I would urge you to consider the alternative. Would you want her to think in her head "My patient's mother is really struggling with what is, in my professional opinion, anxiety. It is impacting her quality of life and her ability to confidently and responsibility parent her daughter." And then for her to not mention it at all or do anything about it? That would be like me taking my kid to the dermatologist for acne, the doctor seeing a mole on my arm that he thinks is cancerous, and not mentioning it because I am not his patient. That would feel unethical and cruel. Of course he is allowed to warn me about it and strongly suggest I make an appointment to have it biopsied. That is not overstepping or crossing any lines. And if the dermatology example feels very different than the psychiatry situation, then I would suggest that perhaps that is your anxiety coloring how you view each of them.

In my experience none of this is unusual. In my experience, mental health providers have to consider everything that impacts their patient...including their family. Whenever our therapists and psychiatrists have broached these types of conversations, they always start with a disclaimer..."You are not my patient, and I am not your doctor, but I am worried because..." or "Elliot is not my patient, but his siblings are, and I am very worried about how Elliot's behavior is traumatizing them." My kids' therapists and psychiatrist and pediatrician have all urged me to see a therapist of my own to deal with the intense stress and grief associated with raising mentally ill, special needs kids. I have been in therapy for years, and I have signed releases of information for all of our mental health providers to communicate amongst each other as they see fit. I have spent years building and honing an elite team of providers, and the last thing I want to do is undermine their ability to help us. I spend so much time driving home to my kids just how important it is to tell their team the truth, discuss problems with their team, try the strategies their team suggests, etc. I would be a complete hypocrite if I then refused to even consider concerns and suggestions the team makes to me. As for not wanting to discuss some things in front of kids, I think that is entirely normal. It is not uncommon at all for my kids to wait in the hallway for a few minutes while the adults discuss certain problems or aspects of care. I also heavily utilize MyChart to convey information to doctors that I don't want to mention in front of kids. I am incredibly cognizant and careful about what is said in front of the kids and what unspoken messages are being conveyed to them. I NEVER want to perpetuate any stigma around mental health care, so I would never want them to hear me sounding eager for them to come off of psych meds that are helping them.

For what it's worth, I agree with your psychiatrist. - I agree that it is incredibly premature to consider lowering your daughter's dose at this time. - I agree that puberty is a time when many children need more meds to manage symptoms, not less. - I agree that some vague, possible, hypothetical future side-effects are not worth fixating on or altering course over. - I agree that there are health care discussions and decisions that children do not need to be, and sometimes should not be, involved in...especially at only 8 years old, but there are still a couple things that I discuss with my 15 year old's psychiatrist with no children in the room. - I agree that in the time I have "known" you, I have worried about your anxiety about your daughter's medication and treatment. - I agree that your (perhaps disordered) thinking about your daughter's mental health is not serving her (or you) well in the short or long term.

Similar but different scenario here... Spencer has been on stimulant ADHD meds since he was 5. The appetite suppressant side effect has hit him much harder than my other kids, and last year, at age 10, he was officially falling off the growth chart to the point his pediatrician worried it would impact his future height. We were sent to endocrinology, and I worried that he would push to drop the ADHD meds. He did not. We had already unsuccessfully tried a non-stimulant medicine, so the endocrinologist said that it was his job to help mitigate the side effects of necessary medicines, and that keeping people mentally stable and functional was just as necessary as asthma meds and chemo and other drugs that make it hard for kids to grow. I am very mindful of my kids meds (sooooo many meds), but I don't find myself panicking or obsessing or catastrophizing about them. I have chosen doctors that I trust, and part of that trust is relying on their knowledge and experience to guide me as to risks and benefits of various medications. For example, my son Elliot recently severely injured DH during a tantrum, and that was the last straw for our psychiatrist. At our next appointment he strongly recommended a med overhaul of Elliot's mood stabilizers/anti-psychotics. We all knew the lengthy transition would be hell (especially for Elliot's siblings), and that there is no guarantee that the new med will work better, but the doctor has been down this road more often than we have, and he feels the potential benefits are worth the upheaval and risk. We are in the middle of that transition now, and it is hell, but I'm not dwelling on it or second-guessing myself at all. I feel confident in our doctor, in the decision, and in my ability to look all my children in the eye down the road and tell them truthfully that there were no easy, clear cut answers, but that at every fork in the road we did our very best to set them up for success and balance everyone's short-term and long-term needs.

Echoing previous posters that our homeschool friends use a wide, wide variety of materials and methods. When my kids were younger (elementary-ish), I sought out community based on general parenting strategies more than homeschool ideologies. My kids are all neurodiverse with special needs, so I was looking for friend groups that could take kids crying, stimming, and marching to the beat of their own drummers in stride. OTOH, it was far too confusing to expose my kids to overly-permissive parenting, so we avoided those families and groups. I didn't care at all how the parents were schooling their kids as we were all actively parenting during meet-ups. As my kids got much older, they started making friends based on shared interests and hobbies. They rarely talk about school at all, but I do still prefer that their friends come from families that value and prioritize education - but that doesn't mean they all use The Well Trained Mind or classical education...we certainly don't use it exclusively. I love that my older kids are seeing lots of different educational paths and goals.

We used All About Spelling that is based around letter tiles. We could never handle the finicky physical tiles, but all of my kids did use the tile app for a while before they were ready to transition to just writing their spelling words and dictations in a notebook. They were just ready for spelling before their handwriting and pencil stamina were ready to support that learning...so the tiles were a good stepping stone. My youngest started with AAS, but really struggled, and has since switched to Spelling You See. That has mandatory colored pencils, which might make it qualify as stuff-y. But I actually make it a bit more stuff-y because my DD, who probably has stealth dyslexia, needs extra handholding and review. So I have created posters and flashcards to supplement the program for her. We also have 3-D cut-out wooden letters and sandpaper letters for her to feel and trace and reference when she is trying to avoid reversals in her writing. But writing is still difficult enough for her, that most composition is done digitally using talk to type, which makes any book-based curriculum more stuff-y.

All of my kids have been pencil-phobic at that age, so Draw Write Now would have been torture. For us, copywork had to be much shorter, much more personally interesting, and could not be paired with more pencil-heavy drawing. I ended up making all my kids' copywork. Looking through my old copywork files is like taking a walk down memory lane: "Doc helps sick toys." (from DD's Doc McStuffins phase) Then she got into dogs and her copywork was about Bowser the Hound: "Old Man Coyote is full of tricks." My older boys loved Plants vs. Zombies: "Boombox Zombies raise their boomboxes and play a power ballad jam which immobilizes most plants." And later it was all about Star Wars (I pulled those sentences, and the Plants vs Zombies ones, from online wiki pages): "A fittingly fearsome vessel for its deadly pilot, the Sith Infiltrator is the personal starship of Darth Maul, Dark Lord of the Sith."

We operate on a weekly schedule more than a daily routine. My oldest will have a dual enrollment class M, W, F from 12-1...but it is a 30 minute drive away, so that will mean I am out of the house 11:30 - 1:30. On Mondays and Fridays I will take my youngest with me to the college and work with her one on one during the class. Monday's are our at home day, with the DE class in the middle. Then the youngest two kids have rock climbing after dinner. Tuesday's are Spanish immersion for the youngest two. I work with the oldest at a coffee shop nearby to make sure he is keep up with all his course work. Wednesday's and Thursday's we are doing electives at the shared time school. My youngest has classes from 11-4 both days; she is a social butterfly. My 6th grader will have one class on Wednesday (at then work with me the rest of the time), and have classes from 11-4 on Thursday. My oldest will be at DE all day Wednesday (only in class from 12-1, but working on campus from 10:30-4:30) and will take two electives on Thursdays. Fridays my youngest has a movie making class and scouts, and I will work with the 6th grader and oldest (who will also have his DE class). Add into that my 6th grader will have two piano lessons, one violin lesson, one composition lesson, and will do about 1.5-2 hours of music practice a day. Plus all the kids have therapy appointments. And the youngest is in 13 hours of PE classes a week. And to top it all off, they are all 2e, so they are all academically very advanced...but their executive function and independence are many, many years delayed, so my younger two do almost no work independently at all. It is a juggling act.

Isn't that called a graduation party? I mean the gifts I got at my graduation party (both money and objects) were a mere drop in the bucket compared to my total college costs, but I would assume that the gifts from the food truck shower (pots and potholders and the like) will be a drop in the bucket compared to the total start up cost of the business. And in both cases the recipient of the "shower" hosts a party and serves food, which further negates any financial benefit they receive.

I would say the same thing about a baby - if you can't afford the "start up" costs, then it does not bode well for the next 18 years because the barrage of science fair projects, braces, driver's training, etc. will make basic baby supplies look like chump change.

Couldn't the same be said about getting married or having a baby? And yet society has normalized asking your friends and relatives to give you not just the necessities (utilitarian, hand-made and pass-me-down gifts seem to have been the norm 100 years ago), but also luxuries and things your could easily borrow or do without. How could it be more tacky to ask a select group of family and close friends to help get a first business up and running...especially if they are hosting a party and providing a meal and not just asking for cash through a Go Fund Me.

I don't see why a new business shower is any weirder than a new marriage shower or new baby shower. I would greatly prefer to gift a young entrepreneur some equipment and supplies versus giving a young couple extravagant linens or a first time mom newborn size Air Jordan's.

One busy bag I made was about a dozen different duplos and pictures of different "patterns" they could make with them if they wanted. I just strategically chose my duplos, and then made some or all of them into different things (a flower, a house, a car, etc) and took a picture of each. I printed the pictures and included them in the bag. They could choose a picture, figure out which duplos they would need and how to put them together, make the pattern, and then take them apart and choose a different picture. Or, of course, they could just make their own design. Other ideas...the magnet tins from the Target dollar spot...the magnets are farm or dinosaur or insect themed, and the inside of the tin has scenes printed on it to arrange and play with the magnet figures. An eye spy bag. Lacing cards...I just gave them different colors of felt shapes with holes punches in them in various places and a variety of cool shoelaces. They could "sew" the felt shapes together to make designs. I cut the letters of their name out of sandpaper, glued them onto a cardboard card, and added arrows to show what direction to run their finger to write their name. If they showed interest in that, I would make their last name or other high interest words. And the one "busy bag" that continues to get pulled out at our house despite my youngest being 8 and these suckers being well over a decade old: Melissa & Doug Water Wow! books. Every one of my children has used all the ones we have hundreds of times by this point...and only my two teenagers have fully outgrown them at this point. 😄

iTalki can work very similarly to this...minus having one single curriculum. We have been using iTalki for about 5 years now, and Peter quickly found one tutor that he likes and has stuck with the whole time. Thankfully, her schedule is very, very open, so we can sign ourselves up for lessons whenever we want. I think they have a way of doing "Instant Lessons" that start right then, but we have always scheduled for the following day or later. And it is entirely possible to book lessons every day for a week (or even more than once a day) and then none for the following week, or whatever you want. And if you don't find one tutor who has an open enough schedule, then you can find two or three and switch between them based on who is available. But there is definitely not one set curriculum. Even with Peter only taking lessons with one tutor (who is a community tutor, not a professional tutor), they don't follow a curriculum. They play chess and Pictionary. They do digital escape rooms and word games. They talk about world events in Colombia and the US. Lately, Peter has been tutoring the tutor in math and helping her learn to divide fractions. Sometimes it seems the tutor is choosing activities based on language constructions she wants Peter to practice, but most of the time her goal is to just keep Peter talking and listening. If she doesn't understand Peter then she will ask questions and help him circumlocute until she does or offer him a vocabulary word he is lacking, but it is actually rare for any of their lesson time to sound school-y at all. But the tutor is very clearly a master of providing comprehensible input, and Peter's Spanish skills have skyrocketed while taking lessons with her. With the added benefit that Peter loves the sessions and learns a lot despite not being very motivated or making the best use of the time.

I have spoken to principals in our district at the middle and high school level, and they all say that our district has very consciously adopted the philosophy of "only ask kids to do what they will willingly do" aka "done is better than undone" aka "don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good". I can see both sides of the issue. On one hand, I know that even 30 years ago when I was in high school, a lot of kids did not care about grades, did not pay attention in class, did not do any homework, and therefore did not actually get educated. And it is easy to think, well, the joke will be on them when they can't get a job. But, unskilled, unemployable or under-employable adults are a huge strain on society. And, as we have often discussed on the boards, having kids graduate able to add simple fractions and estimate percentages for a tip is way more valuable than flunking them out of Algebra 2, even if we think they could have learned the higher math if they had applied themselves. So I truly do understand the philosophy of: if we assign a three page paper, they won't write anything and will get no practice whatsoever...so let's try assigning a five paragraph essay and having them write it during class time. I have four kids with autism and two with ODD, so I know about picking my battles. On the other hand, ugh, that philosophy leads to a very, very low bar. And not just a low bar, but a low ceiling too because even Advanced and AP courses follow this pedagogy...though, for AP courses they do say to expect 30-60 minutes of homework a week, as opposed to no homework whatsoever in any other classes at any other levels. Peter found that the only courses that were "allowed" to be interesting and challenging were the electives because kids didn't have to take them. So, in Peter's Advanced English 9 class, 81% of students ended up earning an A, 12% B and 3% C. So, on paper, low standards for the win there because most students were clearly "excelling" at the tasks they were being given. Same with AP Calc: 68% A, 20% B and 3% C. But the electives Forensic Science (34% A, 31% B, 14% C, and 10% D) and Game Design (55% A, 3% B, 6% C, and 21% D), actually required Peter to learn and think and work. He liked those better and got A's in both.