[What is wrong with my dh?]

Lodged inside every man is a 12 year old boy. A 62 year old man is really 50 plus the 12 year old. :001_smile:

[Math performance & ability are way out of whack.....]

My son gets bogged down on the math facts due to a slow processing speed. This would be particularly troublesome on a test as he'd get agitated and forget everything he knew.

 

I am going to try one of the Scholastic e-books on memorizing math facts to see if there are some tricks that will help him- but I have to introduce it stealthily or he'll be upset, he hates review. :glare:

 

I am not a fan of looking for trouble and your DS is still young. But I had no idea that my DS had a processing problem until we had him tested for ADHD and they performed the IQ test and others at the same time. What you may be seeing is a high IQ with a distinct area of difficulty. But, again, your DS is younger than mine and this is my firstborn so I don't know how things should go.

[I have 7 notifications, all unapproved visitor messages]

Got one as well. That's probably why the administrator's mailbox is full.

[GAPS/SCD Mamas, Come on In!! Support Thread]

If it makes you feel any better, even when a child has a diagnosed food allergy that is life-threatening there are family members who will push back. We were told not to come up one holiday because we requested that certain (very dangerous) items not be served as finger foods. I'm sure the family member didn't see it that way, but she basically said if it was us or the food, she chose the food because it was "tradition." :glare:

 

I can imagine that not having a "doctor's note" makes it even more difficult.

[Why isn't this working??]

I ask questions and add commentary throughout readings that are longer than a paragraph. Sometimes the kids will draw a picture about what we are learning. Sometimes I will pause to open up an image online to add a visual component. Tying the reading back to something we have learned at another time also helps. These are all steps I usually take during the reading, not at the end of a chapter.

[Math performance & ability are way out of whack.....]

Is he able to compute but not scribe? Is he able to compute but too slowly for the test? Tell us what you are seeing daily.

 

(My DS can understand cocepts, but can't transfer thought to written numbers without making errors. He also CANNOT work under pressure.)

[I literally cannot find a single educational computer game that works for us]

We use Jump Start. One payment covers all my "students" even the 2 y.o. There is more play than I would necessarily like, but I can tell the kids to do X number of lessons before they go off to play and then they learn more. ;) Have you visited the BBC educational websites? Are your kids to old for Starfall? What about Sheppard's Software (website)?

[I *NEED* help... lots of help. I just can't figure it out! Grammar!!!]

Is the curricula your 10 y.o. is using too basic? I would probably just let her ride along with the 10 y.o. to get caught up. Do you need something separate and specific for high school credit? Where are you and she hitting your road blocks?

[Free Scott Foresman grammer workbook...any one used it?]

I haven't but have been looking for items to supplement grammar. :)

I do use parts of these from time to time:

http://macmillanmh.com/languagearts/2001/teacher/teachres/workbooks.html

[What computer-based curriculum do you use or know of?]

Anyone try Adaptive Curriculum?

[Artists...to make an "amber" yellow a deeper colour...]

I was thinking a tiny bit of brown.

[Diapponted :( .... Math...]

The Khan Academy Singapore lessons (starting with level 3) cover place value in a way that really clicked with my middle son and helped my DD a little. I had to fast forward through some of the lecture because it moves a little slow.

 

For my artistic DD, to teach her that every placement of a digit meant something different I replaced the place value names with pictures of fruit. So, a "1" in the apples place meant that you had 1 apple but the same "1" in the pineapple place meant it was a pineapple. (You probably had to be there. LOL!)

 

Dimes and pennies are helpful for place value.

 

We also played a game where I would write a number on white board and then ask the kids to tell me what was in the "hundreds" place, etc.

 

Visual DD is doing better with addition facts drawing them out (i.e. 10 dots for "10") and then covering a subset of dots to figure out the two parts of the number bond.

[The latest in the OT handwriting saga...]

Wow, thanks so much for sharing your update. My son gets hand cramps and becomes very agitated about it and it had not ocurred to me that I could actually do some therapies to help him! We are doing so many different things right now to help him in other areas that the pencil grip problem just slipped right past me. :confused:

[Need help with household budget]

If you enter the data manually, you are actually seeing each entry and can more quickly identify excess spending or billing anomolies. I allow my bank to pay bills automatically, but I review them first and enter them into the Quicken account. I'm fine with doing that and it allows me to really look at the high cable bill each month (which actually is only an internet bill now for that very reason.)

[Bad teaching or something else?]

Free reading resources:

http://www.donpotter.net/ed.htm

[NCERT link?]

How far are you getting in the process? When I click on an image of a chapter, I can open the document as a pdf. I then have the option to print of save. Do you have Adobe's pdf reader on your computer? Are you running security that would prevent you from opening web-based documents?

 

Thanks for the link, btw, I didn't know about these books. :001_smile:

[Pregnancy and microwaves.]

Older microwaves did leak radiation, hence the concern. My first pregnancy was over 10 years ago and it probably wasn't an issue by then- but I always turned my body away from the microwave and still instinctively do so today. :rolleyes:

[Need help with household budget]

I use Quicken and deduct upcoming bills using estimates. So entered monthly expenses are programmed to be entered as an estimate about 30 days in advance, as are paychecks.

[q for moms with special needs kids]

Then to answer your question:

I think it would be rude and helpful. Rude to tell a parent what you think is wrong with their SN kid. Helpful in letting her know that she might want to look for a different church.

 

You've expressed your feeling that the animosity toward the solutions proposed by your clergy are misdirected. But, if you are wanting to find out how to "handle" SN parents, then the responses you received are probably a very good lesson in how the parents you speak to in person are going to feel.

[Need a writing curriculum for a spec ed child]

If you switch to keyboarding for the output, the what do you feel would still be lacking as far as composition skills? You said the verbal storytelling was at the 5th grade level, right?

 

Do you want to move forward with longer and different types of composition? Does he need work with grammar? Are you looking for a textbook type approach to teaching 5th grade composition? Do you really feel like if typing were allowed he would need to start at the 2nd grade level?

 

Here are free workbooks that cover a grammar and some composition:

http://macmillanmh.com/languagearts/2001/teacher/teachres/workbooks.html

These could be open and go depending on what he already knows.

 

Here are some free textbooks:

http://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/catalog/disciplines/2/titles

[Free College Writing Resources]

http://writingcenter.unc.edu/resources/handouts-demos

[Ds gets red around his mouth when eating citrus. What does this mean?]

I tend to back off the citrus and tomato during the high pollen months for DD because it causes her discomfort if she over does it. But we don't consider it in the same catagory as DS' anaphylaxis to foods. My son started out with the redness, then it moved to excema and digestive issues, then it worsened over time.

 

Keep an eye on it, if you haven't already, educate yourself on the signs of anaphylaxis but I would probably just consider it OAS for now.

[q for moms with special needs kids]

My son has a variety of issues, some sensory. It took me nearly a year to get him to want to come back to church after our acolyte trainer tried to convince him to wear the robe by telling him it was to honor Jesus. Well, he took that to mean that if he couldn't bring himself to wear the robe he didn't love Jesus and wasn't worthy.

 

And really, don't you suppose a parent of a child with special needs is already painfully aware of exactly how far behind socially their child is without having it pointed out to them? Maybe the children's church ladies could just put a huge dagger through her heart and pour some salt on the wound while they are at it.

 

Getting in touch with a non-custodial parent with potential anger issues to tell him that his ex is making waves that might be embarrassing? I don't think that sounds wise. Does he have any contact with the child at all? Was he able to accept the child's disabilities when in the marriage?

 

Is the ritual more important than the children being brought to God? What did Jesus say, the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. He meant ALL men, even the ones who don't do it quite right.

 

I am sorry if I sound very angry above. I probably shouldn't be- need to get that plank out of my eye. ;) But navigating this world and advocating for a child who is different is difficult and often lonely. We all want to find a church that embraces our child and it is not always easy. Often it's not the whole church that is a problem, but one to two people. But those people and their actions can leave a very bad impression on us as parents and on our children, the typical and the special.

 

It may be that you are surrounded by folks who just don't get it and are trying to please everyone (pastor, other women at church). That puts you in a bad place. It leaves you to evaulate what you know of the situation and of God, to search your heart, and then to do what is right and righteous.

[met with PhD -- help me think (ADD meds too)]

I worked around DS' issues for as long as possible and probably longer than I should have in retrospect. I think now, maybe if I had started medications a little earlier, we could have used that time to help him develop coping skills rather than trying to medicate our way out of a crisis and then work on coping skills. But honestly, at the time I thought we were just dealing with ADHD and had no idea there were other issues contributing to his frustration.

 

As you've probably read on other threads, many kids can make it through the lower grades without accomodations but when they hit 4th and 5th grade the LDs and other issues are more apparent. That was our experience. I too would be concerned about the medications, but I totally understand reaching the point where the benefits outweigh the costs. If your child cannot function, then he's not going to be a happy fulfilled child. KWIM?

[Obese mom in pregnancy = Child with Autism???]

In my totally non-scientific opinion, having a child with several different conditions, there is always some study out there somewhere that will conclude that it's the mom's fault. Apparently we don't have enough guilt without some scientist out there seeking to add to it. :glare: