We have the CD version with the recommended headphones (no special bone conduction I guess). The only very tangible result I have seen for my child was with his loud voice. After going through the program his personal volume level was much more appropriate and I found that I no longer had to tell him to use an inside voice. Prior to TLP he seem to speak far too loudly. As for focus and other benefits, I am not sure that they were as noticeable. We had clearer results with Interactive Metronome, which I highly recommend. I will say that my son really enjoyed doing TLP. He completed the CD set more than once- it was excellent "down" time for him. Nice to have a therapy that he really enjoyed. Juls

I cook a decent amount and couldn't function without the immersion blender (I use it's attachments as a chopper and a food processor). It also works for smoothies, but my kids make so many smoothies (daily) that we found the Kitchenaid just can't hack the ice over time so we now have a small $15 Hamilton Beach smoothie blender for that purpose.

My SIL was staying with us this summer and she had DD with her. I read through it and made one of the recipes and thought I would order the book. When I got to Amazon and read reviews, I changed my mind and bought The Sneaky Chief. I'm glad I did because I like it even better. In fact, I spent most of the day yesterday making recipes from it (I freeze things) and every one has been a hit when my kids did taste tests. DD generally uses one ingredient purees and TSC uses multiple ingredients in it's purees. It has a section up front for making sneaky additions up front (breadcrumb mixtures, green purees, white purees, orange purees etc.). Then you add these to things when you cook. I tend to cook in batches so this works very well for me. I like that TSC gives me lists of foods in which I can use the make ahead additions. For me, this style works better. I would read through the reviews of both books on Amazon and see which book would better suit you. I think they both have their merits. HTH, Juls

I put my oldest in a private school after many years of difficult homeschooling days with him. He started at the school in fifth grade. Our relationship improved dramatically and our household became so much more tolerable. Last year, my middle child announced that he too wanted to go to school, but he made this announcement during the last week of summer. We found a way to get him in the private school too and he THRIVED last year beyond my wildest dreams. It was his forth grade year and he really grew in some amazing ways- ways that I would not have seen happen at home. I now only homeschool my youngest (1st grade). I believe that my kids get better education at home (they believe this too!), but I can not deny that our family functions much better when we have some separation from each other. If private school were not an option for us, I would put them in public school. We evaluate from year to year though and we will bring them home again if it ever again seems to be the best option. I LOVE homeschooling, I LOVE to teach and I think I do a pretty good job of it- but I had to stop putting my desires and ideals over the health of our family. For us it's been a great decision. Juls

I have two boys ages 11 (almost 12) and 10. The younger has been taller than the older since they were 3 and 2- usually by two inches. The younger one is also developing faster (looses teeth first, shows signs of puberty). He takes after my husbands side of the family and has a large bone structure and will probably be about 6'. I'll be happy if my older son ends up at 5' 8". Quite honestly, I don't think my older guy is phased by it. It's always been a given to him that he would be the shorter one. Juls

Look into Interactive Metronome. We saw many lasting improvements from IM, especially in the area of impulsive behavior and social skills.

My husband and I have been reading each post and digesting your opinions and experiences. Thank you all! A salt water system is a definite for us because I have one child who is sensitive to chlorine. How much maintenance do these system entail? Also any other opinions on pool heaters vs solar covers? My backyard is in full sun from about noon until six pm and we live in southeast VA. And a special thanks Betty and kdneo for your dissenting opinions. We need to consider this decision from all sides. Maintenance and safety are big concerns for us. We would still be going to our neighborhood pool quite a bit because that is where our swim team meets, so I don't think we would miss out much on the social aspects our our neighborhood pool. Juls

My dh and I have been casually discussing the idea of getting a pool so I thought I would get some opinions. Our HOA does not allow above ground pools so in-ground would be our only option. We are pretty conservative with our $ and rarely make luxury purchases, so this is a pretty wild idea for us, especially considering the high price tag. We have three kids ages 11, 10 and 5 who can all swim. We live in a southern state and a fair number of houses have back yard pools. But we also have a neighborhood pool to which the older two can bike when it is open. My kids are not the outdoorsy types, they don't care much for sports in general so getting them to play outside can be a battle. But they all love to swim and are on swim team. My husband likes to swim as well and would use a pool for exercise. I am not a water person, but I am the one who can't let this idea go. Our general question is how much use would it get? Would the novelty wear off after two years? Do at home pools generally get used for many years? Would we regret spending so much money, or would we be thankful for the many memories made in our back yard? How much maintenance is involved? What is the yearly cost of pool upkeep? Anyone put in a pool and then regretted it? We have no plans on moving by the way. We will very likely be in this house for a long time. Any thoughts are appreciated! Juls

is a homeschool store about 50 min away in Virginia Beach. http://www.mooreexpressions.com/ Might be too far... Juls

My son was much like this too. And it came to a head at age six. At age six I began visiting various doctors looking for answers and help. We saw a neurologist who ruled out autism and sent us to an Occupational Therapist. The OT gave him the Sensory Processing Disorder diagnosis and worked with him for several months, she also notices a visual issue which lead us to Vision Therapy. The Vision Therapist did find some issues and we started VT but dropped it after two months because my son would not comply. I think this really would have done him good though. We also tried some Speech Therapy because were were small issues with speech as well. That also was short lived because he would not comply. But we began The Listening Program to try to help his audio processing skill. (These skills tested as normal when looked on the whole, but there were wide variances). He liked this and we saw a noticeable change in his volume level. Before TLP he was always talking too loudly. Next we saw a doctor who specialized in autism. He said my son was on the spectrum, but the mildest case he had ever seen. He recommended B-12 shots which did nothing. Also at this time we had our son seen by a psychology department at a local University. They did a host of educational and other testing under the direction of the faculty. They said our son was borderline ADHD. He had and above average IQ, very strong memory and extremely slow processing speed. I should add that at age five ds had developed some verbal tics (and a few motor tics as well). These lasted several months and them would go away. Until they would then come back again. I suspected Tourette's since he had some OCDish fixations as well. For this I experimented with many, many supplements (not herbs), finding that we could quell the tics significantly with these. Another thing we tried was Interactive Metronome. IM was very hard for my son. He fought us through 15 sessions and then we stopped for a year. He had made some improvement though. I noticed some positive social changes after the IM so I waited a year and tried it again. This time my son enjoyed it and continued to improve. I hope to try it one more time this summer, because I think we have had some positive benefits from it. DS is now ten years old. This past fall he began at a Classical Christian school after having been only homeschooled. I explained some of his issues to the teachers and prayed hard that he would have a good experience. I am shocked to tell you that he is THRIVING. Especially socially! He loves it. His teachers do not notice his issues, and I will say he is very much improved all the way around. He still looks disheveled, but he's not the only fourth grade boy in that camp. He has trouble with buttons and shoe tying so we buy pants that clasp and shoes that slip on. His handwriting is still messy, he types assignments when he can. He is on no medicine (never has been) and currently off all supplements. His fixations have lessened. His tics will likely come back in the summer (they aways start up in June, I think they are from the chlorine in the pool). When they do, we will try again to quiet them with suppliments. He is a straight A student but he needs me to help him study and keep organized. He is also the slowest one in the class when it comes to finishing assignments. He hates all team sports, so I think playground time will become harder for him as he gets older. But now he loves it. Best of all he is a happy, much less frustrated boy. He still has bad days and difficulties that don't seem quite "normal", but these are much less frequent then they use to be. He's developing a delightful sense of humor. Maybe in the future we will need to try some sort of pharmaceuticals to better focus him or assist with anxiety. I don't rule this out- but he functions so much better now then I would have guessed four years ago. Most people would not notice any of his difficulties. Sorry this is long, I just wanted to give you our experience and tell you that you son needs your great love and support to help him work though his areas of weakness. Juls

I have a 10 yr old ds. A few years back his IQ (calculated as GAI on the WISC IV) was 117 (87%) but processing speed was 85 (16%). He is VERY slow at everything, but he is still bright. Anyone find a way to make great gains in Processing Speed? Juls

Both of my sons have done IM and I have also recommended it to friends. For us I think there have been some noticeable benefits, especially for my son who has SID and some other mild issues. This particular child struggled to do well with it (he often hated going during our first round) so we worked for 15 sessions and stopped. He did make gains though. We then began again 8 months latter and did 6 more sessions. This second round he was much more compliant. I plan to try it a third time with this same child in the summer. My goal is to get this son into the average or better than average category. I was most impressed that his gains have remained. He functions much better socially and seems to have more self control. In general, we saw an overall improvement in the whole child after IM. Small things but well worth the time. Now I recommended IM to a friend with two autistic daughters. One of her daughters would not comply (they gave it a try but she is severely disabled from the autism), but the other daughter had AMAZING gains. Her language and social abilities blossomed very noticeably. This is a family that has tried countless therapies and programs for their girls. IM for this daughter was one of there clear success stories and it was much cheaper then many other things they have tried. Hope this Helps, Juls

I really think they are a VERY valuable tool for Christian homeschoolers. The book is also excellent and further goes into the how to look at Genisis through the world of the Ancient Hebrews. The author made the journey from Young Earth creationism to Evolutionary Creationism. The book deals more with theology then with science and is an easy read for science layman. This is from Wikipedia: Glad you liked the videos so much Mamagistra.

For those interested in a wonderful presentation on this topic, take a look at the online video series entitled Science and Christian Education from the author of Beyond the Firmament. The videos are targeted to Christian educators who are teaching science to their children. The complete series is not yet finished but the segments that are posted are well worth watching. Each segment is about 10 minutes long so you can watch them in chunks. The author, Gordon Glover, is an Evangelical Christian from a conservative reformed denomination (PCA), he is also a homeschool dad. These videos (and even more so the book) have completely changed my thoughts about evolution and how it fits with Genesis. I highly recommend them, as well as the book. Enjoy!

The infallibility issue may seem to be the main issue that Christians have with evolution but I don't think it needs to be. I think a more serious concern for Christians is that accepting evolution as a working theory can lead to humanistic or godless philosophies. Often the term evolutionist assumes such ideas. This is why I much prefer the term Evolutionary Creationist. After formally accepting a Young Earth position, I have now come around to the Evolutionary Creationist view point, but I still believe the Bible is infallible and inerrant in its original language. I just consider context to be important. I think that God used the current science of the time to reveal astonishing truths about himself to the Ancient Hebrews. He uses their understanding of the cosmos (geocentrism, water over the dome of the sky and water under the earth etc.) to communicate timeless truths about Himself. Specifically that He is the ONE God of creation. This idea of monotheism was a radical concept in Ancient times. It makes so much sense that God would accommodate the limited scientific understanding at that point in time to communicate Himself to His people. That said, I fear that we Christians are too quick to condemn other views. What about humility? What about maintaining a teachable heart before the Lord and before our brethren? History shows us that the Catholic church was wrong when Galileo was put under house arrest. Very few people now believe that the sun revolves around the Earth (although there are over 60 verses in scripture that support geocentrism!). It took hundreds of years for that mess to sort out and the Catholic church seems to have learned a big lesson. Are Evangelicals making a very similar mistake by not taking a hard look at the issue of evolution? Are we needlessly putting a hindrance before the gospel? Do scientists rule out the Bible (and the gospel) because of evolution? Are we Christians telling scientists that they must abandon a working theory (evolution) that has gained more and more scientific support throughout the last 150 years in order to become believers? What if organizations like AIG and ICR are not communicating all the details? How much money have these organizations made off of their Young Earth materials? Are we keeping our children from becoming scientists because we fear evolution? These are questions that I would like to see addressed by thoughtful evangelicals. Are there other evangelical protestant believers who have come to accept the theory of evolution as the best working theory that Biology has right now? I wonder how alone I am.