Will keep that in mind. I am hoping to get a doctor who will do a full evaluation, not just focusing on the one thing we "think" he has. I know nothing about any of this, so this is a whole new experience for me. Dh has not been happy about it, but I think he's coming around, as I've tried to explain that it is a medical condition. Doesn't mean I think he's crazy.

Rod & Staff for grammar. I never have to prep for that. Just go on to the next lesson. Love it!

We have so much stuff in this house.... we're kind of cheap with Christmas. However, I do tend to buy stuff they may already need... like pajamas or other clothes and wrap them up and give them for Christmas. So, does that go in the clothing budget or the Christmas budget. I hate Christmas shopping.

This is his behavior, too. He bothers and bothers and bothers people. And now that I think about it, he does have trouble entertaining himself.

I have a dr. Appt for him tomorrow with our GP. He is healthy as a horse, but I just want a physical exam out of the way and then I am going to ask her for a referral. I can't tell you ladies how this thread has given me some hope. Everything you all have said about the ADHD behaviors have just clicked with this boy. So, I am getting on it right away and hopefully we can get him evaluated soon.

We use the Memoria Press series as well and love it. They do make the conjugations and declensions into kind of chants so they are pretty easy to learn. We used CAP's Greek Codecrackers last year and it seemed like the songs and the story-line were a little distracting. We tend to prefer the no-frills approach in this house.

Well, you make them do it. You may be homeschooling, but it is education. And your kid needs to learn how to write. Let me just tell you, here on the boards there is the gamut of homeschooling philosophies from very relaxed, interest lead to quite structured and the prevailing rule here is "live and let live". I am more structured. I believe interest lead is good, but finally there are subjects to be covered and you just do it, like it or not. My kids are quite bright, but they are very social and are not academically inclined. They play Legos, they do craft stuff, swim, build bike ramps. They don't read ever, except at night In bed with their headlamps. So if I were an unschooler or a relaxed homeschooler, they would be completely illiterate. Our homeschool is very structured and becoming even more so and they do their schoolwork because they must. Now, I try to make it as pleasant an experience as possible, but that's where we're at. I think you need to decide on the goals you have for your child, and he may not want to achieve them, but you are the parent, and so times you have to compel them, all the while making the process as palatable as possible.

We are using Artistic Pursuits and supplementing with Raboff's Art for Children series for art. For music, one day we are learning music theory and the flutophone with A Beka's Music Theory I curriculum and the second day we'll be doing composer studies and listening to their music.

Wow, the Hive now has it's own "National Holiday." We're becoming more and more like our own nation all the time. We have our own language "teA" and "books" and whatever else we have. Now we have our own Holiday.

I know a lot of advice you've been given is about thinking "out of the box" with curriculum and stuff, but my biggest problem was management and expectations of learning. When you have a classroom full of kids, you can get kind of a momentum going and even the more hesitant kids can get caught up in the learning process. I remember having great times with activities and experiments because the kids worked together, and got excited and if one kid's experiment flopped, his neighbor's worked, and so on. We had a great time in my science class. That doesn't happen when it's one on one. If your kid isn't interested, he's not going to have five others in the class who might be interested, and therefore, either hide his disinterest, or get him interested. It's just your kid. Not interested. Also, if there's 30 of them and 1 of you, they can have a lot more "spacing out time" and you won't notice it. When it's one on one... you do notice it. And it may bug you.

Ok, wow! I never thought about it this way before. Every time I thought about ADHD I just thought about frazzled parents with rambunctious little boys who can't sit still in school for 6 hours at a time, so they drug them. My DS can focus. He can concentrate and sit still. He loves to be read aloud to. We went to Fresno last week, 1 1/2 hours round trip in the p car and he was as still as a mouse in his seat the whole time listening to Jonathan Park. He doesn't fidget. But the chemical stuff you described and the sensory stuff.... that sounds spot on.

I agree with you in his absolute need for exercise. Which is why any time there is a sport or athletic activity offered, he is signed up. Summer, though, is hard. There's not a lot available in our small town. We don't have a pool (either personally or a public pool) and when it's 105 degrees outside, and no one else is out, I don't feel right about making him go out and play. However, he is signed up for a 3 day basketball camp next week and soccer should be starting again in a couple of weeks.

Welcome to homeschooling. Another former teacher here. I taught science in Christian schools for 11 years. And science is my weakest subject in homeschool. Being a former teacher does have some advantages, but it doesn't always translate into homeschool success. Homeschooling is a whole different ball of wax.

Well, I'll throw something else into the mix, and I don't know if any of you with highly confrontational children have had this experience but.... I think DS finds these "fights" to be cathartic. I've just noticed it over the past year or so. I hate "fighting". I am a peace keeper, but he does frustrate me to no end. So, I'll chew him out and after I'll feel like dirt, but he seems relieved. His actions and attitude are like those of a child who has just had a tremendous emotional release. He's much more cooperative and pleasant. And not in a "trying to please Mom so I don't get in trouble again" because he is never like that, but in a genuine "pent up tension is released and I feel better" sort of way. He never holds grudges. He's never sullen or vindictive. Like yesterday, after our blow up, he was all lovey dovey in the evening, hanging on DH, sitting on my lap for a back scratch. Which makes me sometimes wonder if he provokes these fights just to make himself feel better. I hate it.

I have thought about it. I like it because it is on-going and not seasonal like sports are. And the strange thing about him .... He is not aggressive. At all. It's maddening on the sports field. He has got a beautiful physique, strength, stamina, coordination.... and no aggression. He could be the best player on his soccer team, (really, that's not just a mother's opinion), but he does not play aggressively at all. So, while that is frustrating on the sports field, I'm not afraid he will hit me. I'm afraid he may break the door down, but not hit me. He may do well in martial arts. It would probably teach him self control, too.

We are very open to counseling, but are not sure how to go about finding one. We went down the typical routes, asked pastor, friends, etc. No one ever really enthusiastically gave us a name. I've looked on line, Yellow Pages, etc. I am so leery and weary of the medical establishment that I just don't trust it. I'm afraid we'll get someone who just wants to medicate him. I'm not against medication, but only after an extensive work-up. If it's warranted. Not some fly-by-night 5 minute, clip-board, check the boxes interview. KWIM? My brother was very difficult and my parents went to counseling with him (back in the 70's) and the counselor made my dad pin my brother down. I wasn't there, but they told me and that freaked me out.

Good ideas and things that could work with this child. He doesn't back down, either. One of Kevin Lehman's things is "say it once, turn around and walk away." DS lives for confrontation, and is almost devilish in his ability to suck you in to one. So, I've been trying very hard to not give in to his manipulations. He does need interaction, so I have been sending him to every VBS available in our town this summer. Unfortunately, his best friend, who lives across the street, has been quite unavailable this summer. We think it's because his parents don't like DS because he is so obnoxious, so they keep their son very busy. But, there's not a VBS every week. Fortunately, I do believe God answered my prayers because I was just in tears on Friday, praying, and later that morning I was made aware of a basketball camp for three mornings this coming week. I wasted no time signing him up.

We have a very difficult child, so please, only answer if your child is very difficult and you have been able to find a way to have a good relationship going into the teen years. DS is 11. He is argumentative in the extreme, he is high energy, he is impulsive, he is argumentative and he is disrespectful. And we are at our wit's end. Basically, we have degenerated into just yelling at him, and yes, we realize this is not effective. We know, we want to stop, but he's the type of child who would probably provoke Mother Theresa. My mother, who never even spanked me once when I was a child, told me the other day, "I just wanted to smack him!" On his good days he's just obnoxious. We can tolerate that. Right now he's in his room for throwing a Lego "in the general direction" of his dad (it was at his dad, but since it didn't hit him, to him it didn't count as being at his dad) because he was mad because we wouldn't let him do something. We want a consequences based discipline system, and we've read Kevin Lehman and others like him, and agree with him, but for some reason can't get it to work. This child pushes buttons, he bullies his little sister, he is responsible for about 90% of the conflict in our family. The week he was at camp was the most peaceful we've had since the last time he was at camp. We want consequences. We need a way to get him to be respectful. We try to be respectful of him. We try to listen to him, give him a chance to be heard, not order him around, etc. We've tried to give him tools to control his anger - run around the block, go on a fast bike ride, say, "I'm just really angry right now" and go outside, even take a shower (he's said that helps calm him down). But things just escalate fast and then we're yelling. And he keeps getting older and bigger and I'm starting to get scared.

Thinking about you and praying for your family! ((Hugs))

I don't have that, but I have all kinds of different symptoms - a cough that won't go away,now it seems like my mild anaphylactic shock episodes are related to sinus infection because after I went off the Bactrim this time, I haven't had one since. The most overwhelming symptom, though is just getting more and more run down until I finally give in and go to the doctor. I can never kick a sinus infection on my own.

We always started the day after Labor Day. I think they start early now because they take off more days in the year. A week off at Thanksgiving, not just 2 days, 3 weeks at Christmas, MLK Holiday, etc.

I prefer to use the DVDs because know nothing about Latin, but yes, Leigh is a little annoying. She kind of goes on and on and on.

There's a small fish called the Delta Smelt and it's not even indigenous to the area. But, we must save it for some reason. Seriously. So we cannot build bigger or better storage facilities for the wet years because for some reason it would wreck the habitat or something for the Delta Smelt. So... we are using up the water in our underground aquifers, which is causing the land to sink. People I personally know are having their wells dry up, towns are running out of water. However, the people in the cities (Bay Area, LA) keep voting these bozos into office who listen to the environmentalists and are literally running this state into the ground. I'm sorry to be on this soap box, but it is a serious issue and for some reason the people in California just think they can keep turning on their faucets and water will come out and that won't be happening for long.

I grew up in California. We don't live by the beach, but we went there a lot, I played in the ocean and everything. When we go to the beach, I'm still a little nervous. There are rip tides and yes, occasionally sharks, but that's not so much an issue. I'd say, like everyone else, tell the kid they can go so far and no farther. And don't mistake dolphins for sharks. ;) I did that once, though fortunately I realized they were dolphins before I panicked and made a fool of myself.

We buy them at Costco, too. They really are the best kind. I ran out and had to buy the cheap store brand at the grocery store. Yuck. Too sweet and they melt too fast. Costco really has the best semi-sweet chocolate chips. I'm becoming a connoisseur.