One of my daughters had spots on some of her teeth where the enamel was missing. Our pediatric dentist would just fill them in, like a cavity. So it can be done! But if the tooth in question has significant enamel missing instead of spots, it may be a more serious problem than what we faced. I would get a second opinion before pulling.

I agree with Pen that learning a foreign language is more difficult for students with dyslexia and other language disorders. The dyslexia school that DD12 attends does not teach foreign languages. The public high school that DD13 with other reading troubles will attend said that foreign language was not required or even recommended. Can he drop Greek and use that mental energy for his other schoolwork?

We usually take the tree down on New Year's Day. I like to have it up through the end of the year but down before DH returns to work and has less time to help. We took the ornaments off, but I don't think it will all be finished today. We are taking the lights off of a pre-lit tree, because half of them don't work any more, and it is a big pain. DH has been wanting to throw the tree out and start with a new one next year, but when I've looked in the stores, I haven't seen any trees that are as nice as this one. Even though it is an old hand-me-down from my parents and sheds a ton of needles whenever we pack or unpack it, it is still lovelier than most. I think my parents paid a premium for it (Christmas decor was really important to Mom). So even though it is a pain, we will hang onto it for awhile longer. Taking the old lights off should make it easier when we put it up next year. I'll take down the other decorations throughout the week and hopefully have it done by next weekend. It's not a lot, and I could get it done today, but I'd rather not spend the holiday working.

This game looks fun. We've enjoyed other GameWright games. But it seems to be for up to four players, and we have six in our family. Could six people play it at once?

One of my sons was still wetting at night until age 12. Our pediatrician didn't want to use meds, out of concern for side effects, and advised to wait it out awhile longer. We discussed trying an alarm, but we were concerned that it wouldn't wake DS up (deep sleeper) but would wake up his brother in a nearby room (he has sleeping issues, so disrupting brother's sleep is problematic). And then around age 12.5, he was dry, without intervention other than waiting until he grew out of it. (This son has had some lactose intolerance, but treating it did not seem to make a difference.) I think it is worth trying things for time to see if they make a difference, because every individual is different.

DH's family (parents, sister, brother and his family) all live about 2.5 hours north of where we are. His parents and sister live near the area where he grew up, and his brother lives an hour or less from them. DH's parents go to FL for three or four months in the winter, which puts them about two days away by car for that period of the year. My family (parents, sister and family, brother and family) live in my hometown, which is two hours west of here. Two hours doesn't sound like it is very far, but we have a busy schedule and a lot of commitments here, so we can't travel to see them very often.

I agree that you need some more information. Can the parents provide you with copies of her school IEP and evaluation reports? I don't think that would be enough information, but it would be a start. It sounds like either the school has been terrible, or the parents have not understood the depth of the disabilities. I think you are really admirable to want to help, but I would fear that you are taking on a much bigger job than you anticipated when you offered. Is this an online charter? I think you really need to know what they will be expecting her to do and what kind of special ed they can offer before you know whether it will work for her. Trying to fit her into a program meant for NT kids may end up being frustrating for everyone. I think you are sweet to offer to help. I also think you really are going to need a team of people helping to educate this child, and while homeschooling, the parents need to be the leaders of the "team," not you. I don't mean that your plan to have her work at your home won't work (though I think it will be really hard), but that your role needs to be facilitator and perhaps tutor for some subjects, but that you shouldn't be the main overseer of her education and progress.

https://www.tourette.org/resource/understanding-coprolalia/ http://njcts.org/tsparents/2013/10/24/coprolalia-part-1-the-nature-of-coprolalia/ Here are a couple of links. For a diagnosis of Tourettes, the individual must have both motor and vocal tics for at least a year. It's possible to have a tic disorder that is only vocal or only motor. We don't have the swearing tic, but it did take me awhile to identify behaviors as tics and not just stimming or making random noises. I found it can be really hard to tell whether something is done purposefully or not, because DS has always liked to make noises, and we knew that some of his motor tics were associated with his ADHD meds. TS didn't occur to me until our pediatrician brought it up when I was talking about med side effects. I agree that a neurologist is the one to help sort it out. Very sorry. I would find swearing difficult to deal with. :grouphug:

I did MFW Ancients with my oldest two years ago. I agree that it is difficult. The writing instruction gives some good ideas but was not sufficient for DD, who does not have LDs but has weaker writing skills. I had to sit with her for the assignments, help her form ideas, make outlines, turn her thoughts into sentences, and edit her work. It was tedious! I really think you should use the writing assignments as guides for ideas and make up your own assignments. If he has trouble writing paragraphs, those essays are going to be beyond his ability. Maybe have him practice paragraphs instead. Write a question for him to answer in paragraph form and give him a graphic organizer to fill in to help him come up with his topic sentence and supporting details. Simple graphic organizers have been a HUGE help for my dysgraphic son. I realize this means you have recraft the curriculum, but the reality is that it is probably necessary. Here is another idea. Drop those essays altogether, and have him work on writing from the Notgrass history textbook instead. You could do something like this: DD12 attends a private school for dyslexia. One of the things they work on for writing is to read an article. For each section of the article (each paragraph or each subheading), she has to write down three to five pieces of information that she learned, in complete sentences. Because your son can summarize orally, this technique would be a way for him to practice getting one idea at a time down onto paper. Then you could work on putting those sentences into a paragraph. The idea is that he needs to be working on the writing skills, but he does not HAVE to be writing about literature. He can write about history instead. Sometimes it is hard to come up with the ideas for writing about literature, and by switching the writing assignments to the history text instead, you can remove that roadblock. You could still have him write about the lit selections periodically, but have him write just one paragraph or short answer, instead of an essay ( as I mentioned above). Also, The Iliad is a beast. I read it outloud with DD, and it was repetitive (lots and lots of long, heavy descriptions of battles that all blend together) and tedious. Read a children's version instead or an abbreviated version. Really. Or skip it. Just skip it. Move onto the Odyssey, which is more fun and episodic. Even for that, I'd read an abridged version instead of what comes with MFW. To be honest, by the time we were done with The Iliad, we were burned out on Homer, and we skipped the Odyssey. I hate to say it, but I wouldn't pick that curriculum for a kid with dyslexia and dysgraphia. I think that you should consider modifying it heavily or ditching it and going with something else instead. In addition to the suggestions of IEW from others, I think you could look at Writing Skills by Diana Hanbury King. Start with level 1. I think you would still need to modify -- add more editing, have him plan his work on graphic organizers intead of in the workbook. But it is an incremental and not overwhelming program that works through the writing process. We liked it.

It sounds like you would really like to be able to have more testing done, but that it is out of your budget. I am really sorry about that. I have found knowing the actual diagnoses for my kids to be really helpful to me, so I understand that desire on your part. I just wanted to acknowledge that I understand that frustration. The good thing is that you can find ways to help, anyway, and I hope you are able to get some more ideas. If you have not researched dysgraphia yet, I think you will be able to find lists of things that you can try for providing writing supports. My dysgraphic kids are enrolled in school now, so I'm not their main teacher any more, but I'll try to share some more ideas when I have time.

I'll try to respond more soon, but we have a guest and a family birthday this weekend, so it may be awhile before I get back to this thread. In the meantime, I'm sorry you found the school evaluations unhelpful. They actually may have been following the law, even though you found it frustrating. Federal law gives the school 30 days to respond to a request, so a few weeks may be in the normal timeframe. And schools are not required to diagnose. And they are not required to offer services, unless your state or school district has local policies that provide more than the federal law. What the school should do is run enough tests to determine if there is a learning disability, which they will call Specific Learning Disability in Reading (instead of dyslexia) or SLD written expression (instead of dysgraphia). And you should have gotten a copy of all of the scoring from the tests. Those things can be helpful, even though the school will not do the same kind of diagnosing that a private educational psych or neuropsych would do. They should have run the WISC or something like it, for example, to give you all the subset scores for the IQ testing. And they should have run an achievement test such as Woodcock Johnson. Those scores can be really informative. Did they say there are learning disabilities present?

What do you mean that the local schools were helpless? Are you in the US? Public schools in the US are required to test for learning disabilities, even for homeschoolers. Did you go through the evaluation process? If you just called and asked what they might do to help and were given the brush off, don't give up. You have to make a formal request for evaluations in writing. Have you done that? Did they refuse to evaluate for some reason? Schools in the US do not have to offer services to homeschooers (some do, some don't), but they do have to evaluate, which would give you the documentation of the LDs and some test scores that could provide valuable information for you. (If you are not in the US, then these questions will not apply to you.)

It sounds like dysgraphia to me, too. You can google it and get a list of ways to help. We are finding that typing does make a difference but does not solve all of the problems. One of the things that helps DS is to use graphic organizers for all writing, so that he has a visual structure to help him create a topic sentence and supporting details for each paragraph. He gets intervention at school. His teacher has taught him to start answering all short answer essay questions on tests by restating the question using th same words in the question but rephrased to make the beginning of his first sentence. An easy example: What is your favorite color? My favorite color is....

:( :( :( I'm so sad.

If she is going to finance her education by working, and she has two job opportunities locally in her areas of interest, going to the in-state 2 year program seems like a solid choice. Especially if they have a transfer agreement with the four-year university, which would leave that option open as well for the future. I can see why the degree program offered by the out of state community college would appeal to her. But if the costs are higher than the local 2 year, and she has no job lined up there, and there is a less clear path toward a four-year degree, the additional hurdles may offset the desirability of that option. Are you planning to visit?

CLE has high school grammar. Two of their English courses are grammar. You could do them half-time and have enough grammar to last for all four years, if you so desired.

You might also post on the Learning Challenges board for additional suggestions, both about high school classwork and remediation and college options.

I don't know what kind of dance she is involved in. But from what I understand as a mom of a serious ballet dancer is that a degree in dance -- even a bachelor's -- does not really translate into greater job opportunities. Dance teacher jobs generally pay a pittance and are part-time unless you are the studio owner or have been a professional dancer in a major company. I think the exercise science or therapeutic recreation degrees would expand her job opportunities more.

We haven't had the same kind of issues that you are facing, but we have had four kids in orthodontics and have dealt with two different orthodontists (due to a move), plus another that gave us a consult. We've been told that pulling teeth is a last resort now, unlike when I was a teen, when it was fairly common. DD15 did not have space for her 12 year molars to come in, and our dentist thought the ortho would want to pull teeth. Instead, the ortho had us have her wisdom teeth removed (earlier than the typical time frame). Three of my kids have had a palate expander, and it did widen their mouths. I am absolutely no expert, but I would tend to try the palate expander and wait on pulling teeth to see if it is really necessary later. I can see why the advice of the third ortho was appreciated, and it sounds like a good idea to get the ENT consult they recommend. But it sounds like working with them would be frustrating, so I'd lean toward ortho #2.

My oldest is about to turn 16, so we haven't reached college yet. But DH and I will pay for it. DD15 has no money and does not have time for a job. She is at ballet six days a week. Dancing for 20 hours a week plus school (enrolled, not a homeschooler), plus homework equals no time for a job. She is an average student (gets good grades by working very hard but is not a good tester), and DH's income is high enough that we won't qualify for financial aid. Without scholarships, financial aid, or an income, there is no way that she will be able to pay for it. For some of the same reasons and some different ones (learning disabilities), we are not expecting my younger three to be able to contribute significantly to their college expenses. Some of them may have time to work, but there is no way they will make enough to make more than a dent in the overall college costs. College is going to be an expensive thing for us. But we are not yet sure which, if any, of the children will do the traditional four-year residential experience. Too many factors still up in the air for them at this point. So we can't predict the costs yet.

By the way, the idea of Tourette Syndrome can seem scary, because of the way it has been presented in the media. For example, the swearing tics do not happen in all people with TS. But if you read a little online, OP, you might be a little reassured. If you get the diagnosis, it merely names and offers treatment options for what you are already seeing. :grouphug:

https://www.tourette.org/research-medical/cbit-for-patients/ Here is some information about the habit reversal therapy.

DS has Tourette's as well. It's actually a pretty straightforward diagnosis -- both verbal and motor tics for at least a year. You can google it. Our pediatrician sent us to a neurologist for the diagnosis. Tics do wax and wane. There are a couple of medications that the neurologist said can be helpful. Clonidine can help calm the nervous system and reduce tics, and it also can help with sleep. There is also a kind of therapy called habit reversal. We worked with a psychologist to learn the technique. It can help, but the person must be willing to do the exercises. My son's tics bother others around him more than they bother him, so he is not always willing. All that to say that there are things that you can try. You can ask your pediatrician for a referral to a neurologist.

That is very similar to a salad I make. It's probably my very favorite, but I'm not making it this year, because DH and some others in his family don't like sweet things mixed in their salad. A couple of tips: When carmelizing the almonds, be very careful, because they are super hot, and it's easy to burn yourself. When cooling, spread them out across a baking sheet. Don't leave them in a clump or pile, or they will stick together when they cool, and I find them hard to break into smaller pieces. I also add some dried cranberries, to add some red to the salad.

It sounds like dysgraphia to me, not just ADHD. There are other accommodations that you can consider. DS13 had a huge list of recommendations from the school OT. You can find many ideas online, such as http://www.ldonline.org/article/6202 Look at lists like that and consider what will help your son, not only now but when he is high school and college. Remember colleges want to see a history of accommodations being used, so if he would benefit from having a note taker in his classes or getting copies of the teacher's notes from the board, for example, you would want to document needing and using those. There are many things you can do to scaffold the writing process to help organization skills and reduce frustration as well. I think you can find some additional ideas. The accommodations for ADHD would not be enough help for my son.