I definitely wouldn't be holding a grudge over leaving co-op to pursue a different interest, but if we were close friends before and a suddenly busy schedule kept us from seeing you any more, I would feel the loss of that friendship. That's mostly what we're experiencing now. Many prior friends are suddenly too busy for us and that hurts. We've tried to deepen friendships with new friends and they're too busy too.

This situation is more complicated than I explained, but we school from 9-1 and then lunch. They school from 2-5, after their morning routine/chores/lunch, etc. My kids make friends easily at every class and activity they are involved in, but the problem is after the activity is over for the week and my kids want to continue the friendship outside of class, their friend isn't available. Short of asking what the Monday night friends are doing on Wednesday nights and showing up there, adding more or different activities to our schedule won't solve the problem. It's also an expensive way to spend time with friends. My kids don't want more friends, they want to know the friends they have better. Friends that will come over to play or will meet us at the park for an afternoon, etc. We know plenty of people, don't have trouble meeting them, but have plenty of trouble fleshing out the friendships they start.

We definitely do! This little girl is 3 years younger than dd, though. Her mother and I get along great. As with the rest of my kids' friendships, this one hour just whets their desire to spend time with the friend, but it's not possible.

I hear you about the judgmental undertone. I hear it too, which is why I haven't discussed this with any of my real life friends. I don't want to judge them, I just want to find a few like-minded friends. Some of my thoughts you highlighted are just my reasons behind my choices, but I was overwhelmed by hurt this week as it all hit me and it came out very "judgy." The reason I can't help my kids develop the deeper friendships they are asking for right now is out of my control and seems in direct contrast to what I have tried to implement. I'd never suggest to my friends that they are not doing what they think is best for their kids or that my way is better. Clearly, my plan isn't working out so well for us. So, my "judgment" is really me mentally wrestling through the differences in my community's values and mine, even among circles with which I have lots in common. I rationally see that no one has purposely made the choice to schedule themselves out of our friendship, but it doesn't change the hurt I feel that our friends (previously good/deep friends and some new acquaintances) have, however unintentionally, made choices that do limit our friendship. I know they aren't doing it on purpose. They may not even realize that it is the reason we have drifted apart. I don't expect that everyone we meet becomes a deep friend, but we'd like to find one. My kids and I spent some time in prayer today and reached out to a couple more acquaintances from our pool of many. We'll keep trying and God will provide us with mutually beneficial friends at the right time.

I see it both ways here. Some people return season after season. Others, like my niece and nephews try a new sport or activity each semester to try something new. Even if they eventually drift back to soccer, which they always do, they aren't on the same team any more.

I expect this more in the teen years. Am I wrong in thinking that my 6-9 year olds should have these types of friends?

It may be different for us too because we make that drive twice a year to see family. We still point out the buttes and critters. We anticipate the stinkiest town in Texas, note the speed traps, the grossest bathroom, etc. We know it all by heart, stop for pictures with the antelope, giggle at this and that and go back to our books, stories, conversations and yes, movies. :-)

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for audio books and read alouds, and car games. And my kids are the best at deep theological discussions in the car. But, driving 14 hours in a day when it's probable that you might not pass another car for hours, makes us want to pull our hair out. Middle of Nowhere, New Mexico: 100 miles later, Middle of Nowhere, Texas

I agree with you somewhat. My kids would definitely say that they have friends. They make them from those weekly interactions. They have lots of friends from scouts, gymnastics, sunday school, the neighborhood, their preschool years, etc. I've just recently connected the dots between their expressions of "I wish..." and "yeah, but so-and-so can't come," which tell me that they want deeper relationships with these children. They don't want more friends, they want true friends. Now my task is to find the other kids who want the deeper relationships, not to put them in more activities to meet more superficial friends. If they're like me, they'll have a dozen or so friends, but they need 1 or 2 really close friends to share their life with. That's what we're struggling to find now. I suppose we could stalk a few of our Monday friends and join their Wednesday and Thursday activities just to be near them. You're definitely right that I'm frustrated with other's schedules. Theirs don't have to look like ours, but we have 6 available afternoon/evenings and we can't agree on one free evening to enjoy each other's company? Not a scheduled, organized class or activity, but just part of real life? I admit that I am reacting out of hurt for my children. They express the disappointment, but I don't think they put it together, that the friends (or at least their parents) have a choice over the schedule that keeps them apart. Those of you with booked schedules, do your kids pursue their friendships beyond the structure of activities?

My kids are not athletic...at all. They come by it honestly. We (dad, really) play with them and teach them some skills, but they would be on the bench in organized sports. It's fine. They are happy to participate in gymnastics, which improves their coordination, but doesn't require competition. They get along very well with the scouts and enjoy the activities therein. They spend time working on scout achievements at home. I can't see any signs of them not feeling fulfilled in their activities. I don't even know what that would look like. They definitely aren't begging to be in anything else. They are actively seeking kids to come over to play or to play with outside, etc. I hear a lot of "I wish our cousins could come over and play this new game with us." "I wish so-and-so could ride bikes with me." "Can we invite so-and-so over to fish in the pond?" There are a lot of homeschool coops around us, but no social groups that I am aware of. There is a field trip group. Some ladies from church set up a park day every month, but it's all toddlers and preschool. In the past, I've invited the kids over that my kids request, but they aren't available. I'll start broadening the net to some others that they haven't asked to invite to see if we can find someone.

I think we live in too large a community to see the same children from activity to activity. We live in a small town between two large suburbs. Our town is so small it doesn't have its own activities, so we travel to the next two towns, which means that we are mixed in with the 90,000 neighbors to the south and the 140,000 neighbors to our north. We've never had an overlap of friends from one event to the next. It's not a great distance for us. Our activities are within 10 minutes from our house and I wouldn't hesitate to drive my kids to play with a friend, but we just haven't been able to find one with enough time to spare for us. I guess I'm just out of touch with the modern world. I made friends within my neighborhood playing after school. I made friends in scouts, and our parents drove us within town to play together. It just seems our world has gotten bigger and we aren't keeping up.

Unfortunately not. We used to school with them. They came over every afternoon and we schooled together. Their kids sleep until 10am, something I could only dream of getting my children to do. She had a baby 2 years ago and that complicated even our afternoon schedule and my kids don't function well in the afternoons, so we split up. My kids do so much better in the mornings and she now schools from 2-5pm. We're half done with school by the time they have even eaten breakfast. It might be more possible in the summer, when the heat makes us switch our school schedule to the afternoon...but it won't make the neighbors wake up earlier. It's kind of been a painful loss for my daughter who says, "I never see E any more, except at Girl Scouts." She makes similar comments about other friends.

Our nearest park is a mile away and we have to drive because it is an unsafe road on the way. We exercise there every morning and spend an hour there most afternoons, usually by ourselves. :-( The park is small and many toddlers play there, but not many big kids. My kids play freely around our neighborhood and my boys met some slightly older boys at the pond the other day, but haven't seen them since. We do play in front of our house frequently and wave and talk to those who walk by. We've met a few people this way, but most of our neighborhood kids are younger. We have 2 neighbors who play frequently, but they are 3 and 6 years younger than my dd. She does enjoy their company, but the age difference can be a challenge sometimes. My sister lives nearby and we get together often. Again, her kids are younger. My dd has learned how to play well with younger children, but she does get frustrated sometimes that she is the one that has to accommodate. I sure wish I could find a girl her age that could engage outside of activities.

Do the activities lend themselves to true friendship building? I feel like our scouts groups are friend-building, but then we don't see them again for another week. Gymnastics is highly structured and leaves no time for friendly interaction, so though my kids often invite "friends" from their class, we still haven't been able to organize a time when they can actually come to play and interact. I'm just thinking that what i consider a good friend (and you don't need many) is someone you want to share everything with, to enjoy your favorite activities with, call when you feel down, celebrate with when you have a good day. They just don't have anyone like that in our activities. Those we've reached out to are not available for anything more than organized activity time. I guess I just can't believe that a friend, rather than an acquaintance, can't make time to be in your day-to-day life. It's not that my kids can't relate to anyone else, but they just keep getting disappointed by "friends" who aren't available to be more than "someone in my class."

I've gotten frustrated with suburbia. This is probably more of a vent than anything else, since I can't think of one constructive way to broach the issue and I can't even vent to my friends, since they are the offenders. I have 3 kids and we decided before they were old enough to participate in any "extras" that we would allow each child 2 days/nights of extracurriculars. If the chosen activity required a practice and a game schedule, that would count as their 2 day allotment. Each of my children are in scouts and gymnastics. These 3 scheduled events take up somewhere between 1.5 -2.5 hours of our Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays including drive time. Except for Monday nights, all the activities are scheduled before public school kids even get out. Our afternoon/evening schedule is clear on Tuesday-Sunday by design. I'm so thankful that we only have 3 time commitments a week for our 3 kids, as they participate together in gymnastics. I don't think I could handle another day of rushing to this or that. We don't participate in coops because it's too stressful to have another scheduled day. Every other Sunday evening we participate as a family with a church group. We adults have other, less frequent commitments, but mainly, we make time for family, friends, and my sanity. Recently, my sister-in-law called to say her kids really want to see their cousins and to ask when could we get together? (they live 40 minutes away). Her kids go to a university model school on MWF, have soccer practice 3 nights a week, karate another night, soccer games all day on Saturdays, and a church activity every Sunday evening. Well...it doesn't sound like they have much time for us. (Their Wednesday night soccer practice was rained out, so we saw them then because we were available.) My kids wanted to play with the next door public school friends, but they are only available on Mondays for 1 hour (dinner hour) between activities. Our homeschooling neighbors organize their day differently (school in the afternoon, while my kids are playing) and have activities every night too. Even some people in our church group are not participating on Sunday nights because they are playing chauffeur for their teens activities on Sunday evenings. These are just a few examples of recent interactions that prevent my kids from forming and maintaining relationships. Though we have made a point not to over-schedule ourselves, others have not and my kids are suffering. Friends met in scouts and gymnastics are too busy to be friends outside of that scheduled time. Even our own cousins are so over-booked that we can't find an evening or weekend to spend together. Unfortunately, we also school year round, so my kids aren't available for some summer events, though we do our best to be flexible. I bend over backwards in the summer to make my kids available for friends and still get our school work done. I live and grew up in the Bible Belt. Sundays have always been family days, church days, and days of rest. I just don't understand the scheduling of so many activities on Sunday and it adds to the hurt that I'm feeling for my kids. My kids have many acquaintances, but no deep friendships. Fortunately, they are close in age and love to play together, but I need my daughter to have a girl friend. Even her female cousins are 4 years younger and too busy. Are most children suffering from this lack of friends like mine? If their acquaintances are too busy going from one organized activity to another, are they even building actual friendships? How do we meet children who actually have time to be friends?

Hmmm...people who forbid screen time on these trips don't drive in the southwest much. There is nothing to see. Nothing. Flat brown ground as far as the eye can see. If you're traveling through west Texas, most of New Mexico and Arizona...get a screen and use it liberally. ;)

I agree that it is not too late to set some boundaries. You can use the above link for some guidelines for ideas. I don't agree with all of them, but I think it is a good starting point.

I think this is the perfect time to introduce short division. Remind him that he may still need long division with more awkward numbers. More likely, he'll need estimation skills. I haven't used manual long division since 5th grade, but knowing how to estimate in real life is far more useful. 612/37 is close to 600/40 and far easier to do in one's head while visualizing short division. So, just helping him see the difference and the need in long and short division will likely give him the freedom to perform simpler tasks mentally.

Short division works for all numbers, but it does become harder to do with larger numbers because, as Tara mentioned, it is just mental math. Give 1,008 / 14 a try for an example. 14 times what is close to 100? 6? 6x14 = 60+24 = 84...+14...98 is closer, so 7 with 2 leftover...14 times what is 28....2. So, 72. Imagine how tricky it can be with something like a divisor of 37. Awkward mental math numbers. As I was a mental math enthusiast and show-your-work-challenged in school, this would have made my life much, much easier. I think it is worth teaching, 1) after long division is well-understood, 2) if long division is eluding them because of the incessant step writing, or 3) if you just need a new tactic for getting through. Edit: I do think this is worth learning as a further step to division, too, since mental math skills are something I strive to instill in my students. I wouldn't beat a dead horse if your child just can't perform mental math, but estimation skills are important. I think this style of division is easier to visualize than long division, which can make the difference between a child who can mentally visualize dividing and one that can't move past the pencil and paper.

This blog has linked videos to various chapters of SOTW. Some of them are Horrible Histories videos. Do preview, as some of the videos are boring and/or inappropriate for all ages. http://sotw-videolinks.blogspot.com

I understand that your issue is mood, attitude, or motivation related, but I'm introducing short division... Here's a video for short division. I wish I'd been shown this years ago because it makes much more sense to me than long division did. I guess it is just how I think.

We have several 4-year universities within commuter distance and I would pursue this if my kids were on track for it. Of course, they would live at home until I deem them ready. DH graduated from public school at 17 and moved out to go to university only to find that he couldn't sign the lease, put utilities in his name, etc. It was a pain for his roommates who had to sign for everything. I do think that by sending kids to college so early, they almost must get advanced degrees because I can think of very few companies and organizations who would give a 17 year old a professional job, even if they are degreed.

The trip sounds fun. The camping? I'd rather die than camp in the southwest between the months of May-September (it can be obnoxiously hot - it's already 90 degrees this week in TX). Well, to tell the truth, camping anytime, anywhere sounds horrendous, but I guess that's just me. ;) We take loooong driving trips through the southwest all the time. We live in Texas and you can drive all day and still be in Texas, so we know all about long road trips. My children don't sleep in moving vehicles, so we have to take along a lot of entertainment. Ipads, audio books, coloring, even just letting them play with their own digital camera...we laugh at all of the shots up their noses when we get home. I imagine it could be a really great bonding trip with the kids, lots of time to chat about life's big and little things, but being the only adult, I might get pretty tired by the end of it all.

I've often said that I need to find a boarding school for the teen years because I don't have a clue how to talk to/deal with/relate to teens...even when I was a teen. I think it'd be nice to send them off at 14 and get them back well-mannered and cultured at 19. That's how it works, right? ;)

Ha! This thread is making me chuckle. When my son was 3 and in the hospital, they woke him hourly to take vitals, etc. After a few times in the middle of the night, he curled his finger at the night nurse and had her come in for a whisper. His tone said, excuse me, I don't want to alarm you, but: "You're nocturnal," he whispered gently. She took the news rather well. DS6 was in the pediatrician's exam room. She'd just finished "testing" his development by having him write his name, sing the ABCs, etc, when he went back to reading one of her books aloud. This one was about the planets and he was reading about their atmospheres. After reading about gas giants, he asked me, "Mom, did you know that Neptune is blue because of methane gas in the atmosphere? Do you think scientists will change their minds about Neptune like they did about Pluto? It's just made of gas so it doesn't have a surface. If it doesn't have a surface, I don't think it should be called a planet." I have too often quieted my rowdy children in stores singing "Tchaikovsky wrote a great ballet! It's name was Swah-ha-ha-han Lake! The king and queen wanted him to wed, but the prince went down to the lake instead..." to the tune of the overture. DS8 commented during our history reading, "Don't these people read history? Every time a leader limits the freedoms of the people, the country falls apart or gets conquered by another country." <thoughtful pause> "Does our president study history?" Yesterday, DS6 made a jab at his older brother, something along the lines of "Sure, I'll do all of your chores while you play." Knowing the tone, DS8 replied, "Thanks!" DS6: "I was being facetious."