At 20 I would tell her the truth and I wouldn't even worry about being gentle. I think what you wrote is perfect.

That was really weird. What a kook. How does having an Obama bumper sticker make you famous. There sure are lots of famous people out there then. I didn't realize that was all that was needed. How does she know Jesus and God Loves Romney? lol On the gas tangent I grew up in NJ and we really could not pump our own gas. I remember when I first moved out of state being a little nervous about pumping my own gas because I never did it before. Now I find it such a pain and annoying to have to let someone else pump it for me when I am visiting family in NJ. It is annoying how you can't pump your own in NJ.

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This might not happen since obviously most people responded that their littles ones did fine. My ds with a moderate articulation issue is struggling to learn to read although I do think that a lot of what I did with him helped his speech especially phonograms. On the checklists for dyslexia speech and handwriting is mentioned for some kids that have those issues it could show up as issues with reading down the road. He also has a delay in handwriting. Based on the things ds does and how he thinks I think something like that is going on with him mildly. He loves listening to reading and has excellent comprehension. He is very perceptive in many ways but learning to read is not something that he just picked up easily.

The Black Lagoon Chapter books are that level and pretty funny but short. Other ideas are Magic School Bus chapter books, Droon, The Wayside stories books, The Fudge series, Ribsy, The Mouse and the Motorcycle.

I only had to do that once when my childhood pet had to be put to sleep when I was a teenager. My siblings and I brought the cat in and we got a room right away. We got to say our goodbyes and the tech that took him away was very kind and teared up a little too because he stayed there during some of his sickness and they really liked him. Due to the emotions involved they should schedule it for a time where you get seen right away because that is not a time to be sitting around waiting in a waiting room with other people.

It is okay but it does no teaching so I have no idea how they would go up grade levels without teaching the material. It has my ds doing double digit subtraction and he just isn't ready to do that with no instruction yet and no manipulatives. He mostly gets what adding tens means but it isn't something that has been really covered yet so he can't just go on there and do those problems. The math fact practice is cool and I like the vocabulary thing they do. It is a decent way to see what they still need to learn and for getting in extra practice after you go and teach those things.

I never found potty training difficult. My kids were potty trained on the early side and pretty fast and all I had to do was follow steps a, b, and c and it was done. I thought reading was a hard process with my first but then I started with my second and it was way way harder. If I had a kid like my first teaching reading wasn't too bad. It took her a while but she was at least a little faster. Once things clicked for her she made a lot of progress and I loved watching that. If I had kids that pick it up pretty easily I would probably enjoy teaching how to read. I do love seeing them really start to get things. It is frustrating to me to listen to a kid painfully work there way through every word making no progress towards fluency for sentences. They have the basic blending skill down but really make no progress at all towards reading. They want to read and love listening to stories even stories for older kids. I know that one day he will be reading but it is hard to imagine it when you are stuck at the same point with no end in sight.

It sounds like your son gets a lot of support and that it is actually good support if they use Wilson. I would probably just stick with that. I grew up in NJ and there are some good public schools there. He gets daily support and the classroom size is small with a helper.

I have been in the midst of teaching my middle child to read for a while and it is torture. He is obviously going to take a while to get it and is very distractible. I can't wait for it to click for him so I have one more behind me.

I grew up in a school that didn't have playground equipment and the schools in that area still don't. We had a blacktop with hotch scotch and a united states map. We actually did play outside though at recess and it was pretty creative. Sometimes a game of kickball got organized and kids like to jump rope. The schools around here all have really nice playgrounds. My kids have recess up to 10 below. All the kids must bring winter gear that includes, boots, gloves, a winter coat snow pants and a hat or a hood. Much of the school year is winter and they still play outside. In my area there is an outdoor parents group that meets year round. I used to go to meetings but now the times don't work out the best in the winter. A lot of parent do outdoor stuff in the winter like skiing, and sledding. Once the weather warms and the snow melts kids in the neighborhood are outside playing with each other. I do like how that is still happening in my neighborhood. My kids actually learned to ride bikes earlier then me. I didn't even get a bike until I was 8 when I could fit on a bigger one and I learned then. My oldest dd learned by 4.5 and my ds learned to ride before he was 3. My youngest will be my latest but I think she will learn before I did. I never did a cartwheel or a handstand.

I so incredibly sorry you lost your little boy. That is really sucks. You will be in my thoughts.

I didn't like Sea World. Even before the movie I did not like the enclosure the animals were in especially the open tanks for dolphins they had. It felt like an Anheuser Busch commercial. There was a lot of vendors and it is very commercial. The live shows did never feel right especially with dolphins and whales. The Zoo and Wild Animal Park actually surprised me with being better than expected and Sea World was worse. I watched Blackfish and it may be one sided but it is true that these intelligent highly emotional and social creatures are being confined in too small a place.

In my area I go to some outings like family hikes with both homeschoolers and people with kids in public schools and I am joined in some local facebook groups. It seems that a lot of people who are homeschooling like unschooling, waldorf and really really relaxed schooling and those with kids in school like the Waldorf charter and the child led learning charters. My dd's school is a traditional school with high expectations and some classical like curriculum. Her school has a waiting list so obviously not everyone does but most of my crunchy friends are on the more unschooling, relaxed child led or waldorf spectrum rather than the classical or structured side. I am not homeschooling at the moment although I am considering it for the future. If I was homeschooling I think there wouldn't be many eclectic but with some classically inspired aspects homeschoolers out there. I guess I would just talk about other others things other than curriculum or how I do things. The side that says oh don't worry about it let her be she is fine she doesn't need to know xyz is much more vocal and they aren't really looking for advice on ways to teach xyz. I don't mind hearing about the many many ways to do things here and about hearing what worked for others but there are other aspects of forums that probably lead to me worrying more.

I did lessons before my ds was speaking clearly. He actually was in speech therapy for articulation so his speech was really off. He couldn't say a bunch of sounds but he knew them and I just counted his attempt to say it. He did have a hard time with sounding out certain words but he could hear the differences. My ds actually is struggling learning to read but I see signs of dyslexia in him. I don't regret trying early or not waiting until his speech was clearer to try because there is more time to work on it and try to find ways to fix it. If he is enjoying it then I would keep going.

It didn't work to get my kids fluently reading. My daughter got stuck halfway through and my son tired of it faster. I do like the first few lessons and how it teaches blending though because that is what taught them both how to blend so for that I give it credit. I found it for $1 at a thrift store so it was worth the $1. ;) I know there are kids out there that that is all they need though.

I could see this working for my ds if he was having trouble learning facts because he memorizes stories well. I am not sure it would work for my oldest. I want to teach ds the concept first but I might use it if he really got the concept but needed help with getting them faster.

I guess they would help for certain emergencies but if one of my kids developed a chronic condition or cancer then no they wouldn't just do ongoing treatment. They would treat us for some stuff but we would have lifelong huge debt. I wanted more then anything in the world to have insurance for my kids. It wasn't an unwillingness. I was so depressed at that time simply from a lack of insurance for my children.

I don't have access to quality health care and I have insurance at the moment. I went without for way to long and my kids went without for a year and I was terrified that entire time. Charity care had the same low income guidelines as the state insurance for the kids that we just squeaked over the limit for. Private insurance wasn't anywhere near affordable. The minimum premium was over 1000 a month with at least a 10,000 deductible and that before you fill out the information they find out your little one had to go to the hospital once and you had a procedure a few years ago and charge you more. MY husband had a job that took care of everything just barely except that because it was a small company. We went without because we didn't work for a big company. Now he at a slightly bigger company so we get mediocre coverage with a pretty high deductible. The best health coverage we ever had was the brief period my kids were covered by state insurance.

Thanks for posting this. I looked it up and even the free version actually looks cool. I did the math assessment so far and I am surprised by the results. My 2 older kids did better than I expected. I like how it finds areas they missed targets and targets those.

We drove through Canada and my husband talked to lots and lots of Canadians and all of them except for one guy in a gift shop in the Yukon were very happy with the health care system and perfectly fine to pay more for it so everyone was taken care of. He talked about taxes too and they also didn't complain about them because it prevented major poverty. I think I would fit in better in Canada. I actually seriously contemplated immigrating there. My husband's job happen to be one that was needed. The process is really really long and afterwards I don't think it would be easy as a foreigner to find a job. You can't just pack up your bags and leave your country if you don't like how things are going. ;)

Oh and I don't think all people have to put their kids in public schools. I think a parent should be able to chose what works for them and their children be it public, private, or homeschooling. You don't need a current student in a school to affect change if that is an issue that is important to you. You don't really have any control or experience as a volunteer anyway to make major change.

I am against public school money going to private schools. It will not help the kids who need it. All it will do is give a money break to people who are already rich or upper middle class. I have no problem with different alternatives that fall under the public system. No one is trying to make all kids the same or drag down bright kids but schools shouldn't be funded to radically different levels with teachers getting paid less to work in those schools. In my area we do have gifted schools, gifted programs and the schools try for a years growth in a year time for all kids. They have IB and other special programs in the high school. We also have charters that are very much about giving kids material at their level in all subjects. People aren't looking for equal outcomes by dragging other kids down but all kids deserve to go to good schools with good teachers who can meet their needs. Teacher training does make a difference. I like the models that a lot of successful countries use such as Finland where teaching is a respected profession that isn't super easy to get into. Sure there are examples of teachers that don't have training that do good and ones that do who are not talented teachers but by and large teachers having a better education and more experience will lead to better teachers. My state actually has weak qualifications for teachers and we have bad scores. There are other reasons for it but that is one factor. I don't think we should keep changing but if we really look at different countries, states and cities and study what they are doing that works and doesn't with have good controls then we should be able to make things better. I like what I saw in a video from a European country for math instruction. They used a lot of manipulatives to show it and combined it with writing. The teacher paid close attention for students who were not understanding and she would work with those kids. Kids corrected their mistakes on the spot and moved on. They sat at desks but they would get up for short bursts too especially in the early grades. The day was shorter there. By lunchtime school was over but they still manage to cover a lot. Kids who needed extra help understanding took classes after lunch with different teachers. That is a good way so that fast learners do not get busy work but kids that do need extra help get it. There are lots of examples of things that work. When you compare our poor kids to poor kids in other countries we do much worse. Schools in other countries are not funded radically different and they have a good safety net. We should look for examples of schools that have good results despite bad circumstances. Charters are great. I use an alternative school but even charters in poor neighborhoods do have parents that are invested in their education so they aren't the best place to look.

I do not like kombucha. I don't like kombucha homemade. I do not like it here or there. I do not like kombucha Sam-I-Am

I'm so sorry. I hope to hear a happier update down the road. I know this must be hard.