My kids are all reluctant writers, and they have done well with Lantern English. I just sign them up for the 8 week writing courses. I really like Lantern's concrete, matter-of-fact instruction. And I love outsourcing the feedback and grading to someone who has a better understanding of age appropriate expectations - and someone my kids will listen to less defensively than if I try to offer them feedback.

When my oldest was born, my parents lived 3 hours away. So not insurmountable, but not a weekly visiting distance either. Starting when my son was about 9-12 months old, my mom started having playdates with him over Skype every week or so. I would put DS in his Pack-n-Play with some toys in front of my computer so he could see my mom and she could see him. She would read him books, sing songs, play color and counting games, etc. During those times I would stay busy elsewhere so they could form their own bonds and inside jokes. To this day my mom has Skype playdates with the kids. Just the other day Audrey called Nana up and asked if she would help her draw a dog (I am not an artist, so I am no help with that type of thing), and they spent an hour working with colored pencils and oil pastels "together". My mom has had weekly book clubs with the kids, and my dad has gone through most of the levels of Code.org with each of my kids using a mixture of Skype and remote desktop control. At least once a month we have my parents virtually "over" for dinner so they can catch up with all the kids. Another tradition that has helped my kids grow close to my parents are their yearly birthday visits. My parents give time instead of gifts for birthdays. Each child stays with Nana and Papa for about a week sometime around their birthday and gets to experience being an only child. They choose the meals, the TV programs, the activities, etc. They rarely do anything super special or expensive - Audrey is on her birthday visit right now, and her top requests were going to pet the cats at their next door neighbor's and drilling holes in wood with the power drill. 😄

I think those are great paragraphs in terms of ideas, details and organization. I think his Michigan paragraph has lots of great details - the mine, the agates, the little fish. It starts with a strong topic sentence, is organized chronologically, and uses diverse sentence structures. The grammar and punctuation are rough, but a lot of that would be easily auto-corrected if he were typing. I think the Texas paragraph starts awkwardly because in the topic sentence he says he wants to go to Denton, but the entire paragraph is actually hyperfocused on just going to the factory. If he reworked his topic sentence to reflect that the factory is where he really wants to do, I think the paragraph would flow more easily. Other than that, I think it is a strong paragraph which is well structured and includes a lot of details. The conclusion sentence is awkward, but that is because he is trying to link it back up to Denton which is largely disconnected from the actual topic of the paragraph. Did your son brainstorm or outline before writing these paragraphs? Have you considered letting him type or dictate or talk-to-type his writing? I know with my kids, if I force them to write by hand, they write less quantity and poorer quality...or just shut down when faced with the overwhelming task of handwriting that much. With my fifth grader, I have him brainstorm by using talk-to-type to get phrases onto paper quickly and painlessly. He prints that, cuts the phrases apart, and groups/orders them into a rough outline. Then he types or talk-to-types his rough draft from his outline. Lastly, he edits for spelling, grammar and punctuation. Right now he can produce one longer, stronger paragraph similar to what your son wrote, or he is getting better at linking 3-5 shorter paragraphs into a connected essay.

We just ran into this exact dichotomy. My 9th grader is going through a bit of a doesn't-want-to-do-anything phase, so I signed us up for a tour of the local (very large, highly ranked) high school. Now, granted, DS's position is a bit unique. He would be entering half-way through 9th grade with 7 complete, official, public school and dual enrollment credits already. But three of those credits are science, one math, two social studies, and one PE/health. No English, because we were very clear with the high school principal that DS hates English, particularly writing, with a passion. So imagine DS's dismay when the principal said that he would recommend honors English 9 plus four APs and an elective for ninth. And then in 10th grade AP Seminar along with four other AP classes. When DS protested that he hates English, and why couldn't he just be in regular English 9 and then regular English 10, the principal explained that those classes would be far too easy for him. That those classes, "only read one book all year and spend all their writing time on emails and five paragraph essays." He also made the point that AP Seminar is important for students who will be taking a lot of AP classes (the school offers 22) because that will teach them how to write strong exam responses on all their AP tests. On one hand, that spiel was an excellent reminder to DS of exactly how much he did not want to go to school. OTOH, I found it depressing that there was no middle ground - take full loads of APs to prepare for college or sleep through regular classes with ludicrously low expectations. DS also asked about homework load, and was told the school policy is that regular classes have little to no homework, and AP classes have about 30 minutes each per night...again two ends of the spectrum, neither of which seems great.

DH, 14 year old, 12 year old and I got flu and the newest COVID shots 3 weeks ago. The COVID one was rough on all of us except the 12 year old (who may have already had some exposure to the newest Covid variants in public school). We were achy and very tired starting at the 12 hour mark and lasting 1-2 days. This was a smaller reaction than with my very first COVID shot, but larger than any of my others, and larger than any of my DH's (who has had very mild reactions to all of them) or DS's (who had almost no reactions to any of his in the past). DD (turning 8 in a couple days) had her flu 3 weeks ago (no reaction) and her COVID first thing this morning. I started to see her droop this afternoon, but she chose to rally to make it through 3 hours of gymnastics this evening. On the way home, though, she was soooo much more tired than normal, but said her head hurt too much to fall asleep. Once I gave her ibuprofen and got her into bed, she was out like a light. There is nothing important on her schedule tomorrow, so she can sleep the day away if she needs to. I'm hoping she will be 100% recovered by her birthday on Sunday.

my version is 30 days hath September April, June, and November. All the rest have 31 'Cept February which has 28 And Leap Year brings another date Which has a clear AABCC rhyming pattern

Well, we have specific time sign posts based on where we need to go each day. My public schooler needs to be on the bus at 7:30, so that dictates when we all get up and eat breakfast. Then, for example, two days a week I need to leave at 10:30 to take my oldest to dual enrollment. So we all have goals for what subjects will be accomplished by then. I try to have the last subject in the block be something like reading or typing that can expand or contact to fill the remaining time depending on how long the previous subjects took. Then 10:30 is the end of that block, I jump in the car with the youngest and the oldest, and leave the 10 year old home (DH works from home) to practice piano until we get home. When we get home we eat lunch and then head to back to back therapy for the 7 and 10 year olds where each gets 30 minutes of independent work time and 30 minutes of one on one time with me while their sibling is with the therapist. So that is how our days go. I think of each different block or work location separately and plan what we hope to accomplish. Days have 0 to 3 separate work blocks, and I am always taking note of which ones run smoothly, which ones cause stress, which ones get finished too early, etc.

MOTH? Is that Managers of their Home? I don't have any experience with that. Once my kids are in upper elementary we make their schedules together...and expect to tweak them multiple times until they work well for us. We start by marking all the sleep, meals, hygiene, chores, and scheduled activities on a weekly calendar. Then we make a list of all the "school" activities and how long we expect them to take: Math (30 minutes) x 6 sessions, etc. Then we start plugging "school" into the weekly schedule. If we run out of empty time long before we run out of school stuff, then we have to majorly re-evaluate. More commonly, we run out of empty time with just a couple school activities left, and we have to make a couple choices like dropping from 4 spelling sessions to 3, etc. The most important step is then seeing how the schedule works for the next couple weeks. Did we try to pack too much into Monday morning before piano? Are spelling sessions regularly taking longer than allotted; should we allow more time or split up the lessons into smaller bites?, etc.

I've always approached this from the other direction and decided how much free time was healthy for each individual child. My current 9th grader has some interesting, very worthwhile hobbies (art, Dungeons and Dragons, robotics), but he would NEVER willingly spend free time on anything more productive than texted meme wars with his friends, so I tend to limit his truly free time to 2 hours or less per day. It's not that he doesn't want to spend time on his hobbies, but he has autism, ADHD and anxiety, and mustering the executive function to choose and implement a hobby is much harder for him than just sitting down and letting his phone mindlessly entertain him. So for him I mentally categorize some activities as "recreational", meaning they are structured and organized rather than free-choice, but they are activities that he enjoys once I prop him into it. Therefore, to create a schedule for him, I start with an empty week and then mark out sleep, meals, hygiene, chores, free time and recreational activities that I am insisting on. Then I fill the rest with "school", making sure to leave plenty of margin for filling his water bottle or checking the mail box about every 30 minutes. 😏 That means he ends up with quite a bit of "school" time, but it is certainly not endless desks and textbooks. That "school" is a mix of really horrible things (writing) and fairly enjoyable things (Great Courses Lectures) that add up to a well rounded education. Also of note, our lives and schedules don't lend themselves at all to a neat breakdown of daily subjects. My kids spend one whole day in a Spanish immersion program, so they accomplish very little other school that day. They also spend one full day at a pubic school shared-time program taking in-person electives, so again, very little other school gets done. Add in music lessons, gymnastics, dual enrollment, therapy appointments for everyone and three kids' worth of extracurriculars, and every day looks different - I aim for their lives to be well rounded at the week and month levels, not at the day level. I am thankful my state has almost no regulation, and that I don't have to make meaningless distinctions about what "counts".

I don't understand; what did you want them to write? If you got 21 messages, then obviously you can't sell to all of them. Did you want all 21 of them to instead write, "I'd like to buy them."? So you just wanted them to assume the tires were still available because the ad hadn't been deleted...even if the buyers had lots of past experience telling them there would be a feeding frenzy and in all likelihood you would get a bunch of messages before you had a chance to delete the ad? Which is in fact what happened? And therefore, for the vast majority of the respondents, the tires were in fact not still available?

OTOH, our orthodontics office is not big on splitting work into two phases unless teeth are clearly causing a current problem. Even with my daughter whose bottom teeth are biting into and scarring her palate, they still said it was entirely up to us if we wanted to do the expander now or wait and do everything together when she is older. We decided to go with the two phase because she is in pain and having severe speech delays, but they said from an orthodontic perspective, we could have waited a few years, done all the work in one phase, and gotten the same final results as the two phase process.

My youngest (7) has an expander right now. Our ortho said we could wait and do an expander and braces when DD is older, but her underbite is so severe that she was biting into the roof of her mouth causing pain and scarring. Plus, we think it is really impacting her speech, and making it hard for her to communicate. She has had the expander for six weeks, and we expect her to keep it for 10 months. (Then a retainer at night for a couple years, then braces when she is ten or eleven.) It is annoying on many levels, but we have settled into a routine. And after a first bout of cranking it every night, now we don’t have to do that for the time being. I remind DD about my aunt who had a mouth shape just like DD’s. My aunt grew up before expanders, so they waited until she was 19 and then broke her jaw to realign it. That was incredibly painful, and she had to have her mouth wired shut for a prolonged period. An expander is definitely the way to go - despite all its inconvenience.

Since Lantern's focused writing classes are only 8 weeks, they are meant to build on one another. Their class Choosing and Using Sources, which is the first high school writing class in the progression before Expository and Persuasive essays, spends 8 weeks covering all the bolded things you mentioned. So both Expository Essay 1 and Persuasive Essay 1 cover a very brief review of those topics, but mostly jump right into writing that type of essay.

I think it can also largely depend on what type of care you and your family require. Our insurance fully covered my weight loss surgery. I didn't pay anything for pre-op appointments, hospital stay, surgery or post-op. OTOH, we have four kids with chronic mental health and developmental concerns, and those are bleeding us dry. Of the four plans offered to DH through his employer, we choose the most expensive. But on top of that, for the last 10 year we always hit our out of pocket max. This year, we met our deductible in February, and hit our OOP max in June. So, on one hand, our insurance is "working". It is doing its job as a safety valve and stepping in to protect us from the sky-high costs of a medical crisis. Except, our medical "crisis" is chronic, so no one year of medical costs is bankrupting us, but year after year after year of paying over 10% of our income toward healthcare is putting a significant strain on our finance. And for how much we pay, we also have to deal with HUGE amounts of red tape and stress. DH or I spend about 2 hours a week on the phone with the insurance company (or the insurance company's mandated pharmacy) trying to get services or prescriptions covered. It takes a situation that is incredibly difficult physically, emotionally and psychologically on its own, and makes it also bureaucratically and financially treacherous.

The hospitals around me are a constant flow of hundreds of people in and out an hour. Often several bottom floors are devoted to outpatient x-ray and other testing. People go there weekly for all types of therapies. Doctors have offices, so people are walking through to get to routine appointments.

I read this as "We start around age 36..." and I immediately liked the idea of putting spelling on the back burner for one of my kids - way, way on the back burner - and trying again in 30ish years. 😁

As you so succinctly put it: "If you don’t understand that I can’t explain it to you."

He was probably with his wife during the surgery. And his own mother was at the hospital. But by the time your mother sent cousin to the hospital, surgery was over and the new dad had sent pictures and good tidings, so everyone knew nothing had gone wrong. So, my question remains. At that point, with mom, dad, baby, mom's mom and dad's mom at the hospital, what support could have been lacking that a more distant relative could have provided.

I don't understand. What kind of support could dad need from extended family?

Okay, but according to your original post, his mom was at the hospital, so she was included even if she was not in the delivery room...which it would not surprise me if neither mom were in the delivery room since it was a C-section. So my point stands that for all we know, the new mom would have been more comfortable with just her own mom around shortly after giving birth and having major surgery. And even allowing MIL to be there could have been a compromise between her family culture and nephew's.

Your family, your nephew, is the father, not the mother. Her family culture will be the driving factor in what she is comfortable with during her birth. For all we know, her family culture would have only included her own mother in the birth, and even including his mother as well was already a compromise on her part.

I agree that this sounds more like a difference in family culture or personal preference than a sudden or generational change. I am 42 years old, and when I was born only my mother's mother came to the hospital...and she just visited for a short time the day after I was born. When I had my kids, I did not have anyone other than DH come to the hospital. Even I was barely at the hospital because I wanted out. I headed home as close to 24 hours after giving birth as possible.

Those hours would count even if he weren’t running the actual event. Plenty of organizations look for volunteers just to cut/staple/laminate/prep materials for someone else to use at an event or in a class.

I don't understand what you are asking. "What am I going to do?" Like I said, I'm not particularly concerned for my son, and won't do much of anything. He is significantly advanced academically, and has tons of supports written into his IEP to help with emotional, behavioral and executive function weaknesses.

I always start by having my kid articulate and actually write down what their goals are in the situation. (At this stage they sometimes need help realizing how important a certain goal might be that isn't even on their radar.) Then I ask them to write down a bullet list of red flags that they feel with be early indicators that they are not headed toward their goals. (Again, I gently guide as much as they will let me, using phrases like, "Once X happened to me, so now I know to watch out for Y.") Lastly, I strongly encourage them to brain storm possible responses if the red flags do occur. I point out that when things are going off the rail, they will want to act quickly, so it will be helpful if they already have planned at least one step to take. Then I sit back (on pins and needles) and watchfully wait (impatiently) , ready to jump in and help problem solve (if they let me) if those red flags crop up.