I hear ya. We are doing Latin and MCT, so I figure that we have roots pretty well covered. :)

We did the same -- workbook only, crossing out Bible stuff -- except we did Part A one day and Part B another day. Part C we usually did orally. No tests or crossword puzzles. I'm sort of coming to the conclusion that spelling is basically busywork for us. We are changing to Megawords next year and, if he breezes through that, we will probably drop the subject altogether. My DS basically has learned to spell from reading and copywork.

Anyone?

Another one just rolled across my newsfeed tonight: http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/06/27/the-connections-between-spanking-and-aggression/?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

My DS is asking me to buy these cards. He has been reading the books from the library. Does anyone know the best place to get them? The ones I see on Amazon and eBay are used. Do they no longer sell new ones? If they are used,, do they still work to play the game? My DS seems to think he can win something by collecting them. Can someone explain the cards and game to me? Thanks so much.

Thanks for this. My brain is cramping at the moment -- do you need to have completed arithmetic to start this course? In my mind, I seem to recall this being appropriate for kids going into PreA -- is that correct?

Here are some examples -- an Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform rabbi each answered this question: Q: What's the Jewish perspective on disciplining children? Are there limits on punishments that a parent is supposed to impose on their child? A: The question of discipline is a good example of an area where we have to understand the Torah’s broad values, rather than reading from a list of rules as we bring up our children. Children have two commandments regarding our parents – to both love and respect/be in awe of them. Our parents brought us into the world, and we, thus, have an obligation of gratitude to them during our entire lives, even after their deaths. Clearly, though, most five year olds, let alone 15 year olds, haven’t necessarily gotten that memo, leaving parents in a difficult position where they’ll need all their parenting skills. The two most relevant statements of advice in the Jewish tradition are likely: 1) King Solomon’s reminder to: “Educate your child according to whom he is†(Proverbs 22:6); and 2) the Talmudic statement to “have your left hand push away and your right hand bring closer†(Sotah 47a), which even Bart Simpson reminded Krusty the Clown’s father after he had disowned Krusty . Clearly, every situation must be approached with love, as the Talmud implies. It is only the proverbial left hand, the weaker hand for the majority, that can discipline children, and it is must be guided by the dominant right, loving hand. In general, discipline plays an important role in raising children by teaching them how to behave appropriately, creating proper boundaries etc. The tricky part is the method of disciplining. If disciplined with love and consistency from an early age, children generally will mature into responsible adolescents and productive adults. What, however, should a parent do if he has read every parenting book, gone to Parenting 101 through 999, and the child still resembles Bam Bam more than Pebbles? Can a parent ever hit a child as a last resort? King Solomon states that “Whoever spares the rod hates his son but if you love him, you will chasten him at an early age†(Proverbs 13:24). While this would seem to allow hitting one’s child in extreme situations, Jewish law takes very clear stands against the physical and emotional abuse of children, and thus hitting one’s children (beyond constraining them if they are acting wildly) stands outside normative Jewish practice. In addition, “rod†need not be taken literally, but as a metaphor to “tough love†and discipline – i.e. that parents have to teach their children appropriate behavior, and mustn’t let them run wild, as a lack of involvement leads to various negative consequences. In addition, the Talmud warns parents not to hit their older children lest they unwittingly cause their children to hit back, a severe Biblical prohibition that the parents would be culpable for causing (Moed Katan 17a). Similarly, the Shulchan Aruch (Code of Jewish Law) states that parents shouldn’t be overbearing with their children regarding their own honor, and should turn a blind eye when children don’t honor their parents as fully as they could (Yoreh Deah 240:19). Love and happiness must govern one’s relationship with one’s children. Even if the situation demands that parents display anger to teach children the importance of a certain idea, it must be feigned, for anger is considered one of the most odious characteristics (see Maimonides, Laws of Human Characteristics (De’ot) 2:3). Measured punishments are also appropriate in order to teach lessons, but should never be used out of vindication or frustration – this is a sure way to turn children away from their parents. Parents should explain rationally to their children why they are being punished and how they can ensure that future punishments will be unnecessary with a change of behavior or attitude. Bottom line, disciplining children is a fundamental responsibility for parents, but can never cross the line into any form of abuse. One must know one’s child in order to determine when a strong or soft hand is most appropriate. While there are no guarantees when it comes to children, raising them with traditional values of belief in God, respect for others and fidelity to Jewish law in a joyous and loving atmosphere should obviate the more difficult parts of discipline, ensuring that children will grow into productive and loving parents themselves. Answered by: Rabbi Maury Kelman First allow me to give my personal opinion on disciplining our own children. Whenever I see a parent disciplining his/her child in a way that makes me uncomfortable, it is usually because the parent is uncontrollably angry and stressed. It is never a good idea to discipline one's own child when you are not in control of your own emotions. Taking a few deep breaths before disciplining the child is a good value. In Judaism, we have the concept of ben sorer u'moreh from the Torah. This the stubborn and rebellious child who, the Torah instructs, should be taken by his father to the center of town so that the citizens of the town can stone the boy to death. It is a troubling text for our modern sensibilities. However, what is so telling about this text is that the rabbinic commentators explain that this event never actually occurred. Perhaps it is in the text to scare young people into behaving, but that level of discipline never existed. In our 21st century understanding of discipline, corporal punishment is not a value. There are sensible ways to discipline children including taking away material possessions or activities that are important to them (i.e., "no video games for two days" or "you will not be able to go to the movie theater with your friends." Using physical force to discipline children (whether students or one's own child) is not acceptable in our society. The spanking that was once allowed has become more controversial and I believe there are other (less demeaning and violent) ways to discipline children. Answered by: Rabbi Jason Miller Rabbi Kelman has done an admirable job in summarizing the Jewish approach. My goal is to expand on a few related thoughts. The word discipline is related to the words disciple and discern. The root meaning has to do with teaching, particularly teaching that shapes and guides a student in developing their character. That definition meshes with the Jewish notion of child-rearing. We want to raise our child(ren) to live as a mentsch, a good, kind and responsible person. The Talmud (B. Kidushim 29a) offers an instructive list: A father [sic] is required to circumcise and redeem his son [sic], to teach him Torah, to find him a mate, and to teach him a trade. Some say he also has to teach him how to swim. Here is my commentary on this list. To circumcise and redeem the child: These key rituals both welcome the child into the community and define him or her in the eyes of the world. A parent needs to help their child find his/her place in the family, the community and the world. Rituals offer a vehicle by which we both impart and enact the values we hold dear. To teach Torah: In the broadest sense Torah includes a spiritual understanding of the world and a grounded sense of values. Both are necessary. The parent needs to model the behavior they wish to impart to their child. It is a deeply personal task that is not easily handed over to others, whether in the synagogue Hebrew School, summer camp or other activities. Parents are the most effective teachers, but it is hard work. To find a mate and to teach a trade: Few parents can directly influence a child’s choice of partner or profession these days. But parents can avoid sheltering their children and instead give them the tools necessary to navigate the adult world. Choosing a mate or a profession is not innate. As we mature from adolescence to adulthood we learn how to evaluate people and opportunities, we fail, make mistakes and eventually find our grounding. To learn to swim: Swimming is a strange activity – you cannot have your feet on the ground and swim. To succeed you must learn how to let go and find your way in a fluid environment – what a wonderful definition of the adult world. All of our routines can be upended in a moment and yet we need to find a way to move forward. In her wonderful book on child-rearing, The Blessing of a Skinned Knee, Wendy Mogel states “’teaching your child to swim’ is a primary responsibility… because the goal of parenting is to raise our children to leave us.†(pg. 140) Discipline is related to punishment. No child simply complies with every desire or direction from a parent, and we ought to worry if they were so docile. So we need to find ways to let our children know when they cross boundaries of appropriateness or danger. As Rabbi Kelman says, a parent must know their child well to decide when circumstances call for a strong or a soft response, when compassion or judgment ought to define parental response. And one must always avoid any abusive behavior. Punishment serves the goal of helping direct our children toward a life lived as a mentsh. Answered by: Rabbi Louis Rieser http://www.jewishvaluesonline.org/79 More Examples: http://thejewishreview.org/articles/?id=195 http://www.thejewishweek.com/features/hammerman_ethics/sparing_rod

You touch on an interesting point. I am not sure why these types of authoritarian parenting styles seem to appeal to so many conservative Christians. From a Jewish perspective, I never see this style of parenting among my Orthodox Jewish friends. Not that the Orthodox don't have some issues of their own, but I have never heard physical punishment advocated in any of the Orthodox or Conservative synagogues that I have attended. I don't even know a single Jew who spanks. What is it about conservative Christianity that makes people latch onto these methods? Please forgive my ignorance of the New Testament; I am genuinely curious. I generally associate the NT with forgiveness, grace, compassion, etc. And, if it isn't some interpretation of the NT that is the source of these methods, why such a disparity between the Jewish version of the Torah and the Christian version of the OT when it comes to discipline, parenting, etc.? Perhaps this would be an interesting s/o thread.

I am not sure why you felt my posts were directed to you. I specifically said this: "My post is not about singling out any specific member here; it is about people generally. A skeptical mind is a good thing; burying one's head in the sand when the evidence becomes overwhelming, on the other hand, not so much." As a litigator, representing primarily Fortune 500 companies in federal and state courts, I basically argued for a living. I apologize if my words were offensive to you; this is obviously a subject about which I care deeply. I was not singling out any specific poster here, or discussing the specifics of any particular person's parenting. Arguing that a position is ludicrous (in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary) is not the same as a personal attack.

Further details: The researchers raised concerns that previous meta-analyses had defined physical punishment too broadly, including harsher and more abusive behaviors alongside spanking. So for this meta-analysis, they defined spanking as “hitting a child on their buttocks or extremities using an open hand.†They also worried that spanking was only linked to bad outcomes for kids in studies that weren’t methodologically outstanding. It’s hard to study real-world outcomes like this; there are only a few controlled experimental studies in which some mothers spanked their kids and some didn’t, in a laboratory setting. Those were included in this analysis, along with cross-sectional and longitudinal studies, for a total of 75 studies, 39 of which hadn’t been looked at by any previous meta-analyses. Altogether, these studies included data from 160,927 children. The researchers looked at the effect sizes from these studies, to see how strong their results were. There were 111 different effect sizes for 75 studies (some of the studies included more than one result). Of those, 108 found that spanking was linked to poor outcomes. Seventy-eight of the negative results were statistically significant. Only nine results indicated that there could be a benefit to spanking, and only one of those was statistically significant. “Thus, among the 79 statistically significant effect sizes, 99 percent indicated an association between spanking and a detrimental child outcome,†the study reads. Those outcomes were: “low moral internalization, aggression, antisocial behavior, externalizing behavior problems, internalizing behavior problems, mental-health problems, negative parent–child relationships, impaired cognitive ability, low self-esteem, and risk of physical abuse from parents.†Harsher forms of abuse were excluded from the analysis, so this paper shows that spanking alone puts children at risk for some serious problems. The authors also looked at a subset of studies that compared spanking with physical abuse, and found that both were linked to bad outcomes “that are similar in magnitude and identical in direction,†they wrote. Given that spanking is still such a common—and controversial—form of punishment, careful examination of the research will be important for parents and policymakers alike. And as the researchers concluded here,“there is no evidence that spanking does any good for children and all evidence points to the risk of it doing harm.†http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2016/04/the-strong-evidence-against-spanking/479937/

It was actually 160,927 children, but don't let that stop anyone from ignoring the evidence.

It is ludicrous to suggest some giant conspiracy among scientists the world over. You are talking about 5 decades of data, over a hundred studies, and well over 100,000 children analyzed. If you (the general you) don't want to even attempt to parent in a science-based way, fine. But, just own that. There is no need to try to take down the scientific method.

Again, this isn't one study, or one article, which I agree with you would not be compelling. This is an analysis of the data from 5 decades of studies, involving over 100,000 kids. They are looking for statistically significant outcomes over a substantial period of time, not just some correlation from a single study or two. My post is not about singling out any specific member here; it is about people generally. A skeptical mind is a good thing; burying one's head in the sand when the evidence becomes overwhelming, on the other hand, not so much.

You know, this constant refrain that "spanking is no big deal," despite the mountain of evidence to the contrary looks a lot like the stuff tobacco execs used to say. The world would be a much better place if people were less defensive about their choices, and instead adopted "when you know better, you do better" as their mantra.

And for thousands of years, human society looked like an episode of Game of Thrones (and still does, sadly, in much of the world). Is that really what we are aspiring to, as a species?

My anecdotal evidence is quite the contrary. Both my sister and I were spanked, in the normal, infrequent sense of the word. We both have severe mental illnesses. Anecdotes don't matter; 5 decades of research does. http://news.utexas.edu/2016/04/25/risks-of-harm-from-spanking-confirmed-by-researchers AUSTIN, Texas ­ — The more children are spanked, the more likely they are to defy their parents and to experience increased anti-social behavior, aggression, mental health problems and cognitive difficulties, according to a new meta-analysis of 50 years of research on spanking by experts at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Michigan. The study, published in this month’s Journal of Family Psychology, looks at five decades of research involving over 160,000 children. The researchers say it is the most complete analysis to date of the outcomes associated with spanking, and more specific to the effects of spanking alone than previous papers, which included other types of physical punishment in their analyses. “Our analysis focuses on what most Americans would recognize as spanking and not on potentially abusive behaviors,†says Elizabeth Gershoff, an associate professor of human development and family sciences at The University of Texas at Austin. “We found that spanking was associated with unintended detrimental outcomes and was not associated with more immediate or long-term compliance, which are parents’ intended outcomes when they discipline their children.†Gershoff and co-author Andrew Grogan-Kaylor, an associate professor at the University of Michigan School of Social Work, found that spanking (defined as an open-handed hit on the behind or extremities) was significantly linked with 13 of the 17 outcomes they examined, all in the direction of detrimental outcomes. “The upshot of the study is that spanking increases the likelihood of a wide variety of undesired outcomes for children. Spanking thus does the opposite of what parents usually want it to do,†Grogan-Kaylor says. Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor tested for some long-term effects among adults who were spanked as children. The more they were spanked, the more likely they were to exhibit anti-social behavior and to experience mental health problems. They were also more likely to support physical punishment for their own children, which highlights one of the key ways that attitudes toward physical punishment are passed from generation to generation. The researchers looked at a wide range of studies and noted that spanking was associated with negative outcomes consistently and across all types of studies, including those using the strongest methodologies such as longitudinal or experimental designs. As many as 80 percent of parents around the world spank their children, according to a 2014 UNICEF report. Gershoff notes that this persistence of spanking is in spite of the fact that there is no clear evidence of positive effects from spanking and ample evidence that it poses a risk of harm to children’s behavior and development. Both spanking and physical abuse were associated with the same detrimental child outcomes in the same direction and nearly the same strength. “We as a society think of spanking and physical abuse as distinct behaviors,†she says. “Yet our research shows that spanking is linked with the same negative child outcomes as abuse, just to a slightly lesser degree.†Gershoff also noted that the study results are consistent with a report released recently by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that called for “public engagement and education campaigns and legislative approaches to reduce corporal punishment,†including spanking, as a means of reducing physical child abuse. “We hope that our study can help educate parents about the potential harms of spanking and prompt them to try positive and non-punitive forms of discipline.â€

I haven't read this entire thread; not sure I have the stomach to do so, to be honest, as I find it incredibly painful. But, I feel compelled to share that, after I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I spent 6 months in an intensive mental health program at Thalians, the psychiatric hospital at Cedars Sinai in Los Angeles. 6 months is a long time to be in a program; and during that time, I watched hundreds of people cycle in and out of the program. People came from all over the country (and world), as the program was extremely well regarded. I listened to these people's stories, day in and day out during our group therapy sessions. Mind you, these were people with the most severe kinds of mental health issues -- severe depression, bipolar, schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, borderline, etc., the vast majority of whom had attempted suicide (often several times) and/or had tried to self-medicate with drugs and alcohol. If you were to write a book to describe the childhoods that these people generally had in common, it would certainly include the type of "techniques" described in this thread. Now, I am not claiming that any specific parenting style is a recipe for mental illness -- people are far too complex to say that if you input X parenting style, you will get Y mental illness. But, if you have a child with a genetic predisposition for mental illness, and you are following these types of strategies, my opinion is that you are jeopardizing your child's mental health. Subsequent to my stay at Thalians, I spent much of the past decade in therapy, and in various other mental health programs, learning strategies to manage my illness. Moreover, now that I have children myself, I am mindful of their genetic predisposition for similar mental health issues. I have therefore spent a great deal of time reading and researching these issues. With all of that in mind, I have never met a single psychiatrist who recommended the parenting techniques described in RGT. I don't mean to sound hyperbolical; I am mostly of the mindset that the single most important decision we make as parents is who we choose as our partner. Twin studies have generally demonstrated that parenting (nurture) matters less than our genetics (nature), especially in the long run. But, many genes do seem to depend on the environment to be triggered, meaning that nurture may determine how nature is expressed. I believe that is often the case with mental illnesses. With that in mind, I would think long and hard about parenting a la RGT or the Pearls, most especially if you have a family history of mental illness.

We're a huge ways off, but thank you for this thread. I had always assumed, from comments made here, that the AP/SAT2 method was preferred for meeting a-g, due to the known rigor of AP/SAT2 vs. CC classes of uneven quality, but I can understand how that could end up being a long, soul-sucking slog for a lot of kids, or a big gamble if attempting admission by examination. I hope that Quark is right about the UCs taking a more holistic admissions approach. That would make homeschools like 8's seem much more doable here. <Slinks back over to K-8> :)

34 for my first, 38 for my second. I'm too old for this.

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Preach! :coolgleamA: I agree with Hornblower, I think that you need to make a stronger defense of your daughter. Yes, it is important to learn that there is a time and a place to be trendy (which is why my body mods were always hidden beneath clothes), and that we don't always get to dictate our appearance in the real world, but this isn't about him complaining about how she looks when she goes off to her job or an interview. He is criticizing her general appearance re her style of makeup. That is simply not appropriate, IMO.