I don't know if anyone is interested in asynchronous classes, but we are offering English, literature, writing, psychology and music history and theory if there is enough interest. There will still be an option for live guided group study sessions, but we are trying to offer these classes at a very reasonable price for homeschooling families. Thus no extra equipment needed :) For discussion we will be using private message boards on the school system, and assignments and videos will be posted there. The website is www.jolivaden.com

I know a couple people local to this situation, and every single one has said that there is far more to this story. They are people who would likely know due to their professions. Buffalo is generally viewed as a reasonably homeschool friendly district, as far as it's possible in New York.

I think there is a market for asynchronous classes. I am developing some in the humanities right now. Schedules are crazy and people are busy, especially high schoolers, so I think it's a big need in the market.

I am. Feel free to PM me. :) (Not a college student; but I have a degree in the topics I teach) I am going to offer asynchronous classes in American literature, academic writing and creative writing with the option for a once a week live(but not required) session. I don't want to violate board rules on advertising, but I will PM anyone the information.

Having attended a Christian college, and have had a lot of friends at Christian colleges over the years(including LU, where one of my sister's friends is just about to graduate with her BSN)....I almost never met a student as conservative as the college. I think it's pretty safe to assume that the students are rarely as conservative as the school's official policies.

I'm teaching at OTA this year. I've been very, very impressed with the professionalism and thought that has been put into everything.

I've never seen an RN degree that is online due to the amount of hands on experience and training needed. You can do a two year degree and then get your BSN online. For flexibility and pay, RN is the way to go.

I was good till you mentioned abuse. Nope to the nope to the nope. Abusers don't change just because you are no longer "together." He will continue to disrespect you in front of your children, leading them to think it's normal and appropriate. Get a lawyer, a job if the lawyer advises(don't do anything to screw up possible alimony), and continue with counseling.

I have a pillow top mattress topper and 500 thread count sheets on my bed in my camper. Yes, it's ridiculous, but it's the compromise my husband and I made so he could go camping.

I just had to drag vomiting and feverish DD4 and just woken up from nap DS1 out in the rain to pick up DS6 after his school called suggesting that since he was refusing to do any schoolwork maybe he just needed to come home. And he broke a desk after no one was following his IEP. It wasn't pretty.

Do we have the same DS? DS6 has high functioning autism along with a high IQ. He has been in public school for K and 1st grade, mostly because I cannot give him the routine he needs and the therapies with my crazy work schedule. Overall, it's been good for him. He's blossomed socially and has had caring and understanding teachers in his special needs classrooms. That said, he isn't getting what he needs academically and I feel I can manage his mood swings better at home. Because of this we will be homeschooling him next year. DD4 will remain in public school for kindergarten(she is in full day pre-k) as she is excelling there both academically and socially. The public school these last two years has been a good fit for us. I would have loved to homeschool, but DS6 needed more than I could give him at that time.

Not parents, but I know a lot of homeschool graduates who are very much anti homeschooling. For the vast majority of them, I suspect it's more anger over their poor homeschooling education.

I am very familiar with both Amish and Mennonite culture, and I absolutely feel they are oppressive towards women. I personally feel the same way about a Christian head covering as I do a hijab, and I am a Christian. I feel that they both symbolize a religious and culturally view of women that I can't support.

After three years of getting everything in the world thrown at us, we are finally at a place where we can bring our oldest home next fall. DD4 will be in kindergarten and is thriving, but DS6 is gifted/HFA and struggles in the classroom setting. Plus I am going to be teaching with Open Tent Academy which should provide the little bit of extra money I needed to bring in, so between that and working weekends as a medic(and DH not having any more surgery) we should be just fine. Thank you for all of you who have prayed and supported us the last three years. It means more than words can say.

I live in the Fingerlakes region. Homeschooling has changed drastically and I don't think LEAH or the conferences have the same appeal. When I was young and homeschooled, everyone(except my family) seemed to be a part of a local LEAH group. We went to the conference once, in the mid-90s, and even then it annoyed my mother that it was more of a parenting conference than homeschooling. I think over the years that emphasis has really hurt the organization. I also think the rise in Classical Conversations, which is huge around here, has added to the decline in LEAH popularity. I am going to be homeschooling my second grader this fall, so I am really starting to look what is available locally. Aside from CC, there isn't much.

In all honesty, so is domestic violence. I can hotline(and do) the child abuse I see all day long. Very little is ever done. I go to the same houses day after day after a domestic violence incident. If the victims don't press charges it gets dropped. We have safe houses and all sorts of programs, but you can't make people seek help.

My great grandmother, when she hit 90, started giving out birthday cards that read things like "To my dear grandmother" or "To my favorite 2 year old" to her daughter sort of things. They are all sort of old looking cards as well, but unused. After about a year of this, we were all really concerned she was developing dementia. Finally someone worked up the courage to ask her(she was very nice, but very sassy) Turns out, she had bought about three hundred birthday cards cheap at a going out of business sale sometime in the early 80s. She'd been giving them out all these years appropriately, but when she turned 90 she decided that she wanted to use them all up before she died, so she started handing them out regardless of what they said. She died at 98. She'd gotten rid of the last of the birthday cards about a month before she passed. I miss her.

I'm dying to know what kind of WAH job an undereducated mom can do that will exceed her corporate husband's income. I'm Sorry if I seem jaded. I've just seen this end in disaster too many times.

Don't do it. Take some classes. The best homeschool moms I've met either had a degree(or several) or were at least taking some college classes. Work. Don't do the stay at home wife thing. Get a job and some experience. Life has a funny way of changing us. I was homeschooled and knew several poorly educated girls who married young and didn't plan to ever work. One in particular stands out, because her dad held conferences and wrote articles on how his daughters would never need to work and so they were not preparing them educationally or vocationally for the workforce. If their husbands died, parents/brothers/life insurance would support them. Her husband didn't die, but is now permanently disabled. Parents had lost their business in the recession and moved many states away and could not support her and her family. She had to work and because she was ill prepared, there is little she can do to support her family. We are about the same age, and our husbands became injured at the same time. The difference is that I had many years in the workforce and had a degree, and had been working part time to keep my foot in the door since my babies were born, so when I needed to support my family I simply had to make a phone call. No offense intended, but I agree you sound naive. Poorly educated and no career plans feels like a disaster in the making to me.

My husband grew up in this kind of church. They had open invitation weddings with a cake and punch reception in the gym. I come from a culture of invite only, sit down plated dinner and dancing in a hotel ballroom or country club. I was horrified by his and his family's initial expectations. We wound up not being married by his pastor or in a church at all. Many of the people he invited to our wedding didn't come. I regret that now, to be honest. He was so invested in his church and I unintentionally caused an rift. I didn't mean to, and I don't really understand the hurt feelings of the church members, but it's a divide now that has hurt my husband deeply and I don't think he will ever go back to church. I wish I had done it differently now. I just simply did not have the cultural background and no one tried to explain to me how important an open wedding at the church was to them.

Three was great. Then she turned four. I firmly believe four year olds were placed on this earth simply to try their mother's souls.

I don't think you can control what happens at other people's houses. It's their house and their rules. Probably your best solution is to just have them play at your house and advise the friend of your house rules--no internet. I suspect this is something you'll keep encountering as your DD gets older.

A lot of CCs don't require them, and colleges may not once you have an associates degree. So they may not be taking them.

By the way, I live in a high-reg state. It didn't help with educational neglect. Encouraged by HSLDA to report and the bare minimum, parents did, and didn't feel guilty about exaggerating or outright lying on quarterly reports. I know at least one family that was vocal about cheating on standardized testing(doing it untimed, mom sitting with the student and working through the questions) the years it was required. My mom used to get so annoyed with the open cheating that she had us take the Iowa Achievement test at the local Christian school so no one could accuse us of it.(and my sisters and I always scored very very high, like in the 90s percentiles)

This isn't anything new. I'm dating myself, but I was homeschooled from 1987-2000. Roughly. My mom this year is wrapping up 30 years of homeschooling. I can remember numerous families we knew in those pioneering days of homeschooling whose children did nothing. We knew ten year olds who couldn't read, kids who stayed home playing video games while mom worked instead of doing the schoolwork she'd left(and next fall I will be both a homeschooling and a working mom, so I'm not bashing anyone), kids who's parents were okay with them working several grade levels below where they should be(and there were no learning disabilities or active unschooling going on). One of my friends in high school who was homeschooled was SHOCKED along with her parents when she got a combined total of 800 on her SAT--but no one else in the homeschool community was, because we knew she wasn't actually being schooled at home. I don't know what she was doing, but it wasn't school. Back then there weren't dual enrollment and online classes and co-ops, so if you weren't learning at home, you just weren't learning. This is not a new problem, I'm afraid. I think though that the Internet and Facebook has allowed us to peer closer into people's lives, and with homeschooling being much more accepted and mainstream than it used to be, homeschoolers don't feel the need to prove themselves through academic rigor. I do still see some of the "anything at home, even nothing, is better than the public school" attitude. My BFF in high school(still my BFF) and I spent a lot of time complaining because our moms actually made us do work. Now we can look at our homeschooled peers' adult lives and are thankful.