Is it okay to stay home for a season? Yes. But you're not even staying home! You sound like you're doing great. Keep up the good work, and surround yourself with healthy people who love you!

My daughter applied to four schools: two good private schools, and two state schools in two different states. She was accepted to all four, with good scholarships (full tuition at one private school, much of tuition at the other, and a free ride at the local state school). I doubt she would have gotten into the one high-ranked technical school that she considered applying to; her scores and documentation were good, but not that good. (And I doubt she would have thrived there, anyway.) She chose the state school because it was the highest ranked for her major. Did she play the admissions game? That girl will hardly play by the rules to save her life! But she had outstanding test scores, and she'd been active in a lot of activities—not because of the college game, but because that's what she and I both believed was best. We were sure to have her do rigorous schoolwork, and to have some sort of outside validation of her efforts in a number of different subjects; I figured that if she had strong test scores and outside validation of a number of things, the things where we didn't provide validation would still be taken seriously. She had three AP scores (including one where she took no official class), an SAT subject exam, excellent SAT scores, a couple of grades from a co-op class, a recommendation from a STEM camp that she attended, and a grade from an online class. Do you have to play the game in order to get into the Ivies? Well, it's true that there's a lot of competition. But even with the game, lots of kids don't get in. My understanding is that those colleges aren't looking for the "most impressive" applicants, necessarily—just a varied student body filled with lots of interesting, highly capable, dedicated young people. And it's quite possible to play the game very well and still lose, just because they didn't happen to need yet another musician who spent her summers tutoring at-risk middle-schoolers, or whatever. Do you want to get into the Ivies? I'm sure people have great experiences there. But I went to Stanford for graduate school, and took some undergraduate classes. The easiest college class I ever took wasn't at Baylor or at my state university, but at Stanford. And I was not particularly impressed with the dedication of the students I saw there, either. (The dedication of the graduate students, on the other hand, was notable.) Does that mean that it doesn't matter where you go? No, I wouldn't say so. I spent most of my undergraduate years at a large state university; my sisters went to a very small, top-ranked liberal arts school. They got a better education than I did. The biggest difference, I would say, was in the quantity and quality of writing that was expected of us. I regret not having the opportunity to write much in college. I only wrote three or four papers in all of college (having placed out of all my English requirements), and this meant that I was not prepared for the writing I needed to do in graduate school. My experiences at Stanford did lead me to believe that I would have learned more about serious writing there. I also would have learned to write at Baylor had I chosen to enter their Honors Program (which I was eligible for but avoided precisely because it required the writing of an honors thesis). I'm glad that I read this thread, because it has helped me to sort out what I will recommend to my younger kids: Choose a college that you really like, with serious students, that has a strong honors program. Then apply to fabulous graduate programs.

If it were me, I'd change this to "You know your teen is well educated when..." Because I know a lot of well-educated non-homeschooled teens who do just this same sort of stuff. And I know more poorly educated homeschoolers than I'd like to admit.

What a hard situation, to feel that your mother is disappointed in your choices! I'm so sorry you're going through that. So, is it okay to just stay at home for a season? Of course. I do believe, however, that it isn't healthy for the kids to stay at home forever. At some point they really do need to build significant relationships with people who aren't related to them, and get used to entering new social situations, and such. Do you anticipate that a day will come when you won't have naps to deal with? If you plan on always having a new baby, then I think that yes, your kids' social skills will in fact be impaired by being at home. But if you anticipate having more energy at a later time to provide more outside contacts, I wouldn't worry about it too much. If it were me, though, I'd try to keep social contacts going. I'd try to have a playgroup in my home, or a singing hour, or something so that we could see other people. It would be healthier for the kids, and healthier for me. I do have to add to this, that one of the things I regret the most is not helping my oldest develop good relationships when she was younger. I was at a stage when I was suspicious of other people and worried that their kids might influence my kid in a bad way, so I didn't really encourage friendships as much as I should, and felt sort of satisfied inside when a friendship didn't work out for her. (Boy, does it hurt to recognize that now!) The result was a kid who felt (and, to a lesser extent, still feels at age 20) like an outsider. She did eventually develop good friendships, starting at around age 12, but her patterns of thought were relatively established by then. She did have some issues of her own which caused her more troubles making friendships than other kids did, but I failed to work hard to get to the bottom of those problems, and her entire life will be affected by that. (I don't regret the homeschooling, though—because I think her problems would have been worse in a school environment—although we might have dealt with the difficulties sooner, so it's hard to know how things would have worked out.) I wish I could just say, "Of course it's fine! Whatever you feel is right for your own family, is right for your own family!" But I really wish that someone had told me, back when my oldest was 5, that it was really important for me to put a high priority on finding children that she could enjoy. In my blindness at the time, I thought it didn't matter because she had me, and I was teaching her about how to treat people, and she was reading books about other people. I thought that was enough for learning about life! I was totally wrong, and I wish someone else had tried to help me see how wrong I was. Of course, we can only do what we can. I know a woman whose children could not, for life-and-death medical reasons, go into public for two or three years when they were young. Are her kids going to be okay? Yes. Are they profoundly changed by that experience, in ways that will cause them struggles in the future? Also yes. But something tells me that you're not at that extreme! And I imagine you aren't standing in the way of your kids' social relationships the way I was. Enjoy being at home right now. Plan for your kids' needs, doing what you can when you can.

My almost-13-year-old is devouring Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand, about a man captured by the Japanese in WWII. This is not for younger kids, though—I really struggled with the idea of letting my son read it, but it was the first time that he was interested in such a serious subject and we decided to let him take the plunge. (There's a lot of cruelty and horrific violence, plus a bit of reference to sexual sadism, though through "ordinary" cruelty, not through specific acts.)

I have a 17yo passionate writer. My suggestions for an 8yo writer go along with what most others have said. Let the creative writing blossom. Enjoy it if she lets you. Don't correct, but answer questions if she asks. Supply her with books about writing if she wants them, but don't assign them or otherwise push them on her. Creative writing actually doesn't need to be taught much at all, in my opinion. Its academic value in school, I believe, is mostly to get kids writing words on paper so that the various skills can be practiced. That's not to say that there's nothing to learn about creative writing—but what there is to learn, most eight-year-olds aren't really ready to process. I would continue with the ordinary writing-skills instruction (WWE or whatever you think appropriate), but trying to incorporate creative writing into assignments is as likely to backfire as it is to benefit her, I'm afraid. But I'd be happy to let her substitute her own creative writing exercises for the occasional normal writing assignment, if that's what she wanted to do.

I wouldn't use dry erase markers on overhead sheets; I'd use Vis-a-vis markers, which are made for this purpose. You can wipe that off with a damp paper towel. I used to do this, but I admit that I have given it up as too much trouble. Today, I either ask students to write on a separate sheet of paper, or go ahead and buy more copies of a workbook. You can also have students fold a paper in fancy ways and use it that way. This will work better if there aren't lots of rows (or lots of columns, depending on how you orient the paper). Say the problems are arranged in columns. The student can fold a piece of paper and write the answers near the fold. Then the student can re-orient the paper so another edge is near the next column. By turning the paper around and over and turning the fold the other way round, you can get a lot of answers on one paper easily. To correct, you'll have to find the column of answers that corresponds to the answer key—and how the answers are arranged on the page might really affect whether this is an easy method for correcting or not! If the student modifies the number of folds and their orientation according to the needs of the worksheet, this can be an efficient use of paper and not that onerous for the student.

Can homeschool do in two hours a day what the schools do in a whole day? A few examples, mostly from my experience as a student and as a public school teacher. (1) When I was in 5th grade, I missed two weeks of school for a family vacation. My teacher sent assignments with me so that I could keep up. On the way back home, I did the two weeks' worth of homework, in one sitting, almost certainly in less than an hour. I could hardly believe how little material I would have covered, and how quickly I could do it on my own. When I got back to the classroom, I found it was even worse than I had thought: I was now well ahead of the class! (And this was a good school.) (2) In sixth grade, my teacher used to end the day by asking us to tell something that we'd learned that day. I could find something that I had actually learned that day perhaps once every two weeks (and even then it was something trivial). This exercise made me rather depressed about the time I was wasting in school. (3) My sixth-grade nephew is very excited about school right now, because for the first time he's actually learning something on a regular basis in schools. And he spent most of his elementary school years in an exclusive, very expensive private school. His six-year-old brother came home from school once in the middle of kindergarten. "I learned something today, Mom!" Apparently he hadn't had that experience before. (4) When I was a high school Spanish teacher, a student of mine broke his hip and spent two weeks in the hospital. I was very worried about him because he was a C- student and he happened to miss the two weeks which set up the foundation for the rest of the year's work. So I gathered up my materials and went to the hospital and gave him a 45-minute tutoring session, in which I taught him about FIVE DAYS worth of normal in-class material. At the end of that time, I gave him a quiz—and he got an A, his first A ever. We looked at each other in shock. ("Boy, it's a lot easier when you're sitting here explaining it to me!") Now, having said all that, I'll ask the next question: is homeschooling, as actually practiced, more efficient than the schools? I think this really depends on the family. The potential is definitely there. But if the mom isn't good at keeping things going well, it can be quite inefficient, which I know by experience. This year, for the very first time, I think we're being efficient at our schoolwork—and this is my 16th year of doing this! (And yes, my oldest daughter, who launched last year, is doing quite well at her university. But I do regret the disorganization of her time at home!) Spy Car Bill said I totally agree that we should not discount what the schools do manage to accomplish, and unfortunately I also find this attitude on homeschooling boards too often. As much as the schools have troubles, they do spend every day, most of the day, at least trying to educate the kids. And the kids do learn, even if they don't learn as much as we think they should. I have encountered a number of homeschooled kids who I think have not been well-served by their homeschool programs, and I'm much less of a gung-ho homeschool supporter than I used to be. But two hours a day of new information—or helpful sorts of practice—is definitely more than I used to get in an excellent public school setting, even, most days, in high school. So, for me, this statement would have been true. And I'm pretty sure it would be more true today, if my kids were in the schools. But do I limit myself to two hours of teaching my kids? Of course not.

I can't prove this, but it seems likely to me that a kid who tends to cry when you refuse to give her reading lessons, and who picks up lots of sight words quickly at that age, is not likely to be a kid who is harmed by sight words. Don't get me wrong—I fully agree with the value of phonics. But phonics can be taught later, by an alert parent, who knows the danger of a child without phonics. I believe that the danger comes from letting a child struggle for a long time, not from initially teaching them incorrectly. I have a mildly dyslexic daughter who I successfully remediated, and I tutored a high-school-age boy who was so badly dyslexic that he could hardly read at all—but with a few months of daily tutoring he became a reader for pleasure, and of tough books, too! In other words, even kids who do tend to dyslexia can be successfully remediated, so the worst-case scenario isn't that bad, especially if you are alert and teach her phonics as soon as she is ready. And with her interest, it's unlikely, in my opinion, that she inclines toward dyslexia. Not impossible, of course—but you're alert! The point may be moot, anyway. Someone who's motivated may not be stoppable. My mother was an elementary-school teacher who believed in teaching phonics. She also believed (as was taught at that point) that it was best not to teach kids anything academic before first grade, but to leave it to the school. The result? By the time I was four I had taught myself to read without instruction of any sort. She was worried, but gave me phonics workbooks when I was ready and checked up on me occasionally, and it all worked out fine. Enjoy your eager learner!

Will you learn anything studying Latin that you won't learn studying Spanish? Well, yes. With Latin, you will learn how to decline nouns; if the Latin is well taught, you will learn a lot about grammar and some ways to indicate meaning that is not used in Spanish or English. And you will, if you pursue it long enough, be able to study a lot of older works. Will you learn anything studying Spanish that you won't learn studying Latin? Well, yes. You will learn to communicate with some living human beings. If the Spanish is well taught, you will be able to have conversations, and maybe even travel comfortably in a number of different countries. You will learn, if it is well taught, a lot of grammar and some ways to indicate meaning that are not used in Latin or English. If you pursue it long enough, you may get an advantage when you're looking for jobs. Both languages will help you with roots; Latin probably has a slight edge here, but not enough, in my opinion, to outweigh the advantage of learning a spoken language. Studying Spanish and supplementing that with a quick roots study will give the lion's share of the benefit of Latin here. I admit to never understanding the argument that Latin teaches discipline and organization. If that refers to the language itself, there is nothing about Latin that isn't similar to other languages. Spanish has a similar verb system; Russian has a similar noun system; and there's nothing superior about Latin to other languages. If it refers to doing something the student doesn't really want to do, well, there are lots of ways to accomplish that! So what should a homeschooling family do? I'm a Spanish teacher who has studied Latin, and I long thought that it was silly to teach students Latin. I've changed my mind. I now think that the best language to teach is the one for which you have the most enthusiasm and the best resources. If you don't have the resources to teach Spanish (a tutor is too expensive, neither parent speaks it at all, and so forth), then teach Latin. Latin has the advantage of not needing to be learned as a spoken language, so it may be more within the reach of many homeschool families. And there are a number of programs which make the study of Latin reasonable for homeschool families even when the parents haven't studied it. But if you have the resources to teach a modern language well, then by all means, do it. Now, what are the advantages of studying a language—any language—well? Studying a language makes grammar sensible. Most students don't understand the point of studying grammar until they see a completely different approach to putting words together. It is good for the mind; there's little that can exhaust your brain as quickly as trying to understand and speak a language that is new to you! And it gives a feeling of education and power that builds confidence, I think. So, my opinion: Teach a language, the one that you think you may actually succeed in teaching well.

It would disturb me, too—but I don't think I'd necessarily be right to be disturbed. Words really do shift in their meanings. When I was in high school, we referred to good-looking guys as "studs." My mother warned us that our grandparents, who had raised cattle, would probably not appreciate hearing that word being used to describe young men of our acquaintance. I was rather shocked, and I'm not sure I used the word after that....

Her attitude reminds me of a problem that I'm seeing in the educational discussions in this country. The assumption is that the most important thing is to see that everyone gets as close to the same chance as possible. It's fine to reduce the educational opportunities of the "elite," because those kids will do fine on their own; we need to strive for relative equality in education. That assumption ignores the global reality that we aren't, as a nation, guaranteed to be fine in the future. We've always been able to assume that the United States is going to be fine in the global marketplace. But many things are changing, and it seems to me that we now need the elite to be well educated, or we will lose our competitiveness. Having exported our excellent university-level education for so many years, we now find ourselves in competition with the nations that once could be more or less ignored. Naturally, we also need the non-"elite" to be well educated. Every well-educated soul makes a better nation. But I am skeptical of the idea that it is fine to under-educate the top groups because we don't really need them anyway. Correct me if my impressions are wrong, but it's my impression that developing nations work hard to develop their best and brightest—sending them to the best schools around the world, working them very hard—under the assumption that in developing their brightest, they will benefit the entire nation. They don't always do it effectively (their curricula are often rote-based), but nonetheless they give it a lot of effort. Other nations are working very hard to educate their top students, and if the public schools aren't doing that, I think we're wise to exit from the public schools and do it in other ways.

OP, I agree with everyone else that it would be a good idea to have him evaluated. In the meantime, though, I'll tell you what it took me an embarrassingly time to realize: when a kid has more trouble focusing in one subject than in another, it may mean that the child may benefit from a different approach to that subject. When my daughter was in the first grade, I was using a program that was having her copy a sentence every day, as I recall. It took her an hour or more. She would be lying on the floor with her paper on the kitchen table, and I'd say, "Get back to work on your sentence!", and she'd say, not moving, "I am working on it already!" I struggled with her for months about it, and had such frustrations before I finally gave up that approach in frustration. It was a couple of years later before I realized that the child was dyslexic and dysgraphic, and needed a completely different approach to writing instruction. (Who knew that someone who began reading at age four could be dyslexic?) It took us many hours to do remediation, but the positive effects began immediately.

I've wondered about this, too. My oldest is 20, and in college. She often struggled with the assignments that I gave her—sometimes because I was teaching inadequately, sometimes because they were tough, sometimes for her own emotional reasons. Other times, the assignments were just right. Few assignments were easy. Did she know how advanced she was compared to others? Not at first. But she figured it out, when she would excitedly talk to someone about some interesting math concept she'd learned, and the person would have to remind themselves of what exactly a prime number was. Or when we were in the middle of discussing the issues surrounding a particular presidential campaign, and a friend said (in all seriousness) that she had even forgotten when Benjamin Franklin was president. Now she's in college, and not at a great school overall (she's there because the school is outstanding in one specific field). There's no question that she can tell the difference between her education and that of those around her. If I had her education to do over again, she would struggle less, because I now know more about about how to help a student in a step-by-step way through some difficult things. But would I ask her to spend more time on "easy" things so that she could feel successful? No. Being successful means learning to do things that you couldn't do before. That's much more valuable in life than the sort of success that I had in school, which was to learn to do things better, and more quickly, than the kid beside me could. The more I think about this, the more I think that my earlier attitude—and the one that your friend is revealing—isn't the healthiest one. (And, if I'm honest, I'm far from recovered from this attitude myself.) That attitude is, "Feeling successful means know that you're better than other people." But I'm trying to change this to, "Being successful means accomplishing things that need to be accomplished, and always striving to improve your own performance." The main thing way I've changed is that I'm now more able to notice when a kid's resistance stems from feelings of being overwhelmed. Feeling overwhelmed is not productive, and it means that I need to do something different as a teacher. Maybe I need to sit beside the kid and put my hand on her; maybe I need to give more help; maybe I need to break down a lesson into two days; maybe I need to give lunch earlier; maybe I need to switch to a different approach; maybe I need to find another way to teach this particular idea; maybe I need to break the instructions down into smaller parts; maybe I need to modify my expectations. (I put four of these ideas into practice just this morning. Maybe five.) Writing this, though, it occurs to me that one way that I'm not good at this is in celebrating a child's progress. I'm always secretly disappointed that a child hasn't accomplished twice as much as he has. I do conceal the disappointment, but it doesn't leave me in a celebratory mood. So I have a new goal for myself: to see not what the kid didn't accomplish, but what they did, and celebrate that. I was working on that last year but got somewhat sidetracked and didn't remember that today, so I'm glad this topic came up today. I think that if a child isn't often overwhelmed, and if they're progressing, and if they're meeting your goals, it will be all right!

Emily, I would not recommend Rosetta Stone to you. If you speak German for hours a day to your kids, they already know everything they'll learn from Rosetta Stone, or at the least they will, soon, and at much less expense. I've put together a list of learning resources for German. You might find some of them helpful; probably less so the ones at the top of the page, and more so the ones listed for after you have some exposure to the language. I don't know how old your kids are, so I don't know which resources are best to recommend, but you can spend some time exploring on your own.

My sister was having some trouble in math in college, and her professor suggested that she use graph paper. At that time I'd never heard of doing that. It made a big difference for her. In some countries that's the standard practice, so I don't think there's a disadvantage to continuing it as long as the student prefers.

I second everything Kate said. Check out http://how-to-learn-any-language.com/e/index.html , which is dedicated to exactly this topic: learning a language without a teacher. Learning a language is a big task, so be prepared! It does have its wonderful rewards, though, and it's definitely doable with the investment of enough energy. It's easier if you've already learned another language before so you have an idea of what's involved, of course.

Yes, and for each lesson you have a minimum of 6 different fields to fill in; I think it remembers which student you're dealing with from assignment to assignment, but not ANYTHING else, so you have to choose, for example, "daily," assigned August 28, due August 30, math, and the specific assignment. For EACH assignment you enter. So I'm searching for another way, and I'm considering paying.

I think it also depends on how you are planning to teach. For a little over a year, I taught a couple of students who weren't my own, and because of the increased number of kids, and their varied level of preparation, not to mention the time limitations, I found that I really had to modify my approach with them. So we lost some of the benefits of homeschooling in order to incorporate the other kids. (There were advantages, too, but in the end it was good that we stopped.) Were you planning to teach in such a way that it will be easily modified if one kids learns/reads three times as fast as another (possible!), if some kids do homework and others don't, if some kids are interested and some aren't? Or are you willing (as classrooms have to be to some extent) to just say that child X can't do this, so he doesn't get a good grade? In a very small group it's hard to leave someone behind, and it's hard to try to keep everyone together, too. But some approaches are better adaptable to this than others. I can see this sort of thing being good (if you're really energized by teaching a group—in the long run, not just in prospect), but I can also see it being tough. Another issue is that if she wants to homeschool long term, she will eventually need to get some confidence in what she's doing. You might both be better served if you help her out for a while, and help her to see that she can do this. I think that evaluating them in reading and math and making recommendations for them sounds like the best part of what you've said. That's a short-term thing which can be a real service to the family, if you are good at it. In fact, I have a family coming to my house this week so that I can do something similar in math, and I'd love to do it more often. And having said all this, I'll add that I'm actively looking for a boy who can come to our house and participate with us in some aspects of our homeschooling, because my son is highly social and could really benefit from a more constant companion. If this happens, the level of commitment for me and the other mom would almost certainly be uneven—and that would be okay with me, because I'd know what I was getting and what I was giving.

On the pros and cons of restricting outside activities: I learned years ago that if I cared more for my kids' outside activities, then we were in trouble. In other words, if I believed I couldn't keep them home from ballet OR soccer OR co-op OR anything else, then we had a problem. On the other hand, if I set them a task that's too hard for them and say they can't go to activities if they don't perform, we have a different sort of problem. Telling my 16-year-old that she couldn't go to her orchestra retreat if she didn't pick up her violin six days in a row was an example of that sort of task. Simple as it was, she wasn't capable of it—which would have been okay if it had just been a weekend, but missing the retreat pretty much meant missing a year of orchestra. And that was too big a consequence. But she herself refused a smaller consequence, or more support in achieving the goal. I think that's why our counselor told us that I should negotiate, once she saw that she really was going to miss out. At that point she suddenly realized what she was going to miss out on—and that she needed to agree to a shorter-term deal. The deal she worked out, she was capable of achieving. I think this may be one of the differences between the people whose kids respond well to a rule that "you can't go to activities until you've done X" and those who don't. The task has to be well within the student's grasp, and that's not always easy to judge from the outside. (Or even from the inside. Can you explain why that pile of papers is sitting over there on your desk still waiting to be dealt with? I can't really explain about mine.) If a student misses the goal once or twice, the answer may not be to say, "Well, too bad. Try harder." What if the student truly isn't capable of that task yet? No wonder the student would give up in anger. The answer may be to say, "This seems really hard. What can we do to make it easier for you to accomplish what you need to accomplish? An alarm clock? More supervision from me? Do we need to change to a different location, or a different book? Do you want a smaller choice each day, as a sort of reminder about the bigger weekly choice? What would make this more reasonable, less overwhelming?" With that kind of loving, firm support, I don't see the kids ending up furious. On kids working unsupervised: I agree that many (quite possibly most) parents who expect their kids to work unsupervised for long periods end up with unpleasant surprises. I learned this with my own kids, and have observed it in other families. My friend with the kids who worked most independently was probably the mom who was best at supervising work; she had gradually trained her kids to work quite independently in certain ways, while being closely supervised in others. (These kids have had very easy transitions into adulthood.) If a child needed increased supervision, they got it, and quickly. But they needed such things less and less as they grew. But even she grew lax with the years. One year she got busy, her youngest daughter (16 and highly driven) accomplished less than she should have, and they ended up having her graduate a year late in order to make up for the skills that she'd missed. Another friend of mine came to expect (during turmoil in the family's life) almost completely independent work of her kids. ("And if they don't do the work, they're the ones who will suffer. Failure is healthy for people.") These were great kids, with big dreams and great intentions. The woman ended up with a 14yo who could barely read (dyslexic) and a 17yo who still added on her fingers. Fortunately the kids recognized the problem and sought help from a friend, and they're going to be fine.

My question when I'm reading this is: Why are you homeschooling? What is your goal? If your goal is to maximize his academic achievement, and if you are suspecting that the PS kids are actually getting more academics than you will be providing, then you don't need to snap out of it; you need to go investigate whether it's true that he'll get more out of the PS program, or see if you should improve the rigor of his program if that's appropriate. (I hate to be the dissenting voice here, but dual-credit courses are often less demanding than AP courses, depending, naturally, on both courses.) But if you know why you're homeschooling—if he has activities that you need to provide for—if you believe he shouldn't be in PS—or if you have some other reason—if you're convinced that you're going to have him stay at home because this is the choice that is best for him, then it really is time to go relax, and focus on what you are trying to do. Re-evaluating whether you're asking enough of your child (or too much!) is exactly the sort of thing that we all need to do periodically as homeschoolers, stressful as it can be, and a window into someone else's life can offer us some information. I hope that you can relax and enjoy the year, one way or another!

It's hard for anyone on the outside to give you specific advice. But I can share my own experience. Maybe there's something there that can help you. I have a 16yo daughter who has spent the last two and a half years mostly sitting on her bed. We eventually took her to a psychiatrist, who helped us with one of her issues—but there she was, still sitting on her bed. She spent her time reading and listening to music. Nothing I could do would get her to change. I took a couple of friends into our school, worked out a much stricter school schedule for everyone, and that worked to some degree as long as it lasted. But when they moved on to other things, we were still left with someone who was sitting on her bed. At this point the psychiatrist didn't help at all. I took her to another counselor, who sat down with us and tried to help us come up with a plan that would work for both of us. We started with violin practice: I had become unwilling to drive her to violin or orchestra because she didn't practice. She wanted to play violin, but didn't want to be held accountable for practicing. (She wanted to practice, but on her own initiative only, and without keeping a log.) There were lots of tears, but eventually we came up with a plan that she agreed to: when she had played her violin for at least five minutes a day for six days, I would pay her orchestra deposit. Two weeks later, she hadn't picked up the violin once, and the deadline (true drop-dead deadline) for orchestra was the following day. I canceled her participation, and told her about it. She was very upset, and suddenly wanted to negotiate. The counselor encouraged me to go ahead and negotiate, in case she came up with an acceptable plan. She did: If she doesn't practice at least twenty minutes on a specific day, she cooks dinner for the family the next day. That was acceptable to me. She has been on this plan for two weeks now, and has cooked us four dinners. It's good that we had that practice under our belts, because we had a bigger one coming. I was not willing to continue to homeschool her if she wasn't willing to submit herself to some sort of accountability. I wanted to come up with a plan that would enable me to keep an eye on her and have reasonable Plan Bs if our current plan wasn't working—or else she would register at the nearest high school. I knew that transferring to public school at this point in her life would be damaging to her, and I hated that idea, but first, I knew that she hated it too, and second, I knew that it is also damaging for her to be sitting in her room alone every day thinking about how incompetent she is to do the things that she knows she needs (and wants!) to do. So this week, we came up with a plan (for socializing, for academics—we still have to work out physical activity). And she has agreed that we will modify the plan if we need to do so. And she won't be registering at the nearest high school after all—to the relief of both of us. Our plan (minus details) is that she will go and study at her father's office three days a week. If she does not finish a week's work, the following week she will not be allowed to use her own iPad for school work, but will have to borrow another computer. At that point we will also revisit the deadlines, because I suspect that she will need a daily rather than a weekly deadline, but she really wanted to start with a weekly deadline. (And yes, I do think she's likely depressed at least some, but she's determined to avoid medication, and we're seeing huge progress.)

You won't need to list work (even performances) from before the high school years (possibly excepting something truly extraordinary). But even then, it doesn't matter how impressive a child is at twelve if they aren't still achieving something at sixteen! We didn't keep a list, because I figured we could generate it if needed. When I made my transcripts, I included a second page with a brief description of our approach in every subject—just three lines or so. I think this may have been required by one of the schools, but not by the others.

I so needed to read this sentence today. My family has been going through some very rough times, and I'm getting extremely discouraged, even though I know we're taking really good steps to get us out of our mess. This sentence reminds me that on the other side of this struggle may be a real victory. Thank you very much.

This stuff is all so complicated. I have no idea what is going on with your son, so please understand that I'm only sharing my own, personal experiences. Yesterday I came across a list of problems we were having when my daughter was at a bad time. Throwing things, attacking me physically (she drew blood repeatedly), and so forth. The interesting thing is that I was, at the time, correlating her bad behavior to her thirst. (I could stay on top of her hunger and sleepiness, but thirst was harder). The thirstier she was, the more likely to explode. Given what I know now, I know the thirst to be more or less a red herring. It's not that thirst didn't have this effect (maybe it did), but that thirst was hardly the underlying cause. I had forgotten that this had even been a concern! Something similar happened with us with irregular sleeping hours. Years ago, I kept a very tight eye on the family's sleep schedule, because when I didn't, life was terrible. I would be miserable, my husband would be cranky, the kids would be out of control. I remember ducking out of church events (say, youth lock-ins) because I knew that everything would fall apart the next day. After we got some good counseling, however, that reaction to lack of sleep vanished. Even after a short night, things would be pretty normal. It turned out that the reason that we needed a full night's sleep was that every one of us was having to use 100% of our emotional resources to control ourselves. As soon as anything went wrong—too much caffeine, not enough sleep, thirst, anything—we didn't have the resources to contain within us the emotions surging within, emotions that we were unaware of. So even though the problem appeared to be caffeine or sleep, the problem was in fact relational and emotional. And all this happened while I was thinking of our home as an unusually calm and pleasant one, with people who treat each other well and respond to each other in a measured, kind way. Lots of that was truth, too. But there were tools missing in our toolbox, and that was enough to create a family teetering on the brink.