My 11 year old DD is also using Lingua Latina, and loves the stories. She thinks they're hilarious and loves following the family's adventures and misadventures. If I didn't have a pretty good Latin background, though, I'm not sure how well I'd deal with the way grammar is handled. It's all done through examples in the story, then a section afterward, also in Latin, pointing out how different forms are used. The grammar is all there, but personally I long for a nice, clear explanation in English with an accompanying vocabulary list. However, it is secular, there's a cd available with classical pronunciation, there are companion books that do cover grammar explicitly (I think one is called the College Companion, and I may need to get it...), there are extra books of stories that my daughter will probably get for Christmas. That's how much she enjoys this book. She's saying she may want to teach Latin when she grows up, and she's really getting pretty good with it. I'll take some inconvenience for that sort of result. I don't know how much the immersion experience has to do with her success, but I do think the enjoyment of the stories is critical. The plot lines are just more interesting and, over time, more involved then in the standard textbook, and we've focused on reading, not on the exercises, though there are plenty available in an extra book (the Exercitia). I guess we're taking an interest-led approach, maybe? Stories first, picking up grammar as needed along the way. And the beauty of this book is that it can work that way.

How about lots of great older historical fiction, like Rosemary Sutcliff, Mary Renault, maybe Barbara Willard? Those are authors I loved as a (roughly) middle-schooler, and when I went hunting, our library didn't have any left. I was actually lucky enough to get some Sutcliff books they were getting rid of at a sale a few years ago, but I'd love to be able to check out others instead of buying them. I haven't seen the Barbara Willards recently enough to gauge their quality as an adult, but I'm trying to find some through interlibrary loan right now for my daughter. Some (at least Augustine Came to Kent) are mentioned in SOTW. These certainly wouldn't need to be shelved in a homeschool section, but I think lots of homeschoolers would enjoy having them available.

Thinking about this more, I'd just add that if it seems to cause a problem for your son, go through whatever channels you need to and find someone who understands the problem and can fix it. We could have been much more forceful than we were, and in retrospect I wish we had been.

My experience, unfortunately, was like the OP describes. Our school actually forced the kids to read and obtain perfect scores on 10 books at each level (3.6, 3.7...) before they could advance to the next level. Since they had to come from the school library, and the library's assortment was not great, and they could not check out any other library books, my older daughter (who is a fantastic reader) soon hated library time. This seems like a small part of a school experience, but it became a major reason we finally pulled her out. Her time was being wasted on idiotic books. On a more positive note, this policy was limited to our own elementary school. Teachers in other schools in our county have told me this particular librarian was misusing the system, and elsewhere it is handled much better.

Thank you for all the good ideas! City Mouse, I think you're right about not holding up other areas by tying them to reading. For the moment I think I'm just going to drop any expectations there, wait for the testing results, and see what they say. I like the idea of having her listen to an audiobook while reading, if she seems interested in the reading part at all. Geodob and Snowfall, thank you for the explanation about educational versus neuropsychological testing. It sounds like what we're doing now may be more of a starting point than a complete explanation. And yes, geodob, I agree that it's not entirely clear if issues are overlapping. I suspect they are. One frustrating element is that all the diagnosis is completely subjective, and each doctor sees things through the lens of his/her own experience. Even the mood disorder diagnosis is not absolutely certain. Anyway, again, thank you all.

Heather, thank you for your ideas. We've been working with therapists for years now, and a psychiatrist for most of the last year, going through the process of sorting out medications and trying to control the mood issue. That set of symptoms has improved considerably, and I guess I was assuming that a learning disability might account for some of the remaining problems. I do think something is causing problems with reading. She is very good with reading short, basic words, up to three syllables or so, but she tends to guess (wrong) when she spots an unfamiliar word, and has trouble sounding them out. She also skips or fills in small words which aren't there. She seems frustrated with reading and is much more unwilling to read than to do some other things. I just don't want to increase her frustration or make matters worse. Improving medication seems to take months, turning into years, and getting test results almost as long. And we have to go to the test providers the psychiatrist referred us to, but hearing everyone use different terminology made me worry we were spending this months-long process with the wrong people. I can't just put off teaching her on the assumption that someday we can fix the mood issues. Reading back over this, I can see my own frustration coming through. Please don't think it's aimed at your answer. I really appreciate ideas, and you're certainly right that the mood disorder is huge... maybe more of what's happening than I realize.

Help, please, anyone??? I really am unclear on the difference between neuropsych and educational psych testing, and I'm hoping we're doing what will give us the information we need. And I really don't know if I should simply be reading out loud to her, or asking her to read a certain number of pages/ length of time on her own, or asking her to read to me. If she reads out loud I don't know if I should be biting my tongue to avoid correcting her and just trying to note what kinds of mistakes she makes, or asking her to sound out words when she makes mistakes and pointing out words she skips. She shuts down after a correction or two, so I don't want to make that happen, but I'm not comfortable dropping it entirely.

Back in the spring I posted about my 8 year old dd who is diagnosed with a mood disorder-nos. I suspected there might be learning disabilities as well, and we've spent the summer trying to get through testing, which is nowhere near done. We do have some preliminary results, and I'm wondering where we go from here, given that we plan to start school on Monday. First, the simple question: what is the difference between educational psych testing and neuropsych? Everyone here refers to neuropsych, but my daughter's psychiatrist said that was for cases where traumatic brain injury was suspected. We are currently doing testing through a practice which does educational psych testing. Second, we're getting some preliminary results, but it's been very rough because she shuts down every time she gets frustrated. Just folds her arms, lowers her head, and stomps downstairs to the waiting room, saying "We are never coming here again!" :glare: So, in two hour-long sessions, they still haven't managed to get through the first (IQ) test, which was supposed to only take an hour. Next week we have two more sessions scheduled, so we'll see. Preliminary results: they say she is very smart, has a very low frustration tolerance :thumbup1: , is a slow processor, and is more verbal than visual. Still unknown: specific reading difficulties, which I suspect, and any other specifics. We are on a long waiting list for a sensory evaluation, I'm scheduling a developmental vision exam, and we'll keep plugging along with testing. But... last year she shut down and exploded every. single. day. as I tried to teach. We need to start up again, and I'd hoped after a summer of testing we'd have more answers. How hard would you push her to read, which she's avoiding now? She'll read a bit with books I'm not crazy about, like Junie B. Jones or Geronimo Stilton. I'm guessing that until we know more we're at the "any reading she'll do is good" point? Writing???? Her handwriting, when she chooses, is fine, but she hates to write. Is it plausible that she has real difficulties here which should be accomodated when I know she can write neatly? How would you try to educate this child while results slowly trickle in?

My own eight-year-old dd has been (somewhat tentatively) diagnosed with a mood disorder, and this is very much the sort of behavior we see in her, although she usually can control herself better in public. It sounds as if this girl's problems are more severe, and as a parent I appreciate both the concern your dd is showing and the difficulty she faces. In our own case we're still trying to sort out the different elements of the problem and getting testing done. Obviously I don't know what this girl's diagnosis is, but some behaviors she shares with my dd leaped out at me: not wanting to be touched/have her things touched, needing food (my dd does much better with frequent protein), emotional fluctuation, angry outbursts. One thing we have learned is that when my dd is upset, she absolutely cannot process any other stimulus until she has calmed down. At that point she is usually rational again and agrees, perhaps grudgingly, to do the right thing. She's embarrassed, I think, and agreeing to change her response requires at least a tacit acknowledgement that she was wrong, and that's hard. But she almost always ends up doing the right thing in time. The hardest thing for us has been figuring out that she can. not. cope. with anything at all added to her load of emotion, until that's processed. No talking, no touching, no consoling, no sympathy, nothing. Most assuredly no discipline, until it's all over, and then it needs to follow a plan established ahead of time. So, for us, the "I see you're feeling sad/angry/upset" route doesn't work (guess how I know). What helps is going away, letting her be angry and ignoring the outburst until she can cope. That's never easy, and it's going to be especially hard for your dd, given the constraints of a class. Surely this girl's parents must have spoken with the teacher about her issues. Just as I have a responsibility to protect my other dd from her sister's behavior, I think this teacher has an obligation to help the other students cope, and brushing off your dd's very reasonable concerns is not an acceptable response. I know she's got to be worried about privacy issues, but as a parent I want others who interact with my dd to have the information they need. Perhaps the girl's parents could help provide some coping techniques through the teacher. One last thing: it's so nice that your daughter can see that this girl has another side, and is not entirely defined by her problems. Hats off for raising a compassionate and thoughtful girl.

We had good luck a few years ago maintaining a tiny toadlet by putting small (1/2 cup) amounts of completely decomposed compost from our slow (not hot) compost pile into the terrarium every couple of days. The compost was teeming with bugs too tiny for me to catch individually, but apparently just right for the brand-new toad. Needless to say you'd need to keep an eye on the frog or toad to make sure it's growing, and keep a good screen lid on the terrarium :laugh: !

Thanks, Lindi, and thanks again to everyone else who responded. It is so valuable to know there are are others within reach who are dealing with this and making progress, since I don't know anyone with similar issues IRL. I've been rereading The Explosive Child and trying to start applying it again, though I suspect the route to getting that approach to work may lie through continued adjustments of medications and sorting out learning disabilies. She tends to respond to "How can we solve this problem?" with silence, and I'm not sure if the reason is mood, or difficulty thinking through options, or difficulty verbalizing, or a (varying) combination of all three. If she's in a really bad mood, her answer is "I don't care!" combined with destruction of anything within reach, but when she's in a good mood she's sweet, helpful and cooperative, but decidedly disinclined to think about the bad moments. We're on waiting lists for evaluations. Again, I appreciate everyone's help.

There are good arguments to be made for putting either of the girls back in school, which is one reason I'm stewing about this. Unfortunately neither was at her best in school before. Elder wasn't being challenged and was being bullied. If she goes back next year, she'll be starting middle school in a school which is having some problems. However, she sees the problems at home and would be willing to do this if we must. Younger wasn't a discipline problem, but also wasn't receiving any extra help to sort out her LD or behavior issues. Because the teacher couldn't see any behavior issues, she objected to dd being pulled from class for therapy, and gossiped about dd with other teachers, who then spoke about it to dd, leading to meltdowns at home. Because dd was trying to hold things together at school, she'd come home every day and melt down. Because she was not failing, the school didn't think there were LD issues that needed addressing. If I can get appropriate diagnoses and work out an IED, I could perhaps improve this situation, but dd strongly objects to the idea of going back. I've read The Explosive Child, but will go back and reread it and Greene's other book and Glasser's book. I wish I had a better grasp on what's at the root of the problems. The answers we've gotten from professionals have tended to focus on either behavioral problems and solutions as a matter of consistent parenting (i.e., charts and a token economy) or biochemical issues. So far the first has yielded no results and the second only limited ones. I know there are some anxiety issues, though they don't seem to be acute. There are some suggestions of sensory issues, though nowhere near what I know some kids experience. We do have an evaluation scheduled for that, though it's months off. I will pursue the neuropsych evaluation, because that could certainly be a missing piece of the puzzle. I appreciate everyone's thoughtful advice. You've given me a lot of food for thought, and I'm going to spend some time reading and digesting your ideas and the books you've recommended.

Thank you to everyone who has responded. I'm going to look into neuropsych testing. Frustration based on learning disabilities certainly makes sense, though it's evident in other situations also. Marie, your description of her active and passive resistance is spot-on. We've had her and, frequently, the rest of the family seeing a therapist since she was five. Unfortunately it hasn't helped much. The therapist says therapy probably won't help much until she's on the right medication. Trying to pursue that, we've seen three psychiatrists now. The first said (after less than one hour with dd, who was refusing to speak to him) that we had a discipline issue, not a medical one. The second was better, but dd also refused to speak with him through two appointments, or to allow her weight or blood pressure to be measured. The third and current psychiatrist is much better, dd was talking and laughing with her, but this one's having a baby and leaving practice in two months! I asked the therapist about neuropsych testing months ago, and she said it wasn't indicated for our situation. She also doesn't approve of homeschooling, and both girls perceive her as someone who chastises them. We're looking for a new therapist, but there aren't many in our area. Sorry, I'm venting here. I'm trying to find ways to engage her while I work with her sister, and will continue that. I really do appreciate your ideas, and hope others will chime in. Thanks!

Hi, I've been lurking for a while but finally decided it was time to join. My two daughters (8 and 10) and I are finishing our first year of homeschooling. We've had a lot of difficulty, mainly because of the younger girl's issues. She has a diagnosis of Mood Disorder-NOS. I think she may also have learning disabilities: she has trouble with sequences (before/after, left/right, and particularly numerical sequences and greater than/less than questions). She can handle addition and subtraction with ease, though, and has no trouble understanding multiplication and division concepts. I asked her school for an evaluation at the end of last year, citing my concerns, but they said she was within the normal range for first grade and they saw no problems. The biggest problem, though, is that her mood swings wildly, and her frustration tolerance is extremely low. Hitting a tricky math problem or being asked to fix a spelling word often sends her into a meltdown. She is on risperidone, which has helped a lot but certainly does not eliminate the problem. Trying to get through a day's work is very difficult, though I've cut my expectations down to the bare essentials. She doesn't just have trouble getting her own work done, she makes it extremely difficult for her older sister to focus. I'm feeling guilty for pulling them out of school, though we had plenty of good reasons for doing so. I feel like I'm not meeting their educational needs. Younger Girl never misbehaved at school, but she was at the breaking point every day when she got home because she'd been controlling herself all day. Evenings were horrendous, and the family just couldn't take another year of that. Older Girl wasn't being challenged. Well, now her schoolwork is appropriate, but I can hardly find time to work with her, and the biggest challenge is learning to cope with a mentally ill sister. We are waiting for a sensory evaluation which the psychiatrist recommended. I would like to pursue testing for learning disabilities, but until her behavioral issues are better controlled I'm not sure she'll cooperate (in fact, fairly sure she won't :glare: ). I want to keep homeschooling, but I worry that I'm doing my older daughter, especially, a disservice. Has anyone else dealt with these issues? Help? and thanks!

Hi, I'm just winding up the first year of homeschooling my daughters, 8 and 10. Reading all the advice here has been very helpful and I finally decided it was time to join.