My DD, now 18, has ADHD-combines type. She appears mostly ADD at first, but the H is there is you know what to look for in her. She started having behavior issues in school in 1st grade. A good part of it was the teacher, because she did not have as much trouble in 2nd grade. At her first parent-teacher conference in 3rd grade, her teacher told us that she thought DD had ADHD. For diagnosis we went through the psychological services department at my DHs work since is was free. The ADHD became very obvious when the testing that would normally take a child one vist took my DD 3visits to finish. We alos did parent surveys, parent interviewe, and tracher surveys. I remember the psychologist going over the report later and telling us about how DD was distracted by a car alarm going off in the parking garage that was outside and three floors below. The psychologist was going to offer some sort of computerized treatment, but she left that practice before we could get started. My DD changed schools in 4th grade from a private catholic school to our neighborhood public school. She had some edcational gaps when she switched, but her social difficulties we more concerning at the time. We eventually went to our pedetrician to discuss medication. He took the info from the psychologist and had us(and teachers) do surveys. Once all that was collected and reviewed, he agreed to medication. He wanted to start with versions Ritalin because it has been around the longest and side effects are well know and documented as apposed to a newer medicine that might not have all side effects identified at that time. My DD would not (and still won't) take pills so we went with a brand that came in a capsule that could be opened up and mixed with food. He did warn us that medications were trial and error and might not work at first, but for my DD, medication was amazing. We noticed changes right away. On the 2nd day, the little girl spent hours building a house and swimming pool out of Legos. This may not sound like much, but this was a girl who could not play with anything for more than 5 minutes. There were other immediate improvements, but this post is long enough already. The only side effects she ever had are the loss of appetite that is very common. On the med, she just wouldnt eat. She generally did not use the medication on weekends and in summer when she was at home, so the appetite thing was not a big concern. Over the years, dosage has had to be adjusted as she grew. when the Daytrana patch came out, she was the first of his patients to try it out. The patch made life so much easier for us all. I really like how the dosage of medicine can be adjusted by taking the patch off early if she was in a situation where she did not need to be medicated all day or if there was a special event that she really wanted to be able to eat at. Over the years, there were periods when she did nt want to take the medication. As long as she could maintain her behavior and grades(i did not insisit on super grades, just all passing)I let her decide if she was going to use the medicine. Sometimes, I had to insist, and other times we could talk through a situation and she would decided on her own to use the medicine. She graduated from HS in May. Her grades were not great, but she chose a college that awards scholarships based on ACt scores, not grades, so she got a nice scholarship that covers tuition, fees, and books.

Cooking dried beans is easy if time consuming. I start the night before. I rinse and sort the beans. You do have to check through them because sometimes small rocks will slip through the processing. Then input them in a large pan, cover with water, and soak over night. The next morning, I drain and rinse the beans, add fresh water, and cook adding more water when necessary. I have heard that it is even easier to cook beans with a pressure cooker, but I don't have one.

Hot all the time! Just kidding. I am from Houston, and I like to say that summer is from April through October, but there is air conditioning everywhere, so the temp is manageable. The climate does make for some great vegetables. One of the things I miss the most is my tomatoes. Houston is very accepting of people moving in, but you may have a different experience in small towns. I would think that any of the larger cities such as Dallas-Fort Worth area, Austin, San Antonio, El Paso etc would be equally accepting. Housing is cheaper in Texas than many other places. There is no state income tax, but property taxes can be very high. Homeschooling is not unusual, and there is no regulations for homeschooling. If you choose public or private, the Houston area has tons of choices. There are several good districts that I would suggest over others. There are some good charter schools including KIPP academy and Harmony as well as lots and lots of private school many of which are church based if you want that. To me, the downside to Houston is the traffic and crowds. I do miss the shopping, restaurants, and all the kid activities. Where we live now has a better climate, but the is very little organized activities for kids and much less school choices.

Thanks for the input. I will hold off on the app until we get further along. We did the first lesson today and DS said he likes having the tiles because it seems more like a game that way.

It doesn't really bother me, because I don't see George as a "real" monkey. He is a fictional animal character that is given many human characteristics (I can't think of the literary term for that off the top of my head). In the stories, he is more human than animal. A real monkey is not going to go to a hospital with children to have something removed from his stomach, or ride a bike to deliver newspapers. My DS and I just finished reading a Hank the Cowdog book where Hank escapes from a dog pound and the worker chases after him and tries to run him down with his truck. While that would be horrible if something like that happened to a dog in real life, we thought the story was funny.

I dont know about a book, but one year for Christmas we gave my DS what he called his "office. It was one of those cheep three drawer plastic units on wheels. I filled the drawers with all sorts of art/school supplies such as construction paper, white paper, glue, scissors, tape, paint, post it notes, stapler. That way he could use his stuff however he wanted. It didn't really contain the mess, but at least I didn't have to worry about him getting into stuff that other people needed.

Some people who get car sick do better sitting in the front seat.

Galveston/ Kemah area Several years ago my DH and I stayed a night in the hotel that is part of the Kemah Boardwalk. We had a balcony that overlooked the stage with live music. Only bad thing was that the only place to buy alcohol nearby was a gas station. If there is not enough there to entertain them, it is only a bit further to drive to Galveston.

A friend of mine gave me her Barton levels 1&2 that I am getting ready to start using with my DS. Has anyone tried using the Barton Tiles app on the iPad? It looks good, but I am wondering if it is worth the $29 per level.

It really depends on him and the school. Is he "on level" in other academic areas? Is only his written output below level? If he dictates a writing assignment is the content appropriate to his grade level? I am going to answer based of the idea that he is "on level" in everything except spelling/written expression. There would be different experiences for a lower functioning student that might be in "resource" classes instead of "regular" classes. In the schools where I worked, by middle school the IEP focus was less on remediation and more on accommodations. So I child like this might be allowed to use an electronic dictionary for spelling assistance and be allowed to dictate assignments that requiring writing. Perhaps he would learn to use computer for dictation or word prediction software. It would be unusual (in the schools where I worked) for him to continue to work on spelling at a first grade level when he would have been working on that skill for several years without much success. (Not saying this is true for your DS, just generalizing based on my experiences). Some kids that have AS have a very difficult time with the social aspects of PS. The typical minor poking at other kids that goes on causes some AS to "over react", get into fights, be labeled a behavior problem, and academics suffer as a result. I know of several kids with AS that chose to do online PS due to the behavior issues and have been much more successful in an online situation where the social issues are reduced. On the other hand, I have seen kids get to middle school where there is a larger pool of kids and be able to make real friends for the first time because there are more kids to choose from and find some with similar interests. My good friend has a DD with AS and Dyslexia who was in 6th grade this year. Overall, the year was successful for her but there were some issues. Including a day where the school police officer was called to remove the child from class because there was a substitue teacher that day and none of the normal people who would have intervened were at the school that day.

I lived in the Houston area for many years and that actually sounds like a fair price for a 4 bed 3bath home with a separate apartment, but it would depend on the condition of the house and the neighborhood. We sold our 3bed 2 1/2 bath Houston house in Jan 2012 for around $150,000. It was less than 10yrs old and in very good condition.

My DD took ADHD medicine for many years in public school. Other than the school she was in when she first started the medicine, I don't think the other schools knew she was taking anything.

I would not expect the family of the child to pay unless it was malicious and the kid was trying to damage the other car, but I don't participate in organized carpools just the occasional taking my kid and his friend somewhere.

One of my favorites is "I'm not going to buy you an iPhone"

I have been reading this board for a long time and finally decided to register. I am a former PS teacher with DD starting college in the fall and a DS11. As a teacher I could alway see the benefit of homeschooling just from a time management and behavior stand point. I always hated how much time was wasted just in transitions and dealing with behavior issues. I left traditional PS a few years ago and worked for an online school company for a while. This past school year I was a teacher for HeadStart which was an eye opening experience not to be repeated. My kids have attended kids have attended private catholic school, traditional PS, and a lare charter school system in Houston before me moved to a different state. At the end of this school year I withdrew my DS from the local PS in our very small town. Right now he is set to attend a "blended learning" charter school that is over an hour from where we live. He will attend 2 days per week and work online at jome the rest of the time. If that does not work out I will homeschool, because he will not be going back to the local PS. Anyway, I have found this forum to a valuable resource even without registering, and I am looking forward to schooling at home.

Longtime lurker here. When I read this I just had to register so I could comment. As background information I lived in the big city(Houston area) for 25+ years starting when I was 16. Prior to that I grew up in a small town in WV. I now live in s state that neighbors Colorado in a similar small town ranching community. I can totally see those kids of attitudes would happen in the community where I live. People here do not like "outsiders" questioning anything, and you are an "outsider" if your family has not lived here for generations. The current school scandal here is that an Educational Assistant was recently suspended and is under investigation by the state police for having "inappropriate relationships" with students.this is translated to meaning under age girlfriends. Turns out that the superintendent had been trying to get proof of the relationship since September, but staff members who knew would not come forward. He had to threaten the other staff members with police action towards them for failure to report before anyone would say anything. At the time, I worked for Headstart which is completely separate from the public school in administration, but we have the same families. When I went to tell my supervisor of the issue because the EA has a child in our program, my supervisor (who is a local) told me something along the lines of that she knew he had teenage girlfriends because that was why the child's mom left left home in the fall. Apparently here it is accepted as normal for older men to have very young girlfriends. After living in Houston for all those years, I see this more of an issue in these very small communities. In Houston, parents would not hesitate to call the police and media if there was a even a hint that the school was allowing child abuse/sexual abuse to happen. Here everyone is supposed to mind their own business. I had been on the fence about pulling my son out of the school here, but that incident made my decision very easy. In my line of thinking, if staff will cover up such a serious issue as child sexual abuse, I do not feel that they will even attempt to protect my child from the local bullies (and my kid is not even the bullies' target right now)