I'm not sure I understand the situation completely, but get from what you've written that homeschooling is illegal in the country that you're in (I'm guessing the Netherlands, but could be Germany) and that you'll be homeschooling full-time in a year's time in another country. I assume that your home-language is English although the children are being schooled in their second language. So, without knowing your exact situation - I'm brainstorming here: * Do you work in the mornings while the children are in school or would you be able to go to the school with dd? In that way you could supervise yourself whatever she's meant to be doing - even if only for an hour or two a day and then she goes back into class. Something like homeschool in the school building - if the school allows this? * If dd is going to be schooled in English in a year's time, then the British school may be an option. I don't understand your comment about the expat thing. Is there a stigma to going to the British school? Learning in a different language and being in a new environment will bring its own challenges that may be what she needs to keep her engaged. I'm not in favour of accelerating children into higher grades in a public school setting as the emotional development is always an issue for me. I wouldn't want to expose a child to peer pressure that they might not be emotionally and socially ready to cope with. Feel free to pm me if you don't want to discuss your situation too openly.

This is our situation too! I work 25 hours a week and have a tutor/nanny for my 8yo daughter. I choose the curriculum and set the schedule for them to do in the mornings and then spend about 30min to an hour with dd in the afternoons. It used to be that I tried to touch on everything myself and then set "homework", but now I do writing, math and latin with dd, but the drill gets done in the mornings. We have "history club" where we do SOTW activities with one other family one afternoon a week and "science club" for experiments on another afternoon. She listens to the SOTW CD's and read-alouds with the tutor. This way we've managed to balance my need to be involved with dd's education in those areas and her need to meet up with friends. My 3yo dd attends a wonderful playgroup of 10 children with a teacher (and assstant) I hugely admire. She's there 4 days a week and at home on Fridays. My work is 5 min away from the playgroup.

Oh {{Joanne}}

Getting ready for bed......it's close to 11pm. But I LOVE this time of the day when the house is completely quiet and I can sit here without anyone needing anything of me....and there are still so many threads to read!

That's how we do it as well. With one family we actually schedule six month's worth of playdates or weekend get-togethers/activities in advance to make sure that we do get to see each other regularly. I'd prefer to have the activities closer to home and make the extra effort to see special friends at other times.

Here's an interesting article criticizing Expelled in the Skeptics Society E-newsletter. Michael Shermer, president of the Skeptics Society, was interviewed for the movie.

Something I learned from the book Raising Musical Kids is the following approach to practicing music: 1. Have a goal before starting 2. Attempt the goal 3. Critique the attempt 4. Try again, striving to improve each time. My 8yo dd started the violin in January. Before each practice I ask her "what is your practice goal for today? What did Mrs. Y ask you to improve?". I expect her to name one thing and to concentrate on that goal for the session. I then try to back off as much as possible, but I do ask her what she thought about her effort.

I'd want to know that the child was strong enough to hold on tightly and also had a sense of how to lean around corners. My girls have not been on a motorbike yet, but my father still rides and my sisters and I started riding 50cc motorbikes when we were tall enough for our feet to reach the gears. Note that I did not say the ground as in one of my sister's case she used to park the bike next to a step to get on - and she'd call out to anyone around that she was about to stop so that they could catch her when she got off! We rode on a farm.

I'm not exactly sure what you passed, but "WELL DONE PAM!!!!!". As far as smart goes, you're one of the people who's mails I always look out for as your obvious intelligence, thoughtfulness, kindness and generosity always come through.

Thanks Jean (for answering the 'lonely' post) and Yvette. My husband's would work like yours Yvette. The 'standard' option for the company is 1/60th of final salary as a pension for every year worked. This is what they contribute towards pension. Dh would also have an option to contribute an additional amount to increase his eventual pension and there's life insurance and survivor's benefits as well. What we're trying to figure out is what the actual value is of the company contribution per annum to the pension to be able to compare the package to a company that pays a fixed % of salary towards pension. I'm digging deep to figure out future values and present values and trying to see how to get to a present day number.

Dh is trying to compare the total packages for two job offers. One has a defined contribution pension plan. This is the kind that we are used to and which is easy to calculate as the company and employee both contribute a fixed percentage. The other has a defined benefit pension plan, which means that the amount of pension he gets on retirement is linked to his final salary and length of service. The accrual is 1/60th of his salary base for each year that he is a member of the scheme. He can choose to contribute to the scheme to increase the rate of accrual. How does one calculate the company contribution (as a % of salary) for this kind of plan? Thanks!

I put one of the Sky packages in our preliminary budget for TV phone and broadband. Would the TV license fee be in addition to this?

We'll know in the next few days if dh's application for a job in London was successful. We believe that emigrating to the UK will afford our children a better future than here in South Africa. Our quality of life (safety, opportunities for further education, access to health care, no more electricity cuts!, etc) will be better, but our standard of living (size of house, cars, holidays, etc.) will definitely take a huge dive. I am considering going back to work so we can build up savings and prepare for retirement. Some very useful sites I've come across are: commutefrom.com shows you where to live on London's commuter routes. The site links to estate agents and general info on the area around every station. primelocation.com is a property site. rightmove.co.uk/ is another property site. At upmystreet.com/ you can put in the area you're interested in and get info on gas and electricity, home insurance, taxes as well as other more general area info. Here's a cost of living page set up for working travellers that gives some idea of general costs. I also used mysupermarket.co.uk (and used the company postal code) to get an idea of grocery costs.

South Africans call it minced meat.

I think the trick is to find that balance between being sympathetic to the feelings and not accepting the behaviour that stems from the depression. My patience wears thin when "logical" (to me) answers to the feelings, anxiety and fears just don't seem to make any difference at all to how the person is feeling (and behaving). It's also frustrating when you believe that therapy will help in addition to medication and the person just does not see the potential benefits.

You had me there until your last sentence. Brilliant!!

Yes, I'm South African by birth and Afrikaans is my first language. I probably sound just like your friend :). I'm married to an English-speaking South African and my girls have English as a home language. They have been to playgroups to learn Afrikaans.

I have been sitting here for a while now wondering if I'd be a spoil sport if I posted without coming up with something silly, but the reality around us is just too sad to trivialise what being poor is really about. The cost of a fast monthly internet connection is more than half of the people in this country live on. So, I'll play, but with a more serious twist and say that I hope I am never so poor that I have to: * rummage through other people's trash bags for food or anything saleable * send my children to beg at traffic lights or outside shops/restaurants * live in a tin shack - and regard myself lucky for having shelter * leave my children at a children's home because I know they'll be fed, clothed and schooled there * commit a crime to feed my family As one of the lucky 6% of South Africans who has access to the internet, the luxury that I personally would have the hardest time giving up is also my computer and high-speed internet.

Thanks for the heads up! Dh is heading over as I type.

I'd really like to understand this, so would appreciate it if you can explain how one would "feed" feelings.

Is it possible to "enable" another person and thereby worsen or prolong their depression? I'm just wondering aloud here, but have been thinking about how to react to another person's depression and if the way I act has any effect at all on how that person deals with how they feel. Although I understand feeling down and have experienced profound grief and sadness, I have an optimistic personality, so can't really relate to ongoing pessimism and negativism. Your thoughts?

You might find some you like in this memorisation file. Or in this guided poetry tour article. Google books shows a partial view of Required poems for reading and memorizing for third and fourth grade and the full version is avilable at Gutenberg. The most important thing is that both you and your children enjoy what they are memorizing.

This is the basic premise of Pascal's_Wager.

Hotmail Primelocation.com A UK property site Rightmove.co.uk Another UK property site commutefrom.com/ This is the most awesome site that shows where to live on London's commuter routes and how long the commute will be from one station to another. On each station it shows the average house price and links to property and information about the area. Google Earth. To have a birds-eye view of the areas that I am looking at. We'll be moving to England in the next few months. It's absolutely amazing how much information is available online! I have been able to draw up a complete budget (including rates and taxes, utility costs, car prices and running costs, costs of kid's activities, etc), find busroutes and more. We may put the children in school for a while and for every government school in the UK there is an Ofsted report about the school. Although we are very sad to be moving from our homeland, it is for the best. And having all the information available online makes the benefits of moving to a first-world country apparent.

This is our experience with my 8yo dd as well. Many people have commented on her vocabulary. She listens to audiobooks while doing many indoor activities. I got most of our audiobooks from the UK from ebay.co.uk. Our library does not carry any.