Some things to try: Look up Charlotte Mason's methods. Read together and have your child tell the story back (narration). Start really small. Ask leading questions until she gets her confidence back. Use this method to cover science and history. Honestly, at 9, she doesn't need to write much. Get her to draw instead if that works. Watch docos - the UK has great documentaries on all sorts of stuff for kids. Go to museums and the theatre and galleries and on nature walks. Don't stop teaching her because reading and writing aren 't easy for her - there are plenty of other ways to access knowledge. Drop all mention of grades. They are irrelevant in homeschooling. She is where she is. Try project based learning or unit studies instead. For maths: the Key to workbooks are ungraded (they're topic specific), they contain lots of repetition, and lots of white space. Friends have used them with great success with kids who need a slower route. MEP is fantastic, completely free (google MEP maths - it comes from Cambridge) and teaches maths conceptually. Its great for kids who think they can't do maths. It turned my son from a struggler to an advanced maths student (he has dyspraxia, so this is no small achievement). You must send your older child from the room if she can't co-operate. Teach one in the am and one in pm if you have to (a PITA I know). Schools foster competition. It has no place in homeschooling. She is old enough to get that, and if she's been bullied, she should get it when you call her on that behaviour. Give yourself time to grieve. We "accidental homeschoolers" often have preconceived ideas about how our kids will experience school. When it doesn't work out, we feel angry and sad. This is perfectly valid. You all need to "deschool" for a while. D

No Christmas prep is allowed here until DS14 and I have had birthdays like everyone else. Which means all decorating, buying and wrapping have to happen after the 14th. Luckily, we have a small family..... D

I read it aloud to my sensitive 13 year old. We're just finishing the last book. DS is now almost 15. Its a good age to discuss the issues presented in the books and we've both really enjoyed it. I should also add that DS didn't watch TV until he was about 11, and then only very few programs. He still only watches about 5 hours of TV a week, all as family viewing (DVDs of series). He is a gamer, though, and we are the meanest parents alive because we will not allow him to play Call of Duty and I made him trade Grand Theft Auto which came with his second hand xbox. D

In my experience, MEP does this stuff really well. It teaches concepts, not procedures and it starts very early. But it does require a commitment to spending up to an hour on maths everyday, teachers who can really teach rather than just set work, class participation and quite a lot of preparation. If you don't like maths, this is pretty unpalatable. I agree with Regentrude that mathematical symbols are preferable to word-based explanations. Scientists, statisticians and mathematicians use symbols. They are the tools of the trade, they feel more "grown-up," and writing-phobic kids love them! Bill, Australia has been using the "see if it sounds right" method of grammar instruction since the early 1980s. While we are inclined to blame our dodgy grammar on American television, I think our education system may have something to do with it...... D

Some people are just breathtakingly crap at executive function. i am great at everyone else's entirely disinterested in my own. DH has horrible time management skills. He is often running late or in a flap and gets very grumpy. Always, its because he hasn't left enough time to get ready. DS14 is just starting to come out of the fog, but I'm doing plenty of scaffolding. We 've started using a daily task list. He must then prioritise the tasks and cross them off. No gadgets until the priority A tasks are crossed off. Its painful, but it is working. I'm also more conscious of verbalising how I manage things. He can see me tracking expenses, I discuss when we need to leave for something and what has to happen when before we do leave. i make it conversational so i don't sound like I'm nagging. I also use an Army trick we used on recruits (recruits hand over all their executive functioning skills in the first stage of recruit course and you have to do all their thinking for them): I give him warning orders and notices to move. "At 12.30 we are leaving for the movies. At 11.45 you'll need to have a shower, then we'll have lunch. You need to pack all your stuff for drama because we won't be coming home before that. You'll have dinner in town. What do you need to take? Do that now then have a shower." i go through this again at 12. It means I have to be ready earlier so I can free up my time to organise him. He's slowly getting better. D

I always ate at my desk - too much office politics over lunch. Besides, I had to leave early to do the school pick-up. So don't miss that!!!!! DH's trousers fitted. I ignored the small complaints about the colour ("Well I suppose I can wear maroon." At $15 off, you can most certainly wear maroon, my lover!). DS, on the other hand, who also refuses to try anything on, but will at least come to the shops, declared all but one pair of shorts to be too tight. How? He's built like a preying mantis!!!! So its back to the *#@* shops tomorrow. D

I was planning post-car-buying poverty for us here, till DH spilt pool chlorine on his best trousers at a client's house (note to DH - change out of good office clothes from job A before pouring chlorine at job B). He also discovered that the fly was broken on his other good pants (he has owned those for nearly 10 years, so not so awful). So we bought two pairs of good trousers. Or rather I did, hoping that they will fit. Because Mr Picky-Pants never goes shopping. Then DS14 announced that his shorts are all too tight. All but one pair. Just now. Right now, and he has NOTHING TO WEAR!!!!!!! So we bought three pairs of shorts. Then DS14 developed another nail bed infection in his big toe. Because his shoes are too tight. And he has no shoes. NO SHOES. OMG!!!!! So we bought a pair of runners. I'm off to find the Australian equivalent of beans and rice. D

Good luck, Melissa. I hope you don't have to live with this stress for too long. Can I suggest you contact your state member of parliament and discuss it with them? It may be helpful to have them onside if you have to fight the decision. D

As someone else who has waded through the English section of the Australian National Curriculum, I can confirm that obfuscation seems to be the primary goal. Very high gobblygook index. My cousin is a high school English teacher. She can't understand it either, which makes me feel better. My understanding of "deconstruction" in the syllabus is more akin to close reading - why that word instead of another, what else could that word mean, is it an allusion, is it culturally loaded, is its use intentional, etc. Easiest to teach using poetry. Its too much in a longer text, and I remain convinced that much of it is supposition. I wouldn't teach it as one lesson, but rather as a gradual process of increasing the close examination of a text. Pick one pivotal word and discuss it. Of course, not all authors require that sort of close examination and you have to be really careful not to infer something that isn't there. Your own biases, if you like (I'm a scientist - I have a strong aversion to bias). Some kids really struggle with this. Its not so much a comprehension or maturity thing as the result of cultural exposure - the more you know, the more you can see. It is harder for black and white thinkers and those who don't obfuscate well themselves (in part I think because they can't see any value in being so bloody obtuse) D

Thank you! Tomorrow the nice man is coming to regas the airconditioner (its spring here, so its hot, humid and feral already, with 6 months to go). Seems the car stereo doesn't like my CDs (neither does my husband....), but listening to my own singing is a very small price to pay for freedom (IMHO) Wish we had threadup in Oz. What a great idea D

We bought a car!!!!! OK, calm down... We bought a very nice, cheap used car with cash that we saved up thanks to the wonders of YNAB, encouragement from this group (I don't post much, but read every week), and taming my spendthrift ways. Its been more than three years since we've had a second car and I am very excited. It will allow my husband to earn a bit more money (he's self-employed and sometimes has to leave a job early or refuse one to get the car back home for other commitments). I'm going to track how long it takes the car to pay for itself. Apart from insurance and rego, it shouldn't add to our expenses much if I don't go mad with the freedom of being able to go out whenever I like. And our other car has 222,000 miles on it and may not last much longer, so this is welcome safety net. D

I live on the semi-rural fringe (so I'm not anything like as tough as Rosie and Melissa). We have redback spiders, lots of hairy caterpillars, red-bellied black snakes, brown snakes, and magpies. We don't have bears, wolves, large wild cat thingies (although there is a regular dubious panther siting) or the NRA. I'm staying here! D BTW, Magpies only swoop during nesting season, and they have a few people on their hit list. Most people don't bother them, just a select few they don't like the look of. And they remember them every year. A bit like school teachers......

Its not true that any activity increases the likelihood. If, for example, FASD developed as result of alcohol exposure only in the first trimester, then drinking in the second and third but not the first trimesters wouldn't necessarily increase the likelihood of the disorder (obviously not the case here). However, it is very easy to confuse causation with correlation, and researchers make this mistake depressingly often. Eg, it is more likely that a woman who drinks in the second and third trimesters (after she knows she is pregnant and against prevailing social and medical advice) will have also been driinking in the first trimester (when she may have had no idea she was pregnant until 4-6 weeks). So drinking in the third trimester may be correlated with drinking in the first, but that doesn't mean its causative. Its thus a confounding variable. Causation is hard to prove and requires large sample sizes so that you can tease out confounding variables.

So which of Dr Sowell's books should I read if I read only one? Keep in mind this for me, not for school, that I'm a scientist and raving leftie (and thus really think economics is just a little bit dirty), and that I'll be "reading" it via Audible Thanks muchly D

Yes, thats how I read it (I used to write systematic reviews for the Cochrane Collaboration). So the increased risk comes from the comparison between 1, 2 or 3 trimesters of drinking and is a very sensible thing to analyse if the sample size is large enough. The bike thing - thats just crappy design so you get the results you'd like (sadly very common, which is why we stats and methods boffins are so grumpy). Its not a post hoc fallacy, though. Thats when you go back and hunt for data AFTER you've designed and run the study. Its usually based on a hunch or trends in the data (statisticians are not fond of "trends" - they make us very uncomfortable). Also known as a "fishing expeditition" , and depressingly common.......

We have a 2002 model Suzuki Vitara that has 211000miles on the clock (actually its 340000km cos Australia is metric). We've replaced the rear shocks (we're semi rural with awful roads too) and one engine component in all that time. Its just started leaking oil from the sump. Its our second Vitara. We put 375000km on the last one before it gave us any trouble. We're saving up for another one.

Make sure you soak them or hydrate them in some way before eating them, otherwise they can act as a desiccant and make your mouth really sore. Some people are allergic to them, so try a little bit first. If you get a sore mouth, a rash around the mouth or any swelling or discomfort, stop eating them. They are a common allergen in young children. I make the following chocolate pudding: 400ml coconut milk 1tablespoon cocoa 1tablespoon rice malt syrup (use honey, brown sugar, maple syrup, whatever) 1/2 teaspoon vanilla 1/3 cup chia seeds Mix everything but the chia seeds until well blended. Add chia and stir. Chill 2 hrs before serving. Lovely with fresh berries

Ahh, Regentrude, spoken like a true physicist! Actually you make me think of my biostats mentor - she was a great one for first principles and I loved working with her. She made me think. Farrar, how's your spatial perception (interesting that Regentrude brought this up). I ask because DS14 has dyspraxia, so his spatial awareness has been slow to develop. He was at least a year or two behind in geometry until last year (yr8) when his spatial perception improved. I think geometry relies more on visualisation and experiential learning before it clicks, otherwise it is just rote learning of formulas, which is tedious and actually fairly useless long term. Fortunately we have integrated maths in Australia, so geometry just keeps rolling around every year and you can tackle it when the student is ready D

I'm trying to stifle my rising horror that you keep a loaded weapon in the house. In the Australian army, soldiers only carry loaded weapons on the range or on the battlefield. Are you telling me you live in a battlefield?

As an Australian, this conversation is simply mind-boggling to me. We have a black market in weapons here. Its almost exclusively limited to hardcore criminal activity. We have some shootings (generally single and targeted - those that are not are rare, so they are a very.big.deal). Concerns have been raised about increasing numbers of fire-arms, which must be licensed and locked up. Automatic weapons are banned. We had a mass shooting in 1995 and our then Prime Minister radically tightened fire-arm control laws with overwhelming public support. I am a former soldier and weapons instructor. I know what semi-automatic and automatic weapons can do. I also grew up in a pretty dodgy part of Sydney. I don't believe private citizens need weapons. Maybe in the bush, to put an animal down. A single shot rifle, kept in a safe, is enough for that purpose. In the city, there is no need for firearms. You want to shoot things, join a pistol club and store the pistol in a police or military armoury. Our police are armed with glocks. It is a very big deal if they shoot at someone. I can't understand the fear culture, or the fear of your govt (Have you see the last idiot we elected? You have nothing to worry about!). It seems to me that your nation is caught in a dreadful Catch-22 - scared of all the guns, and too scared to lay them down. D

Thank you for the link to the Oliver Sacks piece. Well worth the read D

Can I just say, as I look down the barrel of the last term of year 9, with DS14 who wants to go to school for year 11 and 12 and is absolutely NOT READY, that the thread from last year is absolutely awesome. I am still trying to quell the rising panic, but I can see some way forward. More preparation (I am very good at planning to plan...), more simplicity, better articulated goals, more of him in the mix, less of what everyone else is doing. Some of my panic comes from having only one go at this. He is an only - all my eggs are in one basket and the basket has a mind of his own D

It doesn't make me itch, but it does make my face swell up and turn red. Excellent if you need a day off work......

Charlotte could you link to the forensics curriculum? Thanks! D

In Australia, the real threat to public schools is the syphoning off of public money to private schools. D