This is news to none of us, I am sure: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/26/opinion/sunday/nicholas-kristof-are-you-smarter-than-an-8th-grader.html The editorialist is frustratingly short of ideas for improving math education in the USA. I am off to ask my eighth grader to answer the questions he poses. I'll let you all know how he does.

Kai I am so sorry to hear about your son's illness and the stressful situation! I hope all is well very soon. Please update us when you know more!

Marathon Bars! I have reminisced about these aloud and my kids would love to try them.

OK at the risk of dating myself I will mention (again, as this came up recently) the incredible troll from the old boards who said her 12 yo had gotten pregnant in the bathroom of their church during co-op. She invented alter egos (several!) who posted messages in support on the massive, huge thread when she announced the pregnancy. Someone here (I thought Mrs. Mungo) did some research and discovered IP addresses for several of the posters in the thread, including of course the troll OP, were identical, and exposed her. The aftermath of that lasted for awhile. People here felt so incredibly betrayed. But it was like watching a slow motion train wreck. I could NOT turn away. C'mon everyone. I need to be entertained here. Could someone please start a thread about sex or self-administered bikini waxing or something??

Well since I have two out of two college kids attending their safeties, I'm not enthusiastic at all about this idea. It's the kind of thing that honestly makes me think that there must be some way for applicants to fight back against a rigged system.

Count me amongst the monitors. I think it's wonderful that you and your daughter have conversations about her relationships. You must have a strong relationship and that is sooooo valuable. Really, it sounds like the problem is more that you are upset and anxious about the situation. Keep talking. Try to remember your own adolescence and how awkward things were. Meditate. I think coaching her is very appropriate. Just because some kids don't seek or accept this from their parents, it doesn't mean you shouldn't. Also, maybe there is a book out there to help her cope with boundaries? Hold Onto Your Kids gets into some of this and might be worth a read or re-read. One thing I have told my kids many times is that choosing to engage in romance when you are not seeking marriage means there WILL be broken hearts, rejection (and rejecting is as hard as being rejected IMO), and even perhaps the risk of unplanned pregnancy. It's not so much that I am trying to discourage them from engaging in dating relationships, more that I want them to remember that no one is entitled to have the enjoyment without the risks. And getting hurt is a risk. Truth be told, I'd rather they wait until they were more mature.

Home canned tomatoes. I think those are a possible common source of botulism.

It's a hot button issue because American moms have been arrested, charged with felonies, gotten threatened with having their kids taken away and obtained criminal records because of it. It's not simply a parenting choice.

As creekland has pointed out, your posts about this family are particularly relevant to the topic of this thread because the kind of judgements you are making about this family are very much like the kind of judgement that allows people to feel OK about summoning the police to the scene of a child in a car or walking home from the park. No, you haven't called the police. But I think there is a more compassionate way of seeing the situation, as that of a family who has made a different choice than your family has made, and for which you see no clear reason. As many posters have pointed out, there may be factors about the situation that you are not aware of. Regardless, if we are to live together as a community, we have to be ready to allow for different choices about all kinds of things; transportation, levels of child supervision, choices of baby feeding, whether to employ babysitters and how much etc etc. I would argue that finding a way to feel OK about how one's neighbors choose to live, unless real, significant harm is involved, is a really important issue for all of us. As long as we continue to separate ourselves by judging, the slide away from supportive community toward isolation will continue.

I can tell you that it matters *a lot* to at least one administrator. I found myself in a social situation with a recently retired Dean from a top school. She told me that it's common knowledge that the top administrators of the school, along with its Board, have put a very high priority on moving the school from "top" to "tippy top" within a certain time period or heads will roll. I think there is a subset of driven high schoolers out there to which it matters very much too.

I do too. Just the idea of enjoying a quiet cup of tea with a friend while my baby was sleeping would have made me happy some days! I just returned from a trip to Japan and Japanese people most definitely do this. They also leave their pocketbooks in the stroller outside the store or restaurant. I was reminded of what a fearful culture we live in here in the USA. But it is all part of the exaggerated (IMO) fear we have of people we do not know. While I was there, I saw a boy, probably 3 or 4, who got separated from his parents at the airport bag claim area-so lots of people milling around. He started to cry and I was amazed to see his smiling parents come for him from across the room, clearly not worried in the least that they were in this crowd and could not see their little boy.

http://www.salon.com/2015/04/19/what_a_horrible_mother_moms_arrested_for_leaving_their_kids_in_the_car/ I find the entire phenomenon of calling the police when kids are left alone, in cars, in a park, or whatever, to be amazing, shocking, but most of all, sad. I guess I think-if you see a child alone playing or in a car, and are concerned about his or her welfare, you can choose to call the police, or, you can choose to watch them yourself. It seems like such a total breakdown of community to criminalize these situations. I feel like criminalizing these acts is a further step away from a shared sense of responsibility for our children, and toward a kind of extreme individualism that sees any child away from its parents as a potential victim, about to be preyed upon, and sees the parents who are not physically with their child every moment of the day as neglectful. It just naturally leads to more judgement of parents, particularly moms. One line of the article that made a strong impression on me: "The solitude of raising kids outside of strong communities can be crushing; and left to ourselves, we all become worse parents than we hoped to be." For me, that statement captures the essence of the situation. We are basically raising children in a highly artificial environment where moms are often alone with their offspring for many hours of the day, day after day. I don't think that is healthy for mothers or children. OTOH, once you have coped with that kind of pressure and isolation for years, you might find it tempting to pass judgement on someone else who has chosen an less difficult path for themselves and their children. At least, that is how I remember feeling when I was the mother of young children. The temptation to judge other mothers who used more day care than I did was strong, because I felt I had given up something that they had not chosen to give up.

We made a nice photo collage when this happened to our family pet. We still have it and we are fortunate we had photos of him in his "favorite places" so it helped us remember him just as he was. I'll be thinking of you and your little ones. ((hugs))

Eldest ds will be doing a second summer of math research at his school, moving in August (into a different off-campus house), and visiting at home in May and again in August. Hoping to plan a small family vacation around his later visit. Middle ds, graduating high school and deferring until spring semester, will be working on driving, hoping to get his license; doing NaNoWriMo in the fall, and working at some kind of job-he is hoping for something outdoors like a lumber yard or landscaping. He's also going to be a volunteer tutor at a local homeless men's job training center until he finds paid work.

We have been in a similar situation, in that ds was choosing between an in-state public and OOS, VERY exensive private school. Fortunately for us, the public option is pretty widely acknowledged to be a better school, academically speaking, and that, plus the option to live at home the first semester, and the public's academic strength in techie and engineering disciplines, made it the semi-obvious choice. The benefit in terms of cost was frosting on the cake! I don't envy those of you who are coping with a more "balanced" picture between the options. Best wishes to you Quill. I don't think it's unreasonable AT ALL for you to push her toward the cheaper option as long as you think it's equally strong academically. But it sounds like it might even be the BETTER choice. So push away : )

I am not sure of the exact procedure, but I know that all volunteers and even perhaps *members* are screened, because a few years back the entire congregation got a letter about a convicted sex offender (pretty ugly history-not just a minor offense) had joined the church and had agreed to abide by a no-volunteering policy, AND to the congregation being notified of his history. I felt a bit bad for him at the time, but honestly, I am grateful that we were notified.

Why not? Because I tried it and my kid got into serious trouble. Some teens are not ready to handle a lot of freedom. EVEN kids who handled it fine when they were younger. That was definitely what happened here.

The last word from me: our UU church has allowed the junior high and youth groups to have a yearly retreat or "lock-in" though we did not call it that. In our case, neither could go forward until several parent chaperones had signed up and committed to attending and staying the entire time. Teachers of all the grades are informed at the beginning of the year about rules WRT: being alone with students-we are never to do that. So there are rules out there governing these activities and some organizations make it work with the help of parents, who are included as partners in the supervision and education of the students. Even though I hate co-ed teen sleepovers, I did allow my kids to participate if one of us could chaperone.

I have not read all of the responses, and I am not a conservative Christian. But I also think overnights for teens in general are asking for trouble, and it really irritates me when other parents and organizations set them up and invite my kid. Co-ed sleepovers for teens? I think not. But I also am extremely unpopular here for these views. I personally would not feel comfortable with a youth minister, or any other 30 yo, personally or group communicating with my young teen without my knowledge or without including me in the texts. If you are looking for advice, I think you should sit down with him and have a serious talk about his failure to include you in the texts. I would give him one more chance to "get it right". After that, I would just honestly withdraw and look for a different situation. Churches and their youth groups are one hiding place for creeps. I would communicate this to him and tell him you suspect nothing (as I gather from your OP) but that what he is doing looks bad. I've been in situations that I honestly wish I had never allowed to start up and I found extremely hard to extricate myself from after the fact, so I am sympathetic.

Well, we had two girls, but they somehow managed babies (3!!) anyway. One was pregnant when we brought her home. Minecraft before math!

Just asked ds-he is the designated bill payer for his house and he sends electronic payments. In fact, I learned last fall that he actually carried all of the internet and gas and electric bills for the house for a lot of the semester until his housemates paid him in full at the end of the semester. He is a trusting soul : ) He has an account but does not ever use checks for anything, as far as I know.

There are several issues to consider. Board certifitcation is currently a huge hassle and some doctors are just choosing to defer re-certification to avoid this. If they never got the initial certification, that honestly would give me a small pause. But choosing a psychiatrist is a lot like choosing a college-fit is very important. Word of mouth recommendations are very important IMO. but you have to be willing to reveal to people that you are seeking psychiatric care and why. Can you ask your primary care, or a therapist?

Overactive thyroid would be a concern particularly since her father has endocrine problems. That is probably the most common cause in a young woman.

Our best prank was a few years back. The background is that my boys have particular preferences in what kind of underwear they wear, and it's NOT tidy whities. And the pranked child is very thin. His younger brother and I removed all the underwear from his drawer and replaced it with XXL tidy whities. We laughed for days. He was speechless.

I am a doctor. Many years ago when I was the tired mother of three little boys, I was working in my office and examining someone I had just seen for the first time. I was looking into her ears...and she turned to me and said, "Do you have a lot of boys in your house? You seem to be so calm...like someone who is used to a lot of chaos." I was stunned by her insight and then wondered just how bad I looked. LOL.