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9763653

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Everything posted by 9763653

  1. My DD has had these for months now, on and off. They seem to be growing pains. What helps her, is to stretch her leg out completely (while lying down in bed), to lift it up slowly while keeping the leg straight, and to point the toes to her face as far as she can. I found this exercise on Google somewhere, and it eases the pain a little. Cold packs make the pain worse, while a hot bath helps sometimes.
  2. I would pick one weekend day and turn it into a school day, and then have your son do school with his cousins. Where independent work is possible, you can have him do his own curricula. You can at least do the reading portion of SOTW as a bedtime story, too :001_smile:. I work from home while homeschooling, around the same amount of hours you will be working. We have more flexibility than you have, but with a lot of organizing we certainly have enough time for school. We take one day a week off — and I remind myself that there's only one Biblical day of rest anyway, and that I should be grateful for that :D. It looks like I will be working a little more the coming year, and we're moving on to second grade as well. If need be, I will be hiring a tutor for some subjects.
  3. "Not Christian" because you want nothing to do with him? Neglecting to protect others is not Christian, I think, and that is exactly what those who are advocating forgetting about past abuse are doing. Don't the victims deserve compassion?
  4. His uncle abused his (and the aunt's) kids and the aunt is still supporting her husband? That is, IMO, an offense all by itself. How old are the kids?
  5. I had a poor relationship with my mother, who probably has NPD. When I found myself directing the exact same hurtful comments my mother used to direct at me at my daughter, I found a therapist. Therapy was one of the best things I've ever done. I have done a lot to heal from past issues, and the relationship with my daughter is now (almost) free from the baggage of the past. I hope we've broken that cycle in this generation, and that you can do so too, and find peace :grouphug:.
  6. We haven't outsourced anything so far, but I will hire a tutor for local language and math, later on. I'm also considering hiring a Latin tutor for me, so I can teach the kids later on. Another option would be having a tutor for all of us :). We did try a semi-coop with several homeschooling families exchanging classes in various subjects, and it worked out terribly.
  7. We haven't had this particular issue, but I can say that we've had great success with ETC (with my ESL kid). It is very simple, building skills slowly and steadily. It's pretty reasonably priced too.
  8. That's really awful! Are you gonna exchange it for a new jacket (if poss), or get your money back?
  9. The premature (and probably highly counter-natural) sexualization of children annoys me too.
  10. I live in an Eastern European bureaucracy and have lived in similar countries before. I think I can do this :D... probably from my own experience.
  11. I didn't know there was an American version, but I thought the Swedish one was very good. Even though it spent a loooong time building up the characters. Looking at the trailer, the American version doesn't look good to me.
  12. I am currently considering this. My kids are still young, and while I feel that the change is right, the impact it would have on them is certainly a reason to be hesitant. At their age, it is less about faith and more about leaving behind the community, which would not be supportive at all. Hoping to hear more families' experiences on this thread.
  13. I own K, 1, and 2. I thought it was great for K - it gave us a place to start, and something to do every day. I liked the price, too :D. For first grade, it really is not sufficient - or rather, it covers too much without being thorough. The LA does too much with too little explanation, the math section encourages counting rather than adding (not officially, but through the pictures). We started the year off "supplementing" Learn At Home, one subject at the time, and now we are not using it at all.
  14. Yep, I think it is a children of narcissists/ children from families with wacky dynamics side effect. Along with the nagging feeling that I don't deserve to be happy, I also start emotionally preparing for the start of a crisis if the happiness has lasted a while. Crises usually show up. In my younger years, I definitely created some of them myself. :D I have been in therapy, and it helped so much (with this and PTSD). Prayer also helps, especially when I start feeling guilty. My priest also told me that I shouldn't sabotage God's plan for my life by feeling guilty rather than grateful. That made me feel guilty some more, but the comment actually helped me enjoy life more in the long run.
  15. I'd highly recommend getting a mei tai rather than a soft structured carrier, because they are much more adjustable. Even if the baby compartment is too long, you can "roll" some of it into the waist straps. For info about carriers, you could check out Thebabywearer forums. I would buy a good carrier somewhere (with a refund policy!) and sell the one you didn't like on ebay. I would not want to be dealing with this woman again (I saw your other post).
  16. Yep, and when I asked for an explanation of this, a former Waldorf teacher who is part of our alternative education group advise me to "not worry me head over what Steiner wrote about health and sickness, and to just follow his views on education instead." He went on to point out that Waldorf is not racist, but added that "not all races are equal". I really hoped that these people were ignorant of Steiner's racism, but I was disappointed. The education theories are wacky and damaging enough, in my opinion, but the racism really makes me boil.
  17. There is also this: If blonde and blue-eyed people die out, the human race will become increasingly dense ... Blond hair actually bestows intelligence. In the case of fair people, less nourishment is driven into the eyes and hair; it remains instead in the brain and endows it with intelligence.' [Rudolf Steiner, Health and Illness, Vol.1 (Spring Valley, NY: Anthroposophic Press, 1981), pp.85-86]
  18. The following quotes from Steiner, and others, made me realize that Steiner was a racist. It was extremely disturbing to me when the Waldorf advocates in my alternative education group started defending the quotes, rather than distancing themselves from that part of Steiner's views. I think their educational philosophy is far from sound, but the racism is even worse. Here you go: “On one side we find the black race, which is earthly at most. If it moves to the West, it becomes extinct. We also have the yellow race, which is in the middle between earth and the cosmos. If it moves to the East, it becomes brown, attaches itself too much to the cosmos, and becomes extinct. The white race is the future, the race that is spiritually creative.” – VOM LEBEN DES MENSCHEN UND DER ERDE, p. 62. “[T]hese things [future human evolution] cannot happen in the world without the most violent struggle. White mankind is still on the path of absorbing spirit more deeply into its essence. Yellow mankind is on the path of preserving the period when the spirit was kept away from the body, when the spirit could only be sought outside of the physical human being. But the result will have to be that [mankind’s next step upwards] cannot happen differently than as a violent fight between white mankind and colored mankind in the most varied areas. And world history will consist of the events that will lead to these battles between white and colored mankind until the great fight between white and colored mankind has been brought about. Future events are frequently reflected in previous events. You see, we stand before something so colossal that, if we regard it through the diverse perceptions of spiritual science, we will in the future recognize it as a necessary occurrence.” DIE GEISTIGEN HINTERGRÃœNDE DES ERSTEN WELTKRIEGES, p.38 “Lucifer and Ahriman ... fought against this harmonious tendency of development in the evolution of humanity, and they managed to change the whole process so that various developments were shifted and displaced. While there should have been basically only one form of human being ... Lucifer and Ahriman preserved [earlier human types] ... Thus, forms that should have disappeared remained. Instead of racial diversities developing consecutively, older racial forms remained unchanged and newer ones began to evolve at the same time. Instead of the intended consecutive development of races, there was a coexistence of races. That is how it came about that physically different races inhabited the earth and are still there in our time although evolution should really have proceeded [unimpeded].” THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN: THE EVOLUTION OF INDIVIDUALITY, Lectures from 1909-1916 (Anthroposophic Press, 1990), p. 75 "We are within the great Root Race of humanity that has peopled the earth since the land on which we now live rose up out of the inundations of the ocean. Ever since the Atlantean Race began slowly to disappear, the great Aryan Race has been the dominant one on earth. If we contemplate ourselves, we here in Europe are thus the fifth Sub-Race of the great Aryan Root Race." [Rudolf Steiner, THE TEMPLE LEGEND: Freemasonry and Related Occult Movements (Rudolf Steiner Press, 1985), p. 201.]
  19. Apparently, Waldorf also "bans" dark colors for younger grades, including black and brown. I recently came across an extensive collection of racist quotes from Steiner's works, and that way of thinking could explain the reason behind not using dark colors.
  20. I have recently read TWTM, and it was eye-opening for me. While the ages and stages may not turn out to exactly apply to my specific children, the way in which education is organized in TWTM makes an awful lot of sense to me - in fact, it is the first education philosophy that makes any sense to me, and also fits in relatively well with obligations we will have toward the state (living in Europe). TWTM offers me a clear guide, and I am grateful that I don't have to work it all out blindly, by myself. I only have one school-aged child at the moment, and she is in first grade. My opinion may not be relevant. But, SWB's guidelines certainly look reasonable to me; working on a solid foundation first, and then building on that in further study, following a pattern that looks sound to me. While I was reading the logic and rhetoric stage parts, I realized just to what extent my own education was lacking. I didn't get the proper foundation, and am now educating myself in the areas that are lacking, following SWB's suggestions - being in my thirties! It's never too late to receive a proper education, but some students will be able to do more, earlier on. Perhaps what is laid out in TWTM is not strictly speaking a classical education, but it certainly is a thorough education that should open wonderful opportunities to any student. There are other possible paths to follow, and perhaps studying logic and rhetoric simultaneously works well too (for instance), but we have to have some kind of schedule, and TWTM's schedule looks solid and practical to me.
  21. I agree, while keeping in mind that homeschool curricula may tackle materials in a different order, which may mean that a homeschooler could have knowledge and skills a public school doesn't, and vice versa. I do wonder about some of the state standards, and how they are put into practice though. For instance, the first grade standards for California mention that first graders should understand the difference between direct and indirect democracy. Is that something that is taught in most schools at that point? I am not convinced.
  22. Would children who were otherwise well-cared for and fed really be put into foster care for educational neglect (which this certainly is)? Would not insisting the children are placed in public school be more appropriate? I am not sure whether I would report this. I hold libertarian political views for pragmatic reasons (mostly due to the nature of the government where we actually live), but I think that "their children, their responsibility" is a short-sighted view. These children won't be able to function well in society, and get jobs, if the situation is that bad. It sounds like OP knows this family well enough that she is judging the situation accurately. This goes beyond someone disagreeing with your personal view of education, and I don't think families like this do homeschoolers in general any good either. Would you, if you were a child in that family, appreciate it in the long-term if someone tried to make sure you got an adequate education? I think I would appreciate not being crippled to the extent I was barely literate as an adult. I might report, if the situation would really improve after that. I do understand the reasons for not reporting as well.
  23. We've been using ETC, and it is very repetitive. My DD loves that it is easy; it is a confidence-builder. The material is easily mastered through the constant repetition too, and there are quite a few pages that don't require any actual writing. I wouldn't recommend the 1/2 numbers though - we bought them, but won't be using them. That would be just a bit too much repetition :D.
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