I've done roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, which would be my choice. I don't love turkey. Last year as our gift my dad and step-mom took us to a big buffet at a hotel. There was beef, turkey, pasta, sushi, you name it. I can see doing it regularly when the kids are bigger, there were a lot of adult families.

Thanks, I'll look at that.

I would basically agree with this, but I would also say that this is an overall picture. There are different types of homelessness, and some are associated with problems that tend to cause the people around them more concern - mainly addiction and some kinds of mental illness. That group has quite different characteristics than a great many homeless people who have different reasons for finding themselves in that situation. I used to live in, and still attend church, in an area with a higher than average proportion of those people, because shelters and soup kitchens are clustered there, including one in my church. You do get more anti-social behaviour than normal because of some of the problems that have contributed to that particular type of homelessness also lead to those behaviours - if not planned carefully for example it's not unusual to have shoving matches in the soup kitchen line. It's not most of the people there, by any means, but it's also not what most of us would expect to see on a regular basis waiting in line for food - I don't think I've ever seen it in any other setting, but they need to plan for it. Even if its not all the time, or most people, that can make a situation seem unreliable, especially in terms of sending your kids there when there would be no one around to help them. It might be what's going on in the post you responded to. It doesn't sound though like it's remotely what's going on in the OPs situation.

This is a middle school? I would find it difficult to be very civil about this fear, kids that age generally are allowed to go to the library alone anyway. And here they can go off school grounds if they want to and many walk to school. Our local library is inundated with middle schoolers during the lunch hour and it's across the road from the school. There is nothing special about school hours that make them more dangerous.

Thanks ladies. I had thought of WWS, what I wonder is whether it might be too much for what he wants. But I think I will suggest it as a possibility. I'm thinking I may use it myself next year and I might even just order it now so he can have a look. Momto6 I am not familiar with Wordsmith so I will have a look at that too so I can give him some more information. I have been given a copy of the Rod and Staff grade four program which I won't need this year, so I may offer that for the younger child, whatever other advantages and disadvantages there are, free counts for a lot!

Something to keep in mimd is that there is more than one way to skin a cat. As well as using meals that are vegetarian or vegan, you can do meals that have animal products in quite small amounts compared to what you usually eat. So for example I make a ham pipe, which is basically cooked root veg, onions, and apple, in a white sauce. Then some pastry over the top. There isn't much meat at all but what is there really affects the flavour. There are a lot of things that you can do that way.

I've been asked for a recommendation from a new immigrant family at our church for a program or programs, or web resources, for writing and math for their kids. The kids are in school but the father finds what they are doing wholly inadequate. His interest seems to be very practical, he wants them to know how to arite a letter, and essay, and so on. And math that has some directions for teaching - he is an accountant and is comfortable with math but he would like some support for explanations. All of this needs to happen after school. The kids are in grade 4 and 8. I've recommended some math resources, though any other good ones are welcome. I am not so sure about writing, most things I have used are a whole LA program and a bit much for their needs. If anyone has any thoughts, I'd love to hear them. Free or inexpensive is best though I might be able to track down used things if necessary.

It sounds like she basically managed it pretty well! The only think I might think about putting tech stuff together on the bus is that it leaves no room for a technology failure, as we all know. It's all good until it's bad. Of course many people ignore this as adults but it isn't bad to be aware of it. (I always remember a friend of mine in university who had a printer failure and had a reduced mark on a paper for lateness - the only thing he was graded on all semester for a masters level class. So a big deal.)

I don't see how this makes sense in light of what the OP was about, and criticised for. The OP wanted to give her daughter strategies which the daughter didn't think she needed or wanted. That's a misapprehension on her part, not one that can be remedied by stepping in and making her do it the "right" way. If that is even possible with a child of that age - I'd have simply refused, in fact I did. Clearly she isn't suffering from a sense of inadequacy or failure. And how is letting your kid fail at a multiple choice test somehow better than letting them make a bad choice about a grade six project? I

Well, yes, that is why I clarified. Everyone here is talking about this yet for some reason some people are getting jumped on for cruelly leaving their kids to wallow with no help.

But how do they come to this realisation if they don't get to try things their own way?

This is really just a jumping off point, not really about your son's situation: I think this is actually part of why the OP is thinking now might be a good time to begin giving her daughter a little room to do poorly - because there is still a lot of time in grade 6 to learn those lessons, maybe more than once. A child in university, clearly it's harder. And also, it's the case that sometime they won't, they won't overcome that problem or organisational deficit. To me though, it really is a question to what degree that is separate from what some people are calling the 'content" element of a university degree. Everyone knows I think that in year one of a degree many kids need some advice on how to switch to a higher functioning mode. But how long in that first degree is it appropriate to help? What about a masters degree? I had a hard time with organisation as a student, and it wasn't the content, that never gave me any trouble. It was always the organisational stuff. But I failed a class I needed for the degree I wanted, badly. In fact I failed it twice and never did get that credit. It meant that I didn't get quite the sort of degree I wanted and it affected what I could do afterwards, graduate work in my subject wasn't a possibility and even another sort of graduate degree might not have been possible. I found other things to do, in the end, as people do. And I realised pretty quickly once I was out of that environment that it wasn't just a problem external to the subject - if I wanted to have that degree, go on, I needed to be able to organise myself and my work adequately, because that is what is required to do the work. If someone had helped me through my BA, I would still have been lacking what was required for the MA and it would have begun to affect my ability to deal with the content sooner rather than later. Which is why I wonder, when people say they will continue to scaffold for as long as necessary, where they are really thinking they will draw the line?

Everyone here. That is what everyone here is talking about, if you read what they are actually describing in the thread.

That's what everyone does. The problem is the OP was describing a process of doing just that - scaffolding does include at times giving the child the chance to use the skills you have been teaching them in the way they see fit, and sometimes it reveals gaps, which can be positive in a variety of ways. At a certain point kids need to buy into your teaching, if for no other reason that you get to a time that you can't force them to perform if they don't see the point, they are too old.

Well, many people might find the idea of looking up concerts for their university kids to go to, or worrying about the length of their hair, kind of difficult to imagine, even if it isn't on the level of calling professors and such.

To hark back to the early part of the discussion, I think about grade six is a good time to begin some push and pull on things like this. Giving kids some chances to take responsibility, see what they can do, or not do. Not that you don't give advice or help with things when asked, like "how do I know when to start x project". And then if things don't quite work out you see where they went wrong and look at providing help making it work next time, and then you see how they manage alone.... Even if you feel like your kids are in some sort of program or situation where doing poorly now will cause problems, that isn't going to improve, it's going to get worse the further you go. As for university, there will be a time you need to be done helping, even with organisation. Not that you don't chat like you would with anyone, but that's different I think. I studied with a lot of absent minded types, very bright but disorganised, most of them got through their BA, some really through the grace of their professors. But of those, most either figured it out during their MA or they dropped out, and of the very few that were brilliant enough to do an MA without managing themselves, they didn't ever finish a Phd. My sense is there really is a line, and if it's not a BA it is still there somewhere. What maybe gives me pause is just that despite all the help young people get now and the greater degree of parent involvement in the last generation or so, I haven't really seen the young people improving their performance, rather the opposite. Like Sneezyzone said, in the military, or in the university, I see kids who aren't coping at far higher levels than before. So I wonder whether extending this kind of parental management has been helpful overall.

So - not to sound like a nutter but there is a reason for this IMO. In capitalism, it is through having employees that capital owners can become rich. They essentially are skimming off the productivity of the people they employ. That is the only way that someone like Jess Bzos could become so rich compared to everyone else, or that such a large proportion of wealth could be help by a fraction of the people. They clearly are not actually that much more productive themselves and its built into capitalism to work that way. There is zero reason people like that, and by extension the state that is dependent on them, would want to change the model. And if they do it will be to something like universal income where there is still that dependency and ability of capitalists to determine what those on the bottom who aren't working get to keep.

I stopped doing cards perhaps 10 years ago. I still wanted to do them, and would even get the photos of the kids printed on cards, but I wasn't getting them sent out. I tried organizing them early and sending them out right after Thanksgiving, but I found I had trouble making that happen, too. After a couple of years of ending up with the stack of unsent cards, I decided just to stop doing it. This is what happened to me, and I haven't done cards in a few years as a result. I'd like to get back to it, but I do think I will keep my list short, to people who especially like or need a card, people I don't see so often, that sort of thing. As for the cards themselves, I don't normally keep them and I don't think it's necessary. I don't have a place for keeping that amount of stuff, and I don't think that is the point. I tape them to a door in my kitchen for the Christmas season and they are part of my decor, or occasionally I have a string to hand them on the fireplace. I also don't care about photos and such, those are rarely my favourite cards, I like ones that are beautiful or have some meaningful image or are funny. When I have sent cards I go to a fair bit of effort to find ones that I think are really lovely.

I think that this is why the momentum has been towards all able bodied adults working, and governments in many places have been willing to take on socialised childcare. It's a view of the citizens being a worker-unit. I wonder though if that really works in the end. Not only is there a requirement to organise childcare, it becomes a problems for eldercare, care of the disabled. there are health outcomes related to things that are connected - use of off the shelf food, less exercise. Fewer people doing necessary volunteer work. Even looking at environmental concerns, lack of time is a big factor in terms of people living more sustainably. If you could really pencil it all out I wonder how much better it really is even in pure economic terms to have all adults at work.

I wonder though if there isn't a demographic element there. I don't think the reason so many people don't cook now - and this is attested to in all kinds of studies of eating patterns - is because people are eating out all the time. Someof it is that, but not all or most. What's more common is what happens in some of my kid's friends homes - they typically are eating foods that are largely pre-made, frozen, and also often in individualised servings. My teen daughter's friends don't eat together as a family often at all, it is a special occasion thing. They come in and make some soup from a can or a pizza pocket or whatever, or even if they all eat together it is frozen burgers or pizza, or something from the deli section at the grocery store. But I have noticed, these are mostly working class families, though I see some more middle class families eating similarly. But people I know in academia, for example, or medical circles, are much more likely to cook fairly regularly.

I think some people are just naturally more suspicious of people's motives, or maybe they are better at reading cues or something like that. Although age does make a big difference, you can learn a lot over time.

I guess he would have a lot of scope to be involved in some sort of home reno sex scandal.

I can't speak for people who want one income families and who oppose universal healthcare, but I suppose they would say they would want healthcare to be arranged to accommodate a society with many one income families. I imagine they probably have unrelated reasons for opposing universal healthcare. Two income professional families with higher education are generally better off financially through having two incomes, even with paying for care. It's no different than a job of that kind where it makes financial sense to hire a cleaner while you work rather than doing the cleaning yourself, because you will make a lot more than you will pay the cleaner. The ability of a family like that to have two incomes and pay for childcare is actually a class advantage, it makes the difference in incomes even more pronounced. That will be true whether or not two or one income families are more usual.

I know people generally recognise people of their own race better than those of other races, though I think it also depends on their local demographics.

It's Remembrance Day here on the 11th, so generally you don't see too much decorating until after that. Stores will be getting things ready but they won't have lights on or music - a few years ago many started doing it earlier and people objected pretty strenuously. We don't do trees and such until mid December. We observe Advent, so once that starts I'll slowly begin to get things in order, but I like to save the very Christmassy stuff till the nd since Advent is meant to be solemn. I usually try to do any outdoor stuff first before it gets too cold or I can't easily get boughs into my pots and such, and the creche is out for all of Advent minus Jesus and the wisemen. I used to leave the tree till the a day or so before Christmas, as you'd get good deals at the lot, but now the sellers have all packed up by then. We like to observe the 12 days too but I have had a hard time lately keeping a tree that long because they cut the trees so early now that they don't last as well. It doesn't help either that we are crowded in our house a bit so that it takes up room that is in short supply.