Disclaimer: as of this fall, I am no longer home schooling. My youngest just started high school. But I am still reading aloud! For him, it's The Once and Future King For 18 yo, I am reading Resilience: Hard Won Wisdom for Living a Better Life by Eric Greitens. He is transitioning slowly to adulthood and has had a serious depression, so it seemed apt. Many references to the ancients which my classical heart likes!

I am there with you. My parents are further down this curve as they are both older and have more health issues. They basically live in a very cluttered farmhouse, far out in the middle of nowhere, my father has dementia, and they no longer drive. And mobility is a significant problem for both of them. I live 6 hours away. After they were in a near-fatal (for both of them) car accident 18 months ago, I spent a lot of time up there. Life here at home kind of fell apart while I was away. I was forced to recognize that I cannot be the frontal lobes, bank account and amateur psychologist for so many people. They are not willing to consider moving, and I cannot leave my life here for months at a time to care for them. I was very fortunate to connect with a county social services organization in their county, and there learned the NY state generously provides a home health aide for 8 hours a week for elderly people who are in danger of needing to go to nursing homes. Yay for the nanny state. This woman has (almost) singlehandedly kept them home. My brother is on site and deals with their daily needs like grocery shopping, when the HHA does not get to it. He drives them to appointments. From where I sit, it seems like what anyone does for elderly parents depends a lot on what they accept.

Rufus Fears did Famous Greeks and Famous Romans. Both are excellent. He's a wonderful speaker. I can still hear him saying, "Outrageous arrogance!" Not sure if it's on Audible but one TC course I love and have listened to multiple times is Big History by David Christian. For one thing, I love his accent, it's very pleasant to listen to. but the concept of Big History really changed my thinking about history as a discipline and helped me to see better the direction of humanity. Loved this course so much.

Tom Sawyer. All three of my boys have loved this book. The humor, small-town safety, and Tom's triumphs and vulnerabilities spoke to their developing 12 and 13 year old souls. They also all read Huck Finn, but that is a more serious book, though it too is very funny. The humor of Huck Finn is less accessible, IMO, to younger teens.

I had one boy who did this. Nagging was not an option as it would have driven ME crazy. I had some success encouraging him to avoid it in public. Unfortunately, he seemed to transfer this habit to a pretty aggressive nail-biting habit that persists to this day (he is 22). One note-he was circumcised when he was 7 and that seemed to end it-I have wondered if he had a chronic irritation under his foreskin that was part of the issue.

Yes, once. Dh and I and 2 young kids were at the house of family friends, where we had arrived in separate cars. When we got home (only about 5 blocks away) we both realized that we thought the other had brought older ds, who was 6, home, but neither of us had. Easily remedied, no harm done. Ds thought it was hilarious that he had gotten away with "fooling" us as he had hidden to avoid having to leave before he was ready.

Another voice here encouraging at least waiting to see the grade. An even bigger issue, IMO, is having the experience of weathering a bump in the road and figuring out how to problem-solve when things have not gone well. I think it's a huge mistake to encourage kids to jump onto the bandwagon of "grades at all costs". Yes, it is how you polish your resume to make yourself look Ivy qualified-no question that college admissions these days (to very completive schools) demand a complete lack of any whiff of failure. Yet I think this failure avoidance does a disservice to students. Is your student amenable to guidance from you? If so, it could be a valuable learning experience for him to work with you to learn how to master the material. But navigating a challenge is valuable for its own sake.

If you want to start off with something VERY lighthearted and accessible, look at: http://www.amazon.com/Action-Philosophers-Vol-Fred-Lente/dp/0977832902/ref=sr_1_fkmr1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1442832777&sr=8-3-fkmr1&keywords=action+philosophers+dunlavy There are 3 volumes.

I've learned that a good academic advisor can be worth his\her weight in gold. Ds chose his advisor-meaning, when he decided on his major, he approached a favorite professor and asked if he would be his advisor. This man not only agreed, he has continued for 2 1\2 years now to be a trusted and very willing guide for my sometimes wayward student. Most recently, (ds is a senior) he was telling him about job offers and putting him in touch with his brother, who might be hiring young grads. From this I learned that choosing an advisor, rather than waiting for the school to assign one, can be a great way to start the relationship off on a positive note.

You know what annoys me about the story? The police are called out as the bad guys. It is the dodo at his SCHOOL that called the police in the first place. That person is almost completely ignored in the story and isn't even named.

I was about to suggest 3 of these! Infidel is a really good, thought-provoking and controversial book. The Immortal Life is one of my very favorite books. And Into Thin Air is also good. Good non-fiction I've listened to or read recently: The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule. Not In My Neighborhood by Antero Pietila. Interesting history of housing segregation-timely Mindsight by Daniel Siegel-Interesting psychology

My ds is also at UR. He did not apply to RIT, but one small data point is a friend of his who majored in CS and went on to a job at Google when he graduated. I know a big selling point for some students who choose UR is that they have few distribution requirements. There are some; all students must take a semester-long writing class, and each student must choose a major and satisfy the requirements for a cluster (any 3 courses) in the 2 disciplines outside the major-humanities, social sciences, and hard sciences. So a Chemistry major must take 3 social science courses and 3 humanities courses. Sticking with the theme of encouraging students to pursue their interests strongly, the school also encourages students to create interdisciplinary areas of study. And, IMO, they like home schoolers. The college magazine a few years back featured a front page article about home schooled twins who went there and seemed to definitely be reaching out to the home school community.

Perhaps I didn't scroll down far enough, but this page appears to be a series of short comments, akin to the comments at the end of some internet news articles. Did I miss something? Where is the background you are talking about? The only ones who do not come off well in the page are the cynical haters, which I guess is pretty typical of internet article comments!

Did anyone else notice that he was homeschooled? And she credits that with his willingness to not follow the crowd and do something daring just for fun. My first response was that this reminds me of my own childhood, to some extent. My parents had a lot of "antiques" that functioned as useful household objects: egg beaters, other appliances, tractors from the 1939's, most of our furniture. My second response was to really admire these people who are doing something just because they want to. I cannot imagine what is harmful about how they live. She mentions the hatred, open criticism, and threats containing the word "kill"-from random strangers. Honestly-why??? For dressing up like a Victorian couple and using and icebox? I just can't believe how hateful people are.

I've just started my career as a former home schooler! My youngest started high school a week ago. He is at a public contract school; different from a charter in some mysterious way that I don't understand. I would have preferred to continue teaching him, but he was firm in wanting to try school and so here we are. I so understand the worries. This child has had some learning struggles and is most definitely "2e" so I find I'm needing to figure out my role here: I want to continue to teach, and advocate for his best interests, but he is reluctant to allow this. Remembering how much his older brother struggled in high school, I am not comfortable distancing myself completely. This role is challenging to figure out.

The added "e" looks pretentious. JMO.

Honestly, assuming there was no true discrimination here, I think it's silly for someone to take a job as a flight attendant and somehow expect to continue to eschew serving alcohol. Religious basis or no...it's part of the basic job description. IMO she should have chosen a different vocation. I admire people who stand up for what they believe. But the people I've admired before have been those who refused to do something illegal that their employer directed them to do, or who honored a religious prohibition of a social behavior that was encouraged. No one is required to become a flight attendant. Or county clerk. Even the county clerk-I can understand her position, even if i don't agree, because the part of the job she objects to wasn't in her original job description. IMO one way to solve her problem is to just have some other person in her office issue any licenses she is unwilling to do. That would be completely fair, because she wouldn't have to do a part of her job (that changed after she signed up) that she objects to, people would still get their legal licenses. Then the ridiculous media circus might come to an end. And maybe there are some people who don't actually want that...

Are you kidding? After the apocalypse, there will be no schools! It will truly be an essential item for the well-educated post-apocalyptic child!

Sinusitis has been a target of efforts to reduce unnecessary antibiotics therapy because the data has shown that most people (40-70 percent, diagnosed by symptoms alone) with acute bacterial sinusitis get better without antibiotics, AND because it has been identified as a condition in which overuse of antibiotics is a big problem. ITA with those posters who've recommended what they call "extreme" measures to manage the condition without antibiotics. Hydration, steam, irrigation, and in some cases, antihistimines, guaiafenesin, decongestants, can all be tried. A meta-analysis that looked at 51 studies found that 80 percent of people with bacterial sinusitis who did not take antibiotics got better, and 90 percent o those who did take antibiotics got better.

People are complicated. Isn't that the lesson of many great works of literature? That no one, Achilles, Aeneas, or James Potter, is all good or all bad-we are all capable of evil and greatness. I hope that means that we humble mortals are allowed to pick and choose the lessons we want to pass on, and those we want to use as examples of what to avoid. I have tried hard with my own brood to help them understand, as they grew up and became more capable of understanding the subtleties of a situation, that we all have to choose who we are going to be. We have to decide many times a day, every day, how to spend our time, our effort, our material resources, in this imperfect world. I see absolutely no reason not to listen to Bill Cosby's valuable, and funny, observations about life. Nothing has changed, IMO, in their value now that we have discovered that he was in fact capable of awful things. The same goes for anyone. I admit to knowing, and learning, next to nothing about Doug Wilson. Socially and religiously, my family is somewhere else. However, I don't believe for one minute that this means that we will be spared some embarrassing, or even horrifying revelation about our chosen models one day. Because, people are complicated. That said, I think that people in public life are in an unfortunate position of being vulnerable to accusations by the press of espousing everything about a group or person just because they agree with ONE aspect of that person or group. And all I can do in that case is to again lament the low level of what often passes for discourse.

Ds, a new high school freshman, had to read and respond to a short passage about "Ulysses" who was in a war and then had many adventures trying to return home to Ithaka. Not only did we do 2 cycles through ancients, we\he read 2 abridgements of the Odyssey, and listened to a recording of the original. And I know I have mentioned that Ulysses is another name for Odysseus. Yet, he did not remember who this Ulysses person was and what he did. Sigh.

Not sure if my response should count, as we are both required to get it because we work in hospitals. I haven't honestly seen the need for my kids, but the one remaining who is not grown will be allowed to choose for himself.

How aggravating. When my ds was taking a CC English course, the professor frequently did not come to class. On 2 occasions, not only did she not come, she gave NO notification, or explanation, before or after. Since he was not driving then, and I was ferrying him the 30 minutes each way to class while teaching both of his brothers, I was pretty unhappy about this. It amazes me that a professor can get away with no-showing twice in a semester.

My youngest has had 4 1\2 years (so far) of orthodontia for an underbite. They have not recommended any extractions, except of primary teeth and wisdom teeth. However, he has had a palate expander, headgear, and the orthodontist still thinks he may eventually need surgery. Definitely get a second opinion. But IMO extractions may be the best option.

Scarlett, I think it is very difficult for older people to make a move like this, for many reasons-it represents a loss for them. I am glad though that at the end of the day, they have chosen to do what seems reasonable. I sure wish that would happen here! But no way.