months out from the past year's physical, by the time scheduling comes into play, when combined with the time of year (summer and fall being their "good luck with that" seasons, if you try to schedule a physical). FTR, I'm not at all opposed to such funding. I just don't know that I agree it would help for this specific situation.

Our younger boys take tap and ballet at a small studio. They are both (DS5 and DS8) in the 5-6 year old class. They started the season in September, but left shortly after because we had a run-in with Mono in the house that kicked my butt for a solid few months. They just started back up after the holidays. DS8 was born with a number of congenital defects and abnormalities. He spent the first several years of his life needed to be isolated from anybody who "may be" sick, because his ability to go through certain diagnostics (sedation MRI, etc.), pre-op procedures, then surgeries and procedures, depended on him being "healthy" -- then it was the risk of infection after surgery/procedures (and we did end up having to be readmitted once, when he caught something in the hospital or shortly after release from his lung surgery, which collapsed the lung they had operated on, chest-tube site infection, etc.). For a while he wasn't able to have certain vaccinations. He's been stable for years now. He's always, always had a tendency to be more "frail" (as my grandmother calls it). He's caught up on vaccinations. However, we can't get him the flu vaccination with his pediatrician until February, and then it will take 2 weeks (?) to start working. And I'm told that this vaccination does not seem to protect at all against one of the strains going around this year? Consider him an asthmatic, for this conversation. He isn't, but the lung and vascular deformities he had operated on, required they take out a small portion of one lung, and do some rearranging with some vascular tie-ins. Both lungs are fully functioning, but one lung is only as fully functioning as it can be, considering it isn't a "full lung." His cardiologist equates it to a V6 engine vs. a V8 engine (with DS being the V6) -- they both run well, but relative to the parts and power they have. Every single time we enter dance season, the boys get sick. All of the other children are in school, and several of the parents are school teachers. Almost every class, there is a participating child who is coughing, or siblings in the parent area of the studio who are out and out sick. They would be devastated to miss the season, but I'm worried. I'm hearing about perfectly healthy kids dying this flu season. Vaccinated children and adults dying. I know there are states that are closing down, for longer amounts of time, due to flu outbreaks in their areas. Our state isn't one of them, that I'm aware of, but I know it's considered widespread in our state. Would you keep your kids out of extracurriculars for the season? Chance it? I know we have to make the decision for ourselves, but I'm curious what others are doing.

Where does this leave adoptive parents? Heck, adoptive families in general, once we included extended family. For that matter, where does this leave all of the children regularly adopted from foster care or through domestic adoptions?

I think this is a great idea -- in theory. In practice, though, I don't see how it's viable. The only cases of abuse that would be caught, would be in-your-face obvious, and the most serious of cases. Because, absent something huge and obvious, abuse is typically decided based on a pattern of injuries, lack of growth (absent medical reasons), etc., isn't it? There would be no way to ensure people see the same doctor/NP every single year, and since there is no central database, there would be no way to keep up with potential patterns. Unless, of course, we also have to turn over those medical reports to the government. I'm not okay with that idea. Public school kids do not have to turn over their medical records. Actually, nobody (adult or child) is required, absent a court order, to turn their medical records to the government. The biggest hurdle to anything like this (even if we "fixed" the above issues), is the funding. If the government pays out for this like they do for medicaid... well, good luck. Most doctors can only take on a small number of medicaid patients (unless they are a government funded clinic) because of the absurdly small pay out. I think I once read it was the equivalent of less than minimum wage per hour -- and offices can't run on that, while maintaining property, utilities, equipment, insurance, and staff. I'm not sure we'd have enough doctors to go around. Even if your area has a ton of doctors (my area does!), "new patient appointments" can (absent an emergency) take months and months to get, even with general practitioners. And, even if your area has a ton of doctors available right now, you have to take into account the number of people who do not currently have a GP, and would suddenly need one, and the number of people who use holistic doctors (most of whom do not have an MD or nursing degree) or chiropractor, and would suddenly be running for doctors and NPs... and would cause a shortage even if there isn't one currently.