What *I* missed the first time around was the Bloomberg story about Schwarzman being contacted by Harvard admissions a few years ago to say they made a mistake!! Can this possibly be true?? Really, I cannot believe it.

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/21/opinion/sunday/harvard-admissions-needs-moneyball-for-life.html OK, I thought this was hilarious. "Projecting the future dollar value of a 17-year-old high school student is not a simple matter. We now all agree that the problem cannot be left to unaided human judgment. We in admissions have followed the Harvard Management Company’s suggestion, read the book about statistics that you kindly sent over, and created an algorithm. Tested retroactively on a generation of college graduates, it has proved far more efficient in identifying “high yield targets†than any other known college selection process."

I haven't read any of there responses. However, as the mom who had to repeatedly send one child home, and whose mother griped at me repeatedly about singling him out, I have to say honestly that if your child is involved in free form neighborhood play and your perception is that she is being singled out for persecution, you need to supervise the kids. Period. I could not possibly supervise the neighbor kids in my yard, because they are here for many hours a day, but I do sometimes supervise and when I did, I observed this boy stirring up trouble over and over again. If you are not there, you don't really know for sure what is happening.

Well, heartlikealion, I appreciate your honesty. In case anyone wonders, here is the conclusion sentence to a systematic review of 355 studies of myofunctional therapy: The findings of the present systematic review demonstrate the scarcity of consistent studies and scientific evidence supporting the use of OMT in combination with orthodontic treatment to achieve better results in the correction of dentofacial disorders in individuals with orofacial abnormalities. No one wishes more than me that exercising my son's tongue 4 times a day for 10 weeks would make this expense and discomfort unnecessary. I recognize that orthodontia is not a perfect clinical modality either. But I really think it's important to understand the basis for claims made by alternative practitioners, because they may persuade people away from interventions that actually have a chance of working.

I know that explanation for the abbreviation. I am interested in OMT as a degree or certification. Can people who do a more limited degree than osteopathy school use this designation for themselves? She has it listed after her name as a degree. Are there articles about it on Pub Med? Please link.

Can you point me to any actual scientific research articles supporting the use of myofunctional therapy? I am suspicious of people who claim "extensive training" at "The University of Mississippi, Northwest University School of Medicine, and the UCLA School of Medicine." without listing the degrees or programs completed. She has a nursing degree and an "OMT" and I do not know what that is.

No, he does not have TMJ, grind his teeth, and I don't think he clenches-how would I know about clenching?

Seriously??? I had no idea at all that some kids get orthodontic treatment for such a long period of time. That makes me feel better actually-because I thought my ds was a *total* outlier. I suppose he is atypical, but I cannot even imagine such a long period of treatment. I guess it's what is sometimes needed for extensive problems.

My youngest was cursed with the underbite his father, grandfather and others before him have, though his is much more severe. He has had his braces for almost 4 years now. Not surprisingly, despite being really conscientious about dental hygiene (for a kid his age IMO) he now has some cosmetic damage to his teeth. Ugh. But that is almost the least of it. He has had everything. First, extractions of 8 of his baby teeth, then brackets on all the the adult teeth. That, I suppose is expected. Then, an 18 month wait for the rest of his baby molars to come out, while no real new treatment was happening and the brackets were just sitting there (doing their damage; I wish I had insisted they be taken off, knowing what I know now). Orthodontist retired and new one takes over his practice and REAL treatment finally starts. In the year since we started seeing her, he has had: new brackets, a palate expander, headgear, spacers to allow rings on other molars that were too crowded for them, and a referral to get his wisdom teeth removed to make room for crowded molars. He has been a trooper, but unfortunately as he has gone through his growth spurt, his jaw growth has outpaced all effort to get those top teeth and jaw-the whole middle of his face really-ahead of the bottom ones. Every time we go in, we think the expander and headgear are ending, and she begs him for a little more time to work on it. As it stands now, after almost 4 years of orthodontic treatment, he is still looking at surgery when he is around 20 to remove a part of his jaw to allow his teeth and entire facial structure to be where it's supposed to be. The only reason I've continued with what seems like torture is that his grandfather endured $30,000 worth of dental work and surgery as a middle aged man to deal with headaches, chronic pain and the gradual loss of his teeth. Today we learned he is taking his headgear to summer camp in July. We thought the expander was possibly coming out today. Granted, he only wears it at night, and believe me, I'm more upset about this than he is. But the mama bear in me wants to go after someone or something...bless you if you've read this far!!

Without reading all of the responses, I'll suggest a few: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson (history of science-we used as RA) The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot (of local interest-and the science is fascinating, plus some ethics thrown in) A Brief History of Time or A Briefer History of Time by Stephen Hawking Relativity Simply Explained by martin Gardner More later as I think of them

I am most definitely one of those clueless people who often forgets names in similar situations, so I hope it is not an insult. My excuse is just that I have a very busy life and a lot on my mind, but in fact probably no busier than anyone else. I'm just plain BAD at remembering names. So please don't take it personally IF that is the only issue. However, you said she slighted your daughter before-in what way?

I think that this problem (loss of faith at college) really is a subset of a larger issue: kids who are greatly influenced by peers. I can say with pride that at least one, now I think two and even possibly all three of my kids have avoided this. It has more to do with who they are as people than the campus, IMO. I have an abstinent young adult and I also have some fears of bad genes in this regard, and I am grateful for his abstinence, but I don't think I can honestly take complete credit for it, certainly not in fact as his brother is NOT abstinent. LOL. But even the brother is sensible at least and has his priorities. IMO, kids leave home with their characters pretty formed and this will then be played out in a different environment, where self-control and achievement are not always celebrated. If you want your child to hold onto his or her character once departed from home, or at least, hold onto the positive parts, it's important to cultivate maturity, rather than fear of people who are different. NOT so easy. And maturity has its downsides, because as I've learned, with it comes not only reluctance to be a follower of peers, but a reluctance to be a follower of parents.

They are just darling! And the ponies are cute too LOL! I love how the baby is looking at your son in the second picture. Very photogenic.

I assume that the OP is talking not about ESP, which is my understanding of the term "precognition". If I understand the book correctly, the author has pointed out that we should trust our feeling of mistrust of people who follow us, or lurk nearby without any clear purposefulness behind their actions, or even basically set off our inner "creep sensor". It's a difficult situation, because studies have also confirmed that even well-intentioned people are irrationally biased-in fact even African-Americans have measurable bias against other African-Americans. So trusting one's gut is something that can potentially lead us to mistrust perfectly harmless people who are no threat at all. OTOH, my creep sensor has been completely right, scarily so, in at least one situation so I do believe that Gavin deBecker is right.

Op, I am so happy for you. We just redid our very dated kitchen (early 70's orange formica, anyone?) and I LOOOOOVE it so much. I cook a lot, spend a lot of time in the kitchen so it means so much to me. What I love it that I have seating now in the kitchen, and things are quick and convenient where I can easily reach them. Ellie's list is very similar to mine: Loves: -sink faces large indoor window (just a space, no glass) looking over part of fmaily room to big windows of sun room -new window over stove-sounds crazy but he light makes a huge difference. -gas cooktop, electric oven -linoleum floor-absolutely love it -larger fridge-when there were 7 of us (2 bonus children for awhile) old small fridge was a huge pain and I had to go to the store every day -I have a pantry now and I love it so much!! -lights under cabinets -corner has enough space for small table and chairs. Kitchen before had no place to sit -counter with room for stools over sink gives more seating, place for quick meals or home-while-mom-cooks -section of bucher block counter between range and fridge where I cook, make sandwiches and small meals, chop stuff. It has a knife slot. Love it. -large bar on front of sink for hanging hand towel. Dislikes:none really. If I could change one thing, I would put a light right over the sink where it is a little dim in the winter after dark

Is your glasses prescription up to date? If it's changed much that could make a big difference.

This may be an individual difference. When I was a kid, or even now, at home, criticism is like poison. OTOH, I did improve my performance for my mom in order to avoid some of the criticism. But it still felt bad. I think I would probably try to validate first and foremost. IF I offered a critique, it would take the form of doing the job with the kid the next time to teach.

It's interesting-I don't have a daughter, but my SIL, who has three, and one son, has said more than once that she wishes her girls would tell her LESS-as in, she sometimes feels like they share more info than she really wants to know-info that she never in a million years would have shared with her own mom. While she appreciates the closeness with her daughters, I think she also wonders if they are dependent on her too much. IMO, that is hardly the case-they are definitely growing up and moving on with life. So I think part of what we are talking about may be a gender difference, part may be the quality of the relationship with the kid, and part is just plain ole tempermental differences. I do know that when oldest, who I mentioned above, was an exchange student in Germany, when he was 17-he did not contact us for almost 2 months when he first arrived. I was obsessively checking that little green dot on FB that tells you when someone is there, or when they were last there. As a disclaimer, we did hear by email fairly often from his host parents. Not calling or emailing (as he had requested, and AFS encourages) was tough.

Yes to this. I hear very very little detail from my student. Enough that I KNOW he could have deceived us in the way the Quill describes. Except for the fact that we directly pay the university so we would definitely know if he left and didn't take classes. He elects to tell me his grades, though not even necessarily which ones for which classes. I have bitten my tongue nearly off not asking for more detail-I do sometimes, and it is forthcoming, though a bit reluctantly. He does mention friend occasionally, and does mention juggling, an activity that he's very involved in. Just not a really effusive sharer.

I have three boys and the middle one in particular started off big-almost 10 lbs. at birth, and grew quickly. He was a chunky toddler, and always very tall for his age, but definitely showed an inclination to grow thinner as he got older. He's 18 now, 6'2' and quite thin-about 150 pounds I think. I am sorry to say that despite my efforts his diet is filled with junk.

I think it depends on your goals. If you and\or your child are driven, and the teacher is holding him back from progress through shoddy technique\teaching, then it's time to move on. If you have more modest goals, and your child is not that driven to become a really excellent player, then it probably doesn't matter, IF you otherwise like the teacher.

OR!!!! Of course. I think I need another cup of tea.

My eighth grader has ADD so we have been using a planner for at least 3 years now. This year I've been working on transitioning him to writing, checking, and maintaining his planner list independently. He isn't quite totally there yet, but he's made significant progress. Since he is transitioning to school in the fall, I want him to carry this skill with him. With an ADD child, there is so very much re-covering ground that you think you've already fully covered. And with him, I find I need to make so many things explicit that, to me, seem to be obvious. Things like-writing down the actual assignment, not just the subject. Checking it and updating throughout the day. Completing tasks fully, not jumping from one to another when he encounters a snag. It is a continual process of checking in with him, discussing, reviewing, reinforcing the list, etc. He is not independent yet with it, but I plan to continue the process of refining the use of this tool after school starts in the fall.

If you have the book, it's the second lesson of chapter 13, Inequalities, in Paul Foerster's Algebra 1 book. The example: 3x+11<3(x+7) BUT it says less than or equal to, not less than. I can't find that symbol on my computer. The solution is 11<21 (less than or equal to), or the set of all real numbers. In the problems for this section, there is a similar problem: 4x<37+4x Again the symbol in the book is less than or equal to. The answer again in the set of all real numbers. What my son and I don't understand is-why is 11=21 and 0=37 in these problems, respectively? I would assume the less than or equal to sign was a typo if it didn't show up in 2 different problems. Can anyone explain? Can anyone explain how I taught this twice before and did not catch it? (I'm embarrassed!)

Yes-I think planning a semester at a time for the next year or 18 months would be ideal, but that is problematic when you are still in "high school" though it sounds like your daughter is well into college level already for many subjects. OTOH, the fact that she is accelerated means that she has the luxury of time. There is no pressure to finish anything by the end of the next year. If she falls "behind" it's only behind her absolute potential, not the timetable of most high school kids. So that is good. I am so sorry your daughter has to deal with something like lupus when she is so young. (((hugs))) for both of you. Now at least, you know what you are dealing with.