You might want to post your question on the Learning Challenges board to get responses from the helpful people there.

We use CLE, and I'm planning to have DD13 move more quickly through her current level (700) in the way that you describe. I've found that the trick for me is to not look at the problems on the pages that we are skipping, because if I look at them, I want her to do them (she needs lots of practice). Some people also skip the quizzes. Just be prepared to slow down again if necessary once she comes across new material. Also, is she working in 501? 502 and following is set up differently and will be less review. Just in case you are not aware -- CLE's prealgebra is covered in both 700 and 800, so it takes two years. I think the extra time will be good for DD13, but some people switch to another program for prealgebra after level 600. At this point the updated versions of CLE only go through Algebra 1.

DS came home from his practice today and said that the older boy was nice to him today. He didn't tease DS, and he even told another young boy to do some extra sit ups when that boy teased DS. :thumbup1: Hopefully things will continue to go well. Thanks again to everyone for your input.

As far as I can tell, the show is about Jazz specifically. Catwoman, I agree with you. I think parents are responsible for media exposure of their children, and that even if it is what the child wants, it is not necessarily what is best. Young children are not able to understand the long-term implications of publicizing private business. I think that Jazz and her family are fully on board with putting their life out there for public scrutiny, but I don't think it is wise.

I did not watch the show, but I did hear a piece on NPR about it. The reviewer said that Jazz has actually been an outspoken advocate for transgendered people for years and that the show is disingenuous for not revealing that fact. I checked online, and she first went on tv in 2007, has an active YouTube account, and has co-founded both a foundation and a company related to transgendered issues. The reviewer was bothered by the fact that the show presents her as more like a kid with an unusual problem instead of the outspoken advocate that she is. This puts a different spin on the question of whether her family and the television network are exploiting her, I think. I suspect she knows exactly what she is doing. ETA: I personally think it's not a great idea to air personal issues on national tv, so I'm not suggesting that the show is okay. Just wanted to point out that Jazz is an experienced advocate, even at a young age.

We have five orders over the last six months, and 14 for 2014. I am averse to buying things in general. I have 12 items currently hanging out in my cart, most of which I will never purchase, and 161 items "saved for later." So I want plenty of things but buy few. Most of the things I buy are gifts for others. By the way, I don't think that this is a better way to be. I have some weird anxiety issues. When I do order more at the holidays, for example, I feel kind of guilty about making the mail carrier deliver so many packages to my house.

Creekland, I think you have an interesting perspective, having worked with so many different children. But how would you know the parenting style of each of those families? Some of what you are talking about is personality. People can be timid no matter what kind of parents they had. People can be out-of-the-box thinkers even if they had very traditional parents. My brother's personality is completely opposite my own, and we were very different students (I was top of the class and a rule follower; he almost flunked out and got into a lot of trouble) though we had the same parents. I have one very compliant child and three who are boundary pushers. Same parents. Also, we stress obedience at home, but because I have non-compliant children, a teacher at school may not be able to tell that. They may attribute my child's renegade behavior to a permissive parenting style, but they would be wrong.

I struggled to find a math program that would work for my oldest. Math was just very hard for her, and she would cry, and she didn't seem to make progress, though we worked hard at it. We tried several programs (and by "tried" I mean used them for a year or more), including Saxon at both the younger levels and 5/4. Finally we found CLE (Christian Light Education). She still works hard, and math is not her best subject, but she hasn't cried over math in years, and she is scoring well on the quizzes and tests. You may decide to stick with Saxon, but look at CLE as well. She won't have to copy problems; it is a spiral program that teaches new concepts in small pieces; and there are only a few of each kind of problem in the review section each day, though each type of problem is reviewed often. It works for my children because they are constantly reviewing what they have learned so that they don't forget it, but they don't get overwhelmed by having to do too much of any one thing each day. CLE has a lot of samples on their website, as well as placement tests, which are necessary. ETA: Everyone is so different that I rarely tell anyone whether they should switch to a different curriculum. But if you really want opinions, I vote to bail on Saxon. You've given it an honorable try, and it is not working well for her.

As a child, my mom knew a Harry Furry.

I've found that people always like an Asian cabbage salad -- the kind with Ramen noodles and toasted nuts and seeds mixed in. Or a corn bread casserole type dish. I would expect others to think about watermelon, so I'd pick something different.

I unfurl it into single slices, and then mound it or fold it as I put it on the bread. So if I'm using two slices of ham, I don't lay them flat with one slice on top of the other but fold each slice and put them side by side. Why? I don't know! It would taste the same either way.

I've been thinking about this article. For me, it is a mix of good advice and generalizations that don't apply to everyone. I don't think that accepting dyslexia as a lifelong disability means that one has a mindset of just struggling to keep up without trying to address the root problems. I do think that children who are given a reading LD by the school evaluation team can fall into a trap. Their parents may not understand that the school cannot diagnose dyslexia, and they may not seek out additional evaluations by someone who can diagnose. So the children struggle through school, getting some reading intervention, but not true remediation. Homeschoolers can have the same troubles, because some parents do not want their children to be labeled as dyslexic; some people specifically avoid sending their children to school in order to avoid labeling. I've seen this mindset on threads here on the forums more than once. I've seen it a lot, actually. Homeschoolers can teach dyslexic children, of course, but I think the fear of the diagnosis of dyslexia can keep some children from getting the remedial help that they actually need. In my opinion, knowing about dyslexia and how it can have a lifelong impact is empowering. So I reject their thesis, but there is some good advice about systematic remediation in their article. I don't know anything about the program that they want readers to buy into. I think the article is really a promotional piece for their program, disguised as advice.

The 201 book will review all of the basic concepts from level 100 in the following way: For each lesson in the light unit, your son will take a pretest. If he passes it, he skips the rest of that lesson and moves on to the next pretest. If he does not pass the pretest, he works through the material in the rest of the lesson. It has been awhile since we have used the first book of any level, but I believe that each kind of problem indicates which light unit from the previous year covers that material in more depth. So you could start with 201 and see where the gaps are and then go back to some of the 100 level light units if necessary. We switched from Horizons to CLE around second grade. What we ended up doing is just spending lots of time in the 201 light unit. The material was simple enough for me to go over in detail without buying the previous year's lessons. It was probably equal amounts of review and new material for DS, and I just taught him what he didn't know yet. We worked hard, but when we got through 201, he was ready for 202. 202 will continue to review those basic concepts, so even when DS didn't have things down pat, it was enough for him to have been introduced to them. As I remember it, I think CLE 100 is more advanced than Saxon, so if you found your son struggling a lot with the placement tests, you could probably start with level 100 and just move through it more quickly. To move through a light unit quickly, people sometimes will do two lessons in one sitting. You can go through the new material for both lessons but only do the review (called "we remember") for the second lesson. There are also two quizzes in each book that some people skip. So in theory you could move through the entire math level in about half of the school year, though you might find that you need to slow down and do entire lessons eventually as material gets harder.

Update Thanks again for all of the suggestions. DD was diagnosed with dyslexia today, along with dysgraphia. And possible ADHD inattentive (surprise!). The NP wants to come to meet with the instructors at the school right at the beginning of the year to explain to them DD's test results and diagnosis and go over his recommendations. No extra fee -- it's part of the service he provides :hurray: .

An argument between toddlers for your amusement: When DD was about two, she mispronounced Piglet as Piggle. Her cousin, who was three or four at the time, sternly marched around the dining room table, shook his finger at her, and said, "It's NOT Piggle. It's Pig-wit. Get it? Pig. Wit."

Why does it need to be rural? There are many urban areas in the Midwest that could offer more of the programming that you are looking for and provide a wider group of people from which to find a like-minded social circle. I live in the Midwest now, and I lived in Boston when I was a young adult. In both areas I've found a good mix of people that share my views and people that don't. I do think that if you are likely to move sometime that doing it while the children are younger is easier, so better now than later.

I'm sorry these things are so confusing. It's hard to know what to do, because we want our children to succeed, and we don't want to make the wrong choices. Here is the bottom line -- you do not have to enroll in school just because the evaluator told you to. Homeschooling can be a good option for children with learning challenges if the homeschooling parent is willing to investigate and use materials that are appropriate for that child's particular needs. In fact, homeschoolers may have more options than a public school, where the student has to try to meet the same benchmarks and standards as children who do not share the same learning issues. On the other hand, school can sometimes be a good option if the homeschooling parent does not feel equipped to work with the student, or if the school has particular services that would be a good thing for the child. Are you in the US? If so, the public school is required to evaluate children in their community with learning disabilities. Going through the school's evaluation process may help you decide if they have programs that would benefit your son. Did he get a diagnosis of dyslexia?

I don't want to hijack the thread, but can someone explain the Facebook problem? I'm not on Facebook, so I'm clueless, but I may join FB in the future, so I should be aware.

We give a gift to the grandparents on Mother's Day and Father's Day, but it comes from our whole family, not just the children. So they are getting one gift that is from both their children and grandchildren. It tends to be a restaurant gift card nowadays. I think it's not really polite to suggest that the gift someone gives you is inappropriate, so I understand why your feelings were hurt. I would say for the future, do what pleases you and the children, even if it does not please your parents. If you want to send them a gift out of love, continue to do so. If you don't want to do it any more, just send a card signed with everyone's name.

Sweetpea, my son has been diagnosed with NVLD, and he also has ADHD. He doesn't fit exactly 100% if you look at a list of descriptors, but I think NVLD is correct anyway. He's one of those kids who can come across as NT in a short doctor's visit. He would even sit quietly for an hour biweekly in his psychologist's office (he saw her for anxiety, but she helped us understand more about him) and seem NT enough that she didn't see the spectrum-like qualities. On the other hand, set him loose in a non-structured environment and observe him, and his differences become more obvious fairly quickly. Having structure kind of hems him in and makes him appear more typical. So I was wondering if the NP would be able to see what we see. Others had not, even our pediatrician, who had known DS for ten years. According to their reports and feedback, he was subdued during testing, and they could see his anxiety. His test scores were extremely interesting (they called him back for additional testing to try to figure him out), and they also had a lot of parent intake info and questionnaires. He engaged with them, made eye contact, was friendly, etc, but they could still see the social skills deficits in the testing and in his interactions with them. They were able to see the issues even when he was on his best behavior and working hard. If you have a good NP, they should be able to tease out the complexities. The trick is finding the right NP, which may be easier said than done.

Thanks, Sweetpea! I think that doing something social outside of class is an interesting idea, but it would have to be the whole team. The other boy involved is going to be a sophomore this year, and DS is only going into fifth grade, so I don't think anything planned for just the two of them would work. I do think it would be good if I had the chance to see the kids in action. The talk with the coach and the owner went well, I think. They did say that the kids on the team have always gotten along very well up till now and they haven't witnessed any mean behavior themselves. I pointed out that DS asked us to intervene by talking to the coaches, and that he wouldn't have asked for help if there was no problem. We talked things over for about an hour. They were willing to listen and agreed that things needed to be addressed now -- that even if DS was only perceiving things incorrectly that they didn't want bad feelings to happen. They are going to talk to the older boy, not to accuse him of wrongdoing, but to ask him to help them out by setting a good tone and being sensitive to DS, who may not always understand the kind of joking that they do. I think that it's a good start, and we'll see if the boys respond well or not. The coaches say they've known the older boy for years and feel he will step up and that it is a good chance for him to understand that he should be a positive leader. There is a second older boy who is really considered the leader among the boys (in a good way), and we suggested that they talk to him, too, so that both older boys can be conscious of avoiding a mean tone. We also talked quite a bit about DS's difficulty with social cues and how the coaches could understand him and work with him, and they were very open and interested in talking about this. At the end, DS came in the room, and the coach told him that he realizes DS has been feeling troubled about these things, and that DS should always feel comfortable coming to the coach or the owner for help, because the coach needs to know what is happening to be able to help with it. So if anything comes up, DS should tell the coach that he needs help. Coach said, "Sometimes I might talk it over with you. Sometimes I might decide to call the other boy over to talk to you about it together. Sometimes we might decide that you boys need some time apart, and I can have you work in different parts of the gym. What we do about it might be different each time, but I want you to understand that I want to know about these things, so that I can help." DS just nodded and listened. It was all very calm and pleasant in tone. We covered a lot of things, and I'm hopeful that we can work together to smooth things out. DS definitely needs to work on some things, as well, which we acknowledged. We're hopeful that there is potential for things to improve.

It's hard to take in all of that information. We got our son's alphabet soup diagnosis over a year ago, and we're still learning more. A couple of suggestions for things you can do to follow up for yourself while you wait for the report. You can follow up with your physician about the ADHD. Ask them to do a screening or refer you to someone who will. If ADHD is involved, treating it can make a huge difference, so it is worth knowing for sure. You could also ask for a referral to a behavioral pediatric specialist to help nail down whether the ASD is really accurate. If I were you, I would want to find out more. Did the NP say 2e? I hope they went over in detail what his strengths are, as well as the weaknesses. I'm glad you got to record it. Edited to take out NVLD info, since that is not an issue.

I've never been to Chipotle, either. I thought I was the only one! I never liked Applebees. Things on the menu would sound good but then just be bleh. We did have one near our house, though, and went occasionally for convenience, and I eventually found a couple of things that I can eat. I like their Asian salad. The shrimp are fine. I admit that I kind of like McDonalds, but only their chicken sandwich, not the burgers. I don't care for Burger King, but I do like Wendy's.

So after several rounds of phone tag over the past few days, we have a meeting set up for this evening at 6 with the coach and the gym owner. I reread this thread and made some notes that I will take into the meeting with me. I think if the conversation turns toward blaming DS I now have a list of suggestions for how they can provide some structure that will help him. So I can say, "Thank you for sharing that. We want to know about any problems that come up, so that we can address them at home. Here are some things that YOU can do at the gym that we think will help." I have a list of suggestions in my notes to go over verbally, and at the end of the meeting I plan to follow up with an email, so that they have some written ideas and a record of what we discussed. DH will be at the meeting, but I tend to be the talker, so I'm thinking through what to say. I am so non-confrontational that these kind of things are hard for me. I'm anxious about the meeting, but I feel more prepared due to the help that you have all given. Thank you so much! I'll let you know how it goes.

I read your update. I'm an adoptive mother. There are many things to think about when considering adoption. One of the things that experts would advise is to work through your feelings about infertility before starting the adoption process. You can take the time to research all of the adoption options, figure out the pros and cons, and decide along with your husband whether it is right for your family. I can tell you that it is extremely common for spouses to have different feelings about adoption. Sometimes it takes one spouse much longer to come around to the idea. Sometimes one spouse will say no. It took my husband awhile to be willing to consider adoption, and that was extremely hard for me. Be prepared for it to be a long and emotionally difficult process. The adoption process itself is a roller coaster, as well, so you want to be a good place emotionally before beginning. I just wanted to caution you that the decision to adopt may take a considerable time, and then the adoption process itself can take a long time. So being able to continue nursing until a new baby arrives may not be feasible unless you plan to nurse for several years. I would also say that not being able to nurse should not be a primary reason not to adopt, and you would need to work your way through your feelings about that. Consider that the adoptive baby will likely not be nursed whether they are in your family or another family, so for the baby the nursing decision is not primary. For them, the primary thing is having a family. Nursing is extra. However, I will say that it is possible for some women to produce milk for an adoptive baby, but you would have to research it. :grouphug: These things are hard. Since you have experienced so much loss, I would really work through the adoption decision process carefully and may even recommend that you get some counseling from a professional who deals with infertility issues. In the meantime, there are many adoption resources available online and at the library, so that you can learn about adoption at the same time that you work through your decision emotionally. I wish you the best as you make your decisions.