My DD is like this, and I've come to the conclusion that its her innate nature (read: unrelated to maturity). I've tried different kinds of strategies and nothing seems to stick very long. Brick and Mortar school helps release some of that 'people energy' and saves my sanity. :tongue_smilie: She is an E.x.t.r.o.v.e.r.t in a family of introverts. You can imagine how that plays out. :D

A fairly recent event(flood) forced us to evacuate. We(dh,dd and me) our 2 kittens, 3 pairs of clothes each, our respective laptops+phones, some important documents -passports, drivers licenses', debit/credit cards, mine and dh's medication, house+ car keys. Didn't miss anything else. (Fwiw, house was livable once flood waters receded.) I wish I'd also carried bottled water, milk powder and bread..we ran out of these 3 items within the first day; so did everyone else. . Oh well...Hindsight 20/20. ETA: add mosquito repellants and hand wipes to the wish-I'd-carried list.

What's your resting heart rate like? If it's close to 100 beats per min (bpm),173 might not seem too high. My resting heart rate is 50-60 bpm; I aim for 150 bpm. Do you have a heart rate monitor (wrist) or are you using the one on the stepper? Fwiw, steppers/treadmills are often inaccurate. eta: fixed typo.

:001_smile: Here is a list of the books he wrote for the YA phase.

Emotional maturity was the theme for DD this year. She learned how to communicate effectively with her peers/classmates without alienating them; when to talk and when not to; how to pick and choose battles at school and how to combat boredom without frustration. She also progressed from black-white/right-wrong moral code to a more nuanced understanding of morality and choices people make.

I own Foerster's, Dolciani and AoPS and the approach each takes is so so different. Dolciani is no-fuss, procedural and rigorous. Foerster's is slighter more wordy than Dolciani and heavy on applied math. Both of these are conventional and traditional 'reference' books although personally, I prefer Foerster's over Dolciani. IMhO, AoPS is the most loquacious of the three, elaborately explains concepts(more so than Foerster or Dolciani) and tends to hit them at unconventional and interesting angles. For eg-The end of chapter problems are likely to be sourced from math competitions like AMC8/10. DD uses Foerster's as a spine, but leans on AoPS often for its detailed and clear explanations.

Terry Pratchet- Wee free men and the trucker, digger etc series.. Ransom Rigg-- Miss Peregrine's home for peculiar children trilogy. (Thriller/horror genre) Robert Heinlein--citizen of the galaxy et al…sci-fi Frank Herbert-- Dune series…sci-fi Isaac Asimov-- Foundations series. sci-fi Beverly Naidoo-- Journey to Jo'burg and its sequel- chain of fire. Apartheid/Racism in south africa. Rae Carson-- The girl of fire and thorns series. adventure/drama Sabaa Tahir-- An ember in the ashes series. ditto Diana Wynne Jones- Chronicles of Chrestomanci series..fantasy

Rseponding to the OP, not having read pps' Acceleration when the student hasn't explicitly asked for it is a personal choice, not a moral imperative. So, it's valid to choose to or not to accelerate the said child. Where the child has the aptitude and attitude, but hasn't demanded advancement, 'Who benefits from the acceleration?' is my go-to question. If I push to encourage my child to step out of her comfort zone, it is beneficial to her well being. But, if I push her to feed my ego (bragging rights or whatever) or when I see the negative impact of pushing (anger, disinterest, defiance) and yet continue, then I cross a line into a different territory. OTOH, I'm of the opinion that it's a moral imperative to accelerate a student when s/he initiates/asks to work at a faster pace. ETA: added sentences for clarity

I'm 5'5, mid 30s, about 140 lbs and have had a thyroid condition(hypo) almost all my life. I walk 5'ish kms or do yoga and drink over 3 litres of water a day. What works in my favour for weight control: good genes, favour movement over sitting, prefer savoury over sweet, prefer smaller portions over large, not picky about my vegetables. But, I do tend to gain weight, albeit slowly and evenly: when I snack on the couch while watching t.v or eat too many simple carbohydrates (bread, white rice). Once I get back to mindful eating, my weight goes back to where it was. ETA: fixed typo ETA: @ChrisB- I'm a fairly light sleeper who functions best on 6-7 hrs of sleep in 24 hrs. More than 7 hrs makes me groggy.

IMO, intuition possibly has a bigger role during arithmetic. But, as concepts get more complex, maybe some processes need to be explained to make more sense? Off the top of my head, I can think of factoring polynomials as a concept that needs to be explicitly taught rather than intuited because there are so many intricate mini-concepts involved that a child can get lost in rabbit holes. Discovery approach is quite romanticised in math ed. I wonder if it places too high expectations on most children, gifted or not, to discover/unearth relationships between numbers/operations etc? All I know is that I'm not as enthused about discovery based learning when DD is 10 than I was when dd was 6, iykwim.

How about classical literature from India translated into English? Godaan (The gift of a cow) by Munshi Premchand. Originally written in Hindi, published in 1936, just under 400 pages.

@Quark- (decided not to quote in case you take down your original post) Can't offer you any words of wisdom, only :grouphug: :grouphug:.

Absolutely. If I had to suggest only one book for an honest description of human nature, Anna Karenina would be it.

I think it was Faulkner who said that "only the human heart in conflict with itself is worth writing about". Anna Karenina embodied this statement. Every single character was conflicted, particularly the protagonist Anna. Choosing family/son or love of her life? Part of society or outcast? There is hardly any black/white or good/bad dichotomy in Tolstoy. All characters are 3D, flawed and therefore very human.

No one does horror like the Japanese film industry. They have a mix of everything- blood, gore, suspense... My favorites are: The Grudge ( Japanese: Ju-On: The grudge) The Ring (Japanese: Ring) And the all time classic: The exorcist (the original)..couldn't sleep for days when I watched it for the first time. I must've been about 10 or so. :blush:

DH has had acid reflux in the past that would lead to incessant coughing at night and sore throats. What worked best without a radical diet change : 7-8 hrs of sleep, gap of 3 hrs between meals and bedtime and 1 tsp of amla (gooseberry) powder taken with water twice a day. Sometimes he would alternate the Amla powder with Triphala. The biggest gain was from the amla /triphala regimen. What worked but was difficult to stay on consistently- cutting out caffeine, sugar, spicy, greasy food. ETA: he has a moderate intake of caffeine (3-4 cups of tea) and spice.

I possibly did misunderstand the OP, that's why I sought clarification in my last post. Both xahm and Katy were gracious to explain their perspectives a bit more in detail. I understand them better now. I agree that the ability to engage in abstractions is needed for certain conversation, but I wonder if that ability is a developmental issue. Nevertheless, having a serviceable knowledge of statistics and psychometric test tools such as the IQ test, I know that there is a weak correlation between IQ ranges and corresponding behavioural or personality traits. Research supports this weak correlation, although the myth that IQ can be predicted based on personality or behaviour lives on. In fact, the notion that personality traits can be classified into neat categories is not without controversies. IMHO, ability to have a deep conversation implies diverse interests and not necessarily unequal IQs or intelligence. Different wavelengths can possibly imply that people have different goals for a particular conversation, iykwim. For instance, I enjoy talking about the history of standardised testing, but very few people care. But, I would be amiss to assume that those people are less intelligent that I am. Or that I am less intelligent than a person who wants to work out the trajectory of a ball flying through the air. :001_smile: ETA: @homesschool mom in AZ- we posted at the same time.

With due apologies to the OP for taking this slightly OT.. When you (or the PPs) say 'lower IQ friends', do you mean to say that they have shared their IQ results? Or are you guessing at their IQ's based on their behavioural patterns? FWIW, I think the bolded (mine) in your post suggests self awareness that goes hand-in-hand with a generous amount of intelligence. Honestly, I don't know what bothers me more- that some people develop friendships based on rough estimation of IQ's or that certain not-so-positive behaviours are connected specifically with low IQ. :mellow: I'll go back to my lurking mode before I hijack the thread completely. :leaving:

Re: bolded. I find it interesting that clinginess and/or imitation is correlated to (suspected) low IQ rather than low self confidence.

Just a thought….maybe this needs to be posted on the 'general ed' board too. Having failed myself in pursuits that I was passionate about as a child, I can understand why your DS is coming to that conclusion. Time is a good healer. Children can recover from most events, even traumatic ones, given enough time. As the PP said, there's always someone smarter/stronger. So, avoiding competitions is not an appropriate strategy. But, at the same time, he needs to gain back his confidence and his self identity as a worthy opponent. Maybe expanding the goal or outcome of the competition would help? You could point out that these competitions are a good place to meet like-minded peers. Maybe a change in the type of competitions he enters would help to regain his confidence? Something more long-term (a 6 month research project) rather than an intense, one-shot, high stakes competition?

:grouphug: I try to think of failures as battle scars. It helps take the sting off a little and is a reminder that I still have fight left in me.

fwiw, I have never been one to insist that DD10 stay within her comprehension/reading ability level. I did try and get her to read what I thought were worthy books, but her love for stories dimmed a little bit for a few months after my great reading experiment. Since then, I let her read what she wants, as long as she picks books from diverse genres. For instance, if she reads 'Diary of a wimpy kid' one day, I do emphasize that she reads a story with more complexity next. Right now, she's reading some book by Terry Pratchet (she's a big fan). Once she's done with that, I plan to encourage her to pick up a non-fantasy book, preferably with real world scenarios. Michael Morpurgo, Alexander McCall Smith, or any of the newberry award winners are effective antidotes to overdose of fantasy or sci-fi. :D wrt discussion about books- I don't pre-read any of her books, so no discussion unless she initiates it. The last book we discussed was 'The curious incident of the dog in the night time- Mark Haddon because she was fascinated and appalled in turns by the language. :tongue_smilie: YMMV. ETA: She enjoyed Louisa May Alcott, Mark Twain, Alexander Dumas, H.G. Wells, Lewis Carroll but was meh about Charles Dickens.

Second this!

ooops..most of my reco's in my previous post have depressing endings. :D :leaving: Those writers (Ishiguro, Pamuk, Murakami, Seth etc) tend to veer towards melancholia and despondence. But the writing is beyond beautiful. I'm waiting for my dd to grow up a lil bit to read 'A suitable boy'. That tome requries endurance.

dp