She was walking fine but acting freaked out. We were debating whether or not to keep her on our porch or put her in the coop with her sisters. She kept acting so unhappy near humans that we decided she needed chicken company and so she's sleeping there now. Our chickens have always gotten along great and never picked at each other, so I think that was the right move, and of choose we'll be checking on her in the morning and changing her dressing soon.

Today was one of those days where I got to learn a new skill together with my husband (who is back from Afghanistan, hooray!). I diagnosed a chicken with bumblefoot, then we worked together to perform surgery. If was a little rough, and we realized several times that we were making things up as we went along. We're still not sure what the insides of a chicken foot are supposed to look like, but hopefully we improved the situation. I wanted to be a vet when I was a kid, but I never thought pinning down a chicken while apologizing to the poor thing was how I'd spend my evenings as an adult. Anyone else try something new recently?

I think that the developers of this curriculum were probably making a very honest attempt to value part of the world that has often been pitied rather than honored in the white American church, but they failed to look at things through anyone else's eyes, to gather perspectives from those not like them. I hope they learn from this instead of becoming defensive. To the language thing, for anyone who can't see how it's offensive, maybe this might help. Imagine a group of kids elsewhere in the world learning about Americans and being told "in America they make this sound "th" where they stick their tongue through their teeth and blow around it. Let's make up an American name with this sound in it." Then a bunch of kids blow raspberries and believe they've learned something about those weird Americans who spit when they talk like babies. This situation is still not like the VBS situation described because most kids throughout the world know more about Americans than that and a good percentage will likely learn at least some actual English at some point. The American kids don't have that greater context and won't necessarily have their misunderstanding corrected at a later date. Instead, they get "African people are interesting but weird" as their take away.

The kids are to be taken to their parents if they absolutely can't listen, but the boy having the most trouble is already with his mom. I couldn't actually chat with her about a strategy today because she was an hour late (her husband dropped off her kids to the tot lot, though, which should not have happened), but I tried to be proactive and redirect her kid as well as the others. Also, she realized that she went too far yesterday. There are still issues (like when she tried to arm chair diagnose one of the five year olds as having aspergers and I absolutely shut that down), but we'll survive the week and make sure the kids have a safe and good time. We're never going to be buddies, I think, but that's okay.

Right. I want to try to handle it between just the two of us to start with rather than "tattling" to the camp authorities. Though, there were other adults in likely ear shot so it's possible that someone else has reported. if so, I hope she doesn't assume I did because that will make the rest of the week really awkward. To be clear, nothing she did was illegal and I have no reason to suspect child abuse or anything like that. I hope that was clear in the first post, but if not, this was totally in the "people have different opinions about this, but it's legal and not horribly outside local societal norms" range, just problematic in the setting and group dynamic.

Thanks!

Today was the first day of day camp, and I'm helping with the tot lot. It's a smallish group. We had 8 kids today with 2 adults and 1 teen helper, but three of those kids were mine. My first inclination was that it was better for me to stay home and watch my own kids there, but they encouraged me to volunteer as they have to have 2 deep leadership and the teen doesn't count for that. The weather was great, kids were nice, and we had some fun. There are 2 issues, though. The first is just an annoyance. I had asked what I should do to prepare and was told not to worry about that, I'd be provided with a schedule of activities and just needed to shepherd the group from one place to the next. Well, that didn't turn out to be true and we were scrambling to fill the hours before lunch. That will go better tomorrow as we spent downtime brainstorming activities for tomorrow. The second is the real problem I think I need to address. The other adult leader has 2 kids in the tot lot as well, and the younger is a rambunctious little boy who isn't a great listener. I could handle that if it was just me, but his mom has a different parenting approach. Please bear with me as I fully know that I am not seeing the whole picture and I don't want to be judgmental but today's discipline strategy wasn't working and violates BSA rules. (No corporal punishment and discipline should be done in a non-shaming manner.) Having a group of little kids listening to whacks and shrieks from the next room over and then a series of escalating but empty threats repeatedly interrupting the group's activities is just no good. Plus, it didn't work to help this little boy improve his behavior, at least not during the hours we were at camp. I think part of it might have been that the mom was embarrassed that her kid kept running off and felt the need to show that she's tough and doesn't take that kind of behavior, I know this woman a little from other things, and she may think that because my kids are known for being well behaved (in public that is, they still have their moments in private), I must be a tough parent. Really I realize fully that some kids are a handful and all kids have their moments. I feel for parents when they are in those spots, but it doesn't make me assume they are bad parents. Here's my plan. Because we are working together all week and because it does violate camp and organizational rules, I feel like I have to say/do something. So, I'm going to bring a small towel to be a "thinking spot" (time-out) that can travel around with our group. While the kids are playing on the playground under our supervision in the morning, I'm going to talk to my co-leader about how we really need to have consistent discipline for all the kids in the group because it's not fair for the kids for one kid to get a spanking for misbehavior, another to get a talking-to, and yet another to lose screen time or whatever, and I'll suggest we do the whole "one minute per year of age" on the thinking spot for repeated violation of a rule after a warning. If she's agreeable, which I think she will be, we'll have a little morning meeting where we practice our chant, go over our rules, and explain the method of discipline briefly to everyone. I'm dreading this because I don't like confrontation and I know that no one likes interference in their parenting. I will do my best to do this in a "what can we do to make things consistent for all the kids at camp" partnership kind of way. Please, if you think I'm terrible, try to be kind anyway. If you are heavily involved in scouting and can give any advice from that angle, please do!

I'm not the kind of person who leaves their babies with other people normally. I hate to. But I've left this little one in the y childcare since as soon as he was three months old, which is their rule. My husband is deployed and I have three older kids, the oldest being six. It's not ideal, but he's very healthy, I don't leave him if I see they are crowded, and my sanity is important, too. I would rather be able to leave him with my husband, not only because that would mean my husband was home. So if you feel like you need to, you should make that call and don't feel guilty. A less than perfect situation is sometimes the best we have, and that's ok.

To be clear, the people doing this are people I generally like a lot. They just get really excited about their faith and ideas about it, and their church has a lot of people like them and not so many older, calmer people direct the energy. They've had experiences with the opposite kind of church, where there are very few people with enthusiasm about Christianity and lots of older people there to need 15 committee meetings to decide whether the church should sing 2 hymns and a praise and worship song or just 3 hymns, then pat themselves on the back for how quickly they moved (exaggeration, yes). I know where they are coming from, but the weirdness they jump to still seems weird, and when their kid tells my kid something off the wall, I don't want to do anything to underminemyself, the parents, their faith, or their future faith. It's tough.

That's a good idea to look into! Not one we thought of. I'd love for him to have that job for sure. Actually, I'd love that job. I'll see what he thinks.

He really considered this, but I doubt at this point he'll make a change involving redoing that much undergraduate work. He'd be happy to do a graduate program, but I'm not going to encourage working full-time while also a full-time student again. Been there, done that. More schooling will, hopefully, come with some kind of teaching fellowship or similar so he can leave the job he hates.

I've found some success holding it in my palm for a bit, then pushing it onto a painted surface with my thumbnails.

It's actually this that makes me consider saying more, if it comes up, especially if the parents are around so that I'm not seen as secretly undermining. Just something like, "that's cool, but I think God saves his miracles to be special things. He commanded us to fill the earth and subdue it, which I think means we are supposed to study and understand things. We wouldn't be able to do that very well if God was always breaking the rules he wrote!" That sounds really casual and not at all rehearsed, right, haha. I'm very thankful for a college Bible prof who taught different ways "Bible believing" Christians interpret Genesis. That had a big impact on keeping me from feeling like I had to leave the church.

Not in my circles(the conservative Presbyterian I grew up with or the moderate mainline protestant I am now), but I don't know about others. I'm guessing they didn't invent it in a vacuum, though.

That's the scripture that sprang to my mind as well. At least it's not putting anyone in danger, which makes it much better than snake handling to me, or less bad, I suppose. That's a good go-to line. I've used similar in other situations. Then I have to follow up with "we can discuss the why's later" because I have kids who really want to understand everything.

In the pictures it seems to. I don't know how long for, nor whether it is longer than they would stay if pressed against similar surfaces without the command.

Some extended family we will be seeing soon that have kids roughly the same ages as ours have been practicing their faith in the holy spirit by commanding pennies to stay on the wall when they place them there and then let go. I'm a practicing, believing Christian, but this is not part of my practice at all. To me it feels like claiming God is helping you do magic tricks, but to then, I gather, it is a way of exercising their faith to strengthen it. I am fine chatting about it with the adults if it or similar comes up. We have a good, respectful relationship and can disagree about things without fighting. What about with the kids? I don't know what to say if it comes up, particularly if both sets of kids are around at the time. Any advice? My husband isn't around right now to talk through this with, and he won't be back by the time we get together. I sometimes need to process things verbally to keep from making them a big deal in my head; that's the main reason I'm posting. It's his side of the family, if that matters.

He's pretty sure that being a detective wouldn't really be satisfying, but he might try to switch to that to get the last couple of years he needs for certain pension benefits to kick in. He is considering teaching and going to grad school. Working for the state department or similar in economic development is his dream job at this point, but he also has certain goals in the military he wants to hit, so he doesn't want to leave the guard just yet. This latest tour might be changing his mind about that, though! I'm pushing him to talk to his old college advisor for grad school advice (graduated 2 years ago, so he'll still be remembered clearly), and we'll talk about the time line for a state department job. A lot of these other ideas are also interesting, so I'm looking to see what's available in our area. We are in a big-city suburb, so there are plenty of opportunities for change. Thank you all! I want to help him find something that will be challenging enough that he will be able to be happy. His brother also owns successful business and wants to hire him to do some kind of analysis which is outside his area of study but could fit the bill. We'll be talking about the pros and cons of that, too.

For my husband. Please don't quote as the following info is more specific than I would like to leave up long-term. He is currently deployed in the National Guard, but his normal full time work is policing. Basically, he hates it. The hours are bad, he doesn't like sitting on a car so many hours of the day, and the leadership is not always top quality, let's say. He'd like to make a major change into a new field. The question is, what? An ideal job for him would involve a fair amount of communication and interaction, lots of problem-solving, and chance for physical exercise (or good enough hours he could exercise on his own time.) He's a brilliant, brilliant person who is happiest with lots of mental and physical exercise. He has a major in international studies and economics, which he earned while policing full time, serving in the guard, and having his first three kids. He can learn to do pretty much anything without significant difficulty. He's basically the smartest guy in the room in almost any room he goes in, but that doesn't make figuring out a life path easier. He is good at working with others, patient, and kind, but he gets very frustrated when there are outside restrictions that keep him from doing his job well. Working abroad is absolutely a possibility for our family. His references world be excellent. Money is always good, but we don't require a lot for our lifestyle. Does anyone have any ideas either of jobs or ways to figure out a career path? I know there are folks offering help to veterans to find jobs, but my impression is that they are focused on reducing unemployment, not on matching people with long-term career happiness. If I'm wrong about that, please me know. Thank you for any help you can share.

My two youngest recently participated in a study using a patch to administer vaccine. A small bandaid-like thing is put on the child and left there a couple minutes, then removed. It does have to be applied a little more forcefully than a bandaid, but neither child reacted as though it hurt. I'm really hoping this will be used routinely to administer vaccines soon as it seems much "nicer" than giving babies shots. From the questions they asked, I think they are looking to do flu vaccines this way first, as well as vaccines in places in the world where it is logistically harder to give injections.

I remember a solution to this when I was in school was to get a family friend with a reasonably cool car to play chauffeur. I Often a dad from family A would drive family B's kid and friends, then when that kid A was going, kid B's dad would drive. Or older sibling, etc. I just rode with a responsible friend.

I think if I were covering ww1 with my current first grader, I'd focus on the idea that people thought this was a war that would end war, but then at the end, the winners wanted things to be "fair" and punished the losers so much that they made people angry and resentful and set things up for the next war. A lot of kids that age, mine included, want stories to have morals, and I think that's one that my kids could relate to (I'm always reminding them that "fair" is not always a good goal) and would help with their broader understanding of history, despite being simplified. Just my thoughts.

Have you tried having him lead an activity or teach you something while you act like he normally does? Or just talk through what it would happen in that situation? Sometimes kids have to be forced to look at things from another perspective. When I do this with my kids, they often walk away in a huff, but then I see them applying what they learned later on. I agree with others about pulling him out of class if he's disrupting the experience for others, but I'd be very clear and explicit about what's going to happen and why, as well as what he needs to do to re-earn entry.

Another homeschool family, the "Smiths" were over one day this week and we pulled out a Magic School Bus kit we'd been given to do together. The Smith children are the same ages as mine, but not accelerated. I was going over the activities, asking for guesses about what might happen, etc, giving some questions to the little ones and some to the bigger. At one point there was a silence after I asked a medium-difficulty question, and finally my six year old said "I know the answer, but this seems like a question for the Smiths. Do you know, Suzy?" Alas, Suzy didn't know. I need to explain to my daughter that she was right, but you don't say things like that in front of other people. Not sure how to do that without accidentally encouraging her to be even more patronizing, so I'm just stewing in it.

That's so awesome! I know it makes planning hard, but having to choose between 2 great possibilities is a fantastic problem to have.