It is insane here. This is the third time we've lived here, the first time we could afford to buy, and if we had bought a year later it would have been impossible. I don't know what the future holds, but if our kids end up somewhere else because of cost of living, we might move to be near them.

Aww what's NYC got over CA weather and coastline! Stay...😀

If it didn't link I will try to link it when I get home from work.

If I had to guess I would say the continual decrease in the trade types of jobs along with school becoming even more academic and test-focused with fewer vocational type options. Richard Reeves wrote a book about this and more in his book: Amazon.com: Of Boys and Men: Why the Modern Male Is Struggling, Why It Matters, and What to Do about It: 9780815739876: Reeves, Richard V., Reeves, Richard V.: Books. Here is one stark statistic regarding how dangerous it is to be male:

Public transit is a whole different animal. I absolutely believethere can be a much greater chance of having uncomfortable encounters. But not necessarily dangerous ones - just uncomfortable.

I have done the first in the past and we didn't do sleepovers because it's not really a thing in the circles now -- she has done them in the past but I just don't see a scenario where I DON'T know the person. However, tbh I would probably be more cautious about the sleepover than the other examples -- nighttime in the parking lot, peeking into the back seat of the car (that seems the most extreme to me - the car is locked, what the heck). I run at night occasionally and did so in college even while we had a serial rapist who hadn't been caught - I took reasonable precautions and would expect my daughter to do so as well if she ever took up running. I would be more worried about one of us getting bitten by a rattlesnake on our local trail or running out of water than being harmed by someone I met running solo. There is a memorial nearby of a high school girl that was raped and murdered on a trail during a solo run. I think of her and her family when I run past, but it doesn't affect my sense of safety one bit. If I am going to worry about safety, I will worry about something that is much more likely to happen, such as a traffic accident.

This to me sounds like a crippling amount of fear as opposed to normal caution, tbh. I wouldn't want to live in such fear, and I don't think such fears are statistically grounded in reality. https://www.rainn.org/statistics/perpetrators-sexual-violence

I think there are communities out there everywhere ranging from unhealthy to harmless to healthy. How much attention we pay to them doesn’t mean that they have that much more influence or are that much of a problem for our society. I mean, my older daughter spends more time than she should on Reddit but she sought out positive communities. She’s been lurking in a men’s boot community for some reason and told me how heat warming it was to listen to them talk so earnestly about boot quality. They even expressed frustration when comparing the quality of their boots to the same brand made for women and how it was unfair. But that type of forum won’t get much engagement because it doesn’t have the potential for emotional clickbait.

Makes Jordan Peterson look much more appealing, lol. I think there is a big void right now in terms of modeling upright, valuable male behavior - especially in liberal circles. I have very much had to counteract some of the accepted ideas that my kids were picking up at school. My son is an extremely sensitive young man, afraid of hurting anyone, and for a little while between age 14-16 he was receiving some messages about being a white male that were pretty negative. It's far too easy to make jokes and call it "punching up", but when you are a young, sensitive boy who internalizes most things, that can be pretty destructive. Luckily I noticed and spent some time building him back up. He is now much more secure in himself. When it comes to teenagers, some of the ones flocking to Andrew Tate are the ones who are lacking any other role model right now, and are being told by society that they are the root of all problems. And the ones getting radicalized are the same as ones getting radicalized into anything else -- hurt, depressed and lonely people with giant holes in their lives who are trying to distract themselves, get sucked into a new set of beliefs and over time adopt and mimic them.

Autism aside, sometimes people just make stupid judgement calls, period. My husband is neurotypical, and as an adult in the military was surrounded by people playing practical jokes. He played one on me similar to the email situation -- I emailed my kid's Kindergarten teacher about a situation I was incredibly nervous about. I found it very difficult to be the squeaky wheel at school and I had a lot of social anxiety. He created a fake email address from her and sent back a reply that was somewhat harsh, and that he thought for sure I would be able to tell was not from her. I was devastated. Even after he apologized profusely, it still hung over me as if she HAD written it. It took a long time to shake! We laugh about it 1now 3 years later, but that is an example of how people still are finding the boundaries of what's acceptable even as adults!

Yep! Though if it had been my oldest, she probably would have gone even now if she had been accepted. But my son is a little more sheltered, wants to be closer to home, and likes the four year housing guarantee (even if we don’t end up using it, it’s nice to know it’s possible). And Terence Tao is a big draw!

But with the drug being one that could possibly be abused, I can understand a new doctor being hesitant. I would assume length of diagnosis and length of treatment would be something a doctor would take into account. Long standing diagnosis and stable on a med for years would look very different compared to say a recent diagnosis of a college student and a not very robust medicine history. It sounds like the OP's son had a diagnosis as a child, was prescribed meds but was not taking them currently. My daughter has been diagnosed twice, at age 18 and 19, and is now 24 and was stable on Vyvanse for about four years before getting her next psychiatrist. The psychiatrist accepted the two diagnoses and current treatment plan, while the OP's son does not have a current diagnosis or a current treatment plan. 🤷‍♀️

My son committed to UCLA yesterday! Then he went and declined the rest of the schools he was accepted to. Berkeley was the toughest to find the withdrawal button - we joked that they probably couldn't believe someone would be declining admission! The rest were much easier to find. 🙂

There is not a medical test for Adhd -- it is much more subjective - based on parent report, patient report, and psychologist's own analysis. Unfortunately, not all psychologists are created equal, and some are laxer with their diagnosing. Plus, there's not exactly a hot market for scoliosis rods.

My twins aren't super close. We homeschooled so they did play together, and they like each other, but they literally have nothing in common and interact socially with others in very different ways. Have a kid if you want one, but don't expect them to be friends just because of the age gap or lack thereof. My daughters at ages 18 and 24, six years apart, have more in common and more to talk about than the two 18-year-olds, in point of fact.