There were plenty of people in the mid-19th century who were against and fought against what was happening with the "Indian territories" just as there were people in the 19th and 18th and 17th and before who were against and fought against chattel slavery - to the point that laws were put in place to separate poor White colonists from enslaved African people, and put them in enforced 'watch' positions where they had power and would be punished if any enslaved person 'acted up' under their watch -- because poor White colonists kept supporting and joining in slave revolts. We have writings and letters back to Columbus from people discussing being disgusted and against such mistreatment of American Indigenous people (though Columbus is rather an extreme example of this - when Queen Inquisition Isabella tells you your treating non-Christians too harshly, you've gone really quite too far). I think the issue that information and more importantly power to do anything about things were in far fewer hands than any particular mores. There are still plenty of voices in the 21st century talking about what "good" European colonization, chattel slavery, and reservations and so on brought to "civilizing the world" and how the West just needs to control or destroy other part of the globe again and it would solve everything (I have even heard quotes very similar to Ma Ingalls 'The only good Indian is a dead one') - there are just fewer of them in power and there is more power in the hands of others. There is still a lot of power imbalances and inequality and a whole lot of dividing and conquer rhetoric that is not a lot different from then happening now but the power imbalances back then pushed a lot further.

As a disabled person who has suffered from medical abuse and seen it happen to others, I could not trust such a thing to a physician. I think we would need entire system changes to get into that: better palliative care, better access to care and equipment and medication for chronic disabilities, better legal framework for people to create guidelines beforehand, and far wider social and enforced civil rights for disabled people and more before I could begin thinking down that path. But others need this considered faster than society is changing. Maybe a compromise would be requiring it to be in a completely separate place and team devoted to that which had the framework and counselling and careful oversight and such, but I don't think I would ever want it available or legal in general hospitals. Even if available to me, I wouldn't want the doctor treating me considering that option in their hands at all, ever. I don't think it should be in the hands of physician ever, it would need to be another profession outside of that. Even my very lovely GP who I've freaked out this week [my low blood pressure made his machine error out 3 times which resulted in me having to do many tests to prove I wasn't about to fall unconscious - this is not the first time this has happened but he was the most I've seen someone panic about it], I wouldn't want that in his mind or on his shoulders or in his hands.

Personally I'm on the side of more information when available, and like you OP I would have recommended getting the evaluations just to ensure I had all the information at that stage. From what you've written, what you said seems fine and hopefully she will take some of it on board. I can understand not wanting to do so though. I spent years in the eval-therapy cycle with my eldest, watched him regress repeatedly from bad therapy that was brushed aside by bad therapists and medical professionals.* Quitting that when he was 9 and focusing more on community connections with similar people was the best choice I made for him, but I still don't regret trying when he was a toddler. Whether early intervention helps depends on the child, the disability, the therapist(s), the type of therapy, and several other variables beyond early or not including how one defines help. There is currently a major issue with autistic and other developmentally disabled teens/adults and very poor mental health linked to some popular forms on early intervention (particularly ABA and other Lovaas/compliance type training and even more particularly the usage of it for hours at young ages. I've seen 3 year olds with over 40 hours a week therapy schedules with adults wondering why there is an increase in meltdowns and disconnection). Early access to alternative communication devices and sensory help devices have strong evidence of better emotional and social skills and better mental health but are harder to access for many reasons including cost and the strange idea still around that using a device [or signing] will make them "work for it less". * By bad in this case, I'm talking about therapists like a language therapist who ignored the head of the SALT department's and my plan for helping him understand, answer and ask questions to work for hours on identifying whether a cartoon character was male or female. He had to decide whether a boy or a girl would like something including a cassette walkman and a straight razor. She questioned him on whether a girl would like a computer. I still do not get how learning gender stereotypes was meant to help anyone, but her attitude towards O caused a lot of language regression. I also had a pediatrician who refused to think autism was real or that language issues could run in families, but my having an US accent could cause speech delays.

I'd drop English and Spelling unless they really enjoy it to give more time for reading and talking about books and things. Our Y1 looks like this (and Y2 is pretty similar this year due to M's difficulties): I start an audio book in the morning for everyone to enjoy while I finish breakfast and get my laptop set up. I ask what happened last time starting with the youngest and going up and then they all listen. I tend to start lessons with a Y1 student while it's still going, the older kids are required to start independent work when it's done while I work with the youngest doing formal lessons. Phonics sat on the couch together with a big whiteboard across both our laps. We work on a sound or dipgraph a day, I write out a word sound by sound and after reading they write their word next to my word. I start using Don Potter's Blend Phonics and then get word lists from other places for trouble areas. I used to do Essential Spelling here but it was more trouble than it was worth at this age. Penmanship and reading - we have a lap whiteboard that is lined on one side. We start writing the alphabet (or as much of it as they can) and picking up to 4 letters to do a line of. We started with one letter, then us each picking one letter, then they pick 2 and I pick one to each of us picking 2. I then write them out like fxg and they do a line lower case, then I'll write FXG and they'll do a line uppercase. If they really struggle on a letter or to introduce a new letter or connection I'll use the blank side to practice. Break to work on a reader for a few minutes, starting with the Blend Phonics stories and moving onto I See Sam books. I'll pick a sentence as a guide to writing a sentence for copy. After they write out the sentence, they pick a number and write one big and one little down for a line (so one that goes up to the top and one that stays below the middle dash line). Maths. After the big kids are done, we have a weekly rota of music and art and mindfulness and such that I ask them to try their best at. That's all I require. I include them in all reading alouds and documentaries and discussions but the above is their "lessons".

I had similar. I clearly recall a class in 8th grade being given a list of all the classes the high school had and an entire class plus homework over the weekend was devoted to us creating our four year high school plan and writing out why and how it would lead to our life goals. And this was well over a decade ago in a south Ohio middle school that led into a high school more known for drug issues, pregnancies and bomb threats than academic rigor near no elite Unis. It was just treated as what we should already know. I remember making the perfect uber-hard college-prep four year plan and struggling to explain why because my only reason was wanting to get out of there which they weren't too fond of. That idea that it is worse now than then make my stomach twist.

There is a high school here that goes from 8:30 to 5:15 Monday-Thursday (I think Friday is to 4:30?) with the campus open with activities from 8 to 6 throughout. However, this is a technical engineering school and does academics and hands-on projects and equipment training and has a no homework other than your own exam revision policy and "enrichment activities", guided support, and extra curricular clubs included in that time. I have mixed feelings though my eldest is really interested in going in Year 10 (the school always has a booth at the annual science fair - and always brings robotics and other equipment for people to try - so O-11 has talked to them a lot). Other than those, I have no experience of such long hours for kids - though as redsquirrel said it's likely a lot of kids already doing similar hours just fragmented over many things. Personally, I do not think the article makes a good argument for longer hours for most kids but it's end about dialogue and changes needed in education and wider system certainly rings true.

As others have said, you just sound a normal concerned and loving parent, we pretty much all have wobbles particularly with our oldest, and you aren't behind - maths skills in kids covers the whole spectrum and the list many curriculum and governments give for each grade tends more towards the faster either because it is more impressive or the fact some can do it means it should be a standard. Along with some of the great ideas others gave you on ways to do maths now and that they do not need to completely master 0-20 before moving on, I just want to comment and give you reassurance on something you brought up on -- on how you catch back up. You aren't behind, but even if you got behind or they felt behind, there are plenty of ways to 'catch up' in maths. Some are child-led: they'll have a burst or it'll just click and you can cover more because they get it. Sometimes it is parent or curriculum based - one may help a child cover more quicker than another because it suit them more or such or the way something is set up compared to what you are using means they'll be 6 months to even couple years 'ahead' purely because of how each programme is designed. Many school years and programmes have plenty of review. Also, around the middle grades of 5th-8th depending on a lot of variables, there is a lot of cushion and a lot of people take an extra year or so there to get more review and foundation in before moving onto algebra or other higher level maths. Even if you take more time now, there is still plenty of time to get it all in.

My eldest has been like that. The best thing for him has been having him write out *all* the work step by step in a maths notebook if it didn't fit on the page, followed by having him explain to me each problem he missed and how he could have caught and corrected it before being 'done', showing him how to check his work, and - after a particularly bad careless errors test - I gave him additional work to do after his usual math - one similar problems for each he had gotten wrong with the goal [my eldest is all about goals] that if he could get a problem type right 5 days in a row, I'd drop that type off his additional work. The goal not only got him to focus but showed me what was actually just careless mistakes and what he really needed additional instruction on.

I always recommend this article on caring for someone with depression though it is more aimed at partners than anyone else, it has many tips n practical things you can do that can help remove the things that tend to feed depression: helping with cleaning or decluttering, making food easier, making getting out easier and more pleasant, make self care more doable, challenging destructive thoughts, and so on. Doing some of those for partners of those with depression who need help as well can go a long way too for everyone. Depression itself makes it more difficult for someone to seek outside help and that is before getting into other very justifiable reasons for avoiding medical professions and that refusing that kind of help is not that same as refusing all help.

Brennus Bravery Benevolence

I'm a thorough cleaner that tends to get burn-out easily because I naturally go overboard and then too drained/in pain to do more for ages. For me, choosing to do an area would likely end in a deep cleaning disaster. I need specific, bite-size tasks usually within an area. I've used what feels like every de-cluttering/house cleaning system there is and the only one that has worked for me is the Declutter 365 because it gives daily/weekly tasks that I can do and call done alongside working on creating a daily system of regular tasks step by step. Today's task is declutter freezer which I did last night when I put the shopping away so I'm doing a computer back-up this evening in its place alongside daily things after lunch. I would recommend being more specific on the areas part either by giving a list of tasks you choose or clarifying it as tasks that can be done in, say, 20 minutes tops or whatever time is left. I'd request that the regular tasks need to be done first if they get lost in other things and they are not being done. I tend to do the task of the day first most of the time because it's usually more interesting than dishes and I see it as needing more energy, but I also limit myself in time and unless the cleaner can do that you're losing a lot of time and money on it.

Another idea from me is Math Essentials. Like MM, it has a PDF version that can be printed which is the one we use and is mastery-based though it has daily review. My eldest was eager to do maths differently after doing the same for years and like yours has some areas he breezes through and really gets and others that are the bane of existence from the way he act towards them. I wanted him to work through his tougher areas while digging deeper or at least keeping his other maths skills fresh. So we changed to Maths Essentials for him. They have smaller [60ish pages/lessonss] single subject books like Geometry and Problem Solving the latter of which has a set of review 'normal' math problems and then around 7 word problems per page/lesson if you think he needs that. We started with the Mastering Essential Math Skills main books that have all the topics in them [though book 1 has a topic not in book 2 so we're planning to mix and match them] . Each lesson has short daily review, speed drills, usually a video - which my eldest likes because it's not me and in areas he i good at he races the instructor on the video to finish the problem - sample problems to do with me and then his own problems including one word problem per lesson outside of the problem solving chapter. He's flourishing with it and I've found it easy to add extra onto if he needs or wants to dig deeper into a topic before moving on. We quite like it and I'm finding it a great way to look into all the topics one at a time to see what he needs before we move into pre-algebra and algebra and his confidence with it has shot up because each day you see the 'score' of problems right so he can see how well he is doing even in trickier areas that take him longer.

It is threatened a lot more than it happens, but it still sometimes happens. It was a lot more common in the past when many disabilities were often hidden away [and disabled people suffered forced sterilization often], but it's still a 'red flag' in many places that a lot of disabled parents have to prove themselves against the ideas of lack that some able professionals have about us. In running and being part of groups for disabled adults, I've seen a lot of stigma and strange shock around being a disabled parent and sadly still some professionals who really do not like it. Myself and many other disabled parents I know have had professionals either repeatedly threaten or actually get social services involved for things that would seem ridiculous if done to an able parent. Ableism makes it a difficult minefield to balance for many, some can prevent it going further, some lose their kids, and some of those will be able to fight and get them back. I've seen all three situation. Like abba12 said, getting past the concerns with the first baby is the big one for a lot of disabled parents - my partner and I had to deal with so many hoops and horrible professionals in my first pregnancy that became less of an issue with later pregnancies. Most of it had nothing to do with my ability to parent but my ability/desire to appear and make everything seem 'normal'/act as able as possible to them or my ability to be compliant to them. I personally experienced social services being brought in illegally because a medical professional thought we hadn't moved into our new flat fast enough and were fine staying first in student housing and then with my in-laws while we finished with forms and renovations while I was 24 weeks pregnant with my first. Thankfully, I found out fast enough and could bring a complaint to the hospital and nip it in the bud. The differences between that first pregnancy and the treatment and later was quite massive, though I hit ableism in pretty much all my pregnancies but it was only my first where I was threatened and assaulted for it.

I think their point of view is valid and their information on abusive charismatic figure heads and ways homeschooling communities can keep an eye out for and help kids and young people in need can be valuable to many. We may not be a homogeneous community, but we're all still part of communities and - to me - watching out for and caring for the more vulnerable in the community is everyone's task and a difficult one that requires to listening to a lot of voices as even my on history of abuse may prevent me from seeing it in other contexts. I'm always going to be pro talking about these things as not talking about them is never going to make anything better. To these people, their homeschooling communities supported their abusers and I don't think their choice to focus on trying to help others within their communities to heal and/or improve the situation is mis-aimed - particularly when many of them are also working on abuse in patriarchal and/or Christian communities. For some, their homeschooling community was the main and/or first support for abuse. Any community can have a problem with abuse. Openly discussing these abuses and how to prevent them is one way of helping individuals within those community see and deal with it. Personally, as someone whose local communities and school communities and the church we were mostly either passively or actively supported my abusive parents, I get really upset when I see locally a lot of home educated parents who act like any discussion of abuse within any home schooling community or any mention of trying to change child protection laws or include child protection awareness or rules within home education groups is somehow a personal insult against them and an affront to general homeschooling. Yes, they may mostly be talking about a tiny sub-culture but it still includes a lot of people and many of the things mentioned could happen to any group -- and a lot of the smaller signs could show overwhelmed parents who could use support that communities can help with to stop before it gets to the stage of harm and before wider systems are needed.

Like nansk said, I would use the worksheet generator rather than buying the green or golden books. That way you can review exactly what is needed for as long as needed. Something I tend to do is after a review section I'll mark down what kind of problems went badly. For example, in the last one, my eldest missed 5 problems: an addition that had 5 addends, a 5 digit by 5 digit subtraction, a 3 by 3 digit multiplication, a one digit by 5 digit division and a two digit by 5 digit division. I used the worksheet generator to create one of each of those and each day after his usual stuff, he would get 5 problems - one of each. The first time I would have him talk through everything, after that I would write them on the board and check them at the end. The goal [my eldest is all about goals] is that if he can get them right with no help 5 days in a row, I would drop it from what I called his post lesson review. This helped me see what were from easy mistakes and what he really needed to work on -- and made sure he worked on it at least once daily. I totally get the feeling and pressures of keeping up. If my eldest wasn't the type to happily do a lot of maths, I might have alternated new work days with review days on those topics. We're using Math Essential this year with Math Mammoth as a boost for areas he needs more in because it has daily review and easy to add more onto as it is quite short compared to many other programmes so he can firm things up to hit his goal of starting MEP 7 later this year. I tried their Grade 4-5 book with my 9 year old and, like you saw with other things, it didn't have the teaching we liked so we're just using MM with daily Math Trainer to keep reviewing calculations.

:grouphug: We've totally had weeks like this.

I hear weird noises all the time in this house - most are caused by living near a busy industrial estate/shops that my sleepy brain turns into something else. I've totally heard phantom footsteps. Honestly, one of the best things about having a lodger is my brain can attribute most of them to him now so I can get some sleep [when he was gone for the holidays, the house was strangely louder/making more noise/my brain didn't like it]. The worst weird house noise is this sound that is like when someone drinks from a plastic bottle too far: that plastic crinkling noise which has made me jump more than once when up late with only the kids sleeping upstairs here. My partner and lodger say it's house settling noises, but I've lived in several houses and never had one make this noise before. I hate it.

It depends on the day. Some days, my 11 year old will be done in 20 minutes, other times it's over an hour. The goal time is around 40 minutes purely because he works better having that self-imposed goal/deadline - if he gets into a bad streak, he'll use our counting timer for a few days to see if he can beat it and break his funk. His love of beating the timer saved us a lot of stress - he used to spend hours on it back when he wanted tot do multiple pages of MEP a day but this year has been all about doing maths and other things well but in less time for him. He usually works on his maths on his own while I'm working with my 8 and 6 year old in the same room with check-ins with me between each section and video if he's doing a Math Essentials page with a video that day. If he's struggling, he waits until I'm done with them and I have him go through a problem outloud with me - that usually either helps it click for him or shows me where he needs help.

My 6 year old has been able to write letters and words neatly for over a year now. She could write many letters before she could remember their sounds or names and enjoys writing on her own. She enjoys copywork and most things related to writing. She's generally a hands-on child. Reading still hasn't really clicked for her - she really struggles to retain anything to do with it. It's moved forward a lot in the last few months, but she's still struggling with some CVC and similar short/first sounds and basic words ["the" is the bane of out reading time]. The break we had to take over the holidays because of back to back serious illnesses has sadly really set her back. My older if I remember correctly were similar in getting writing easier and faster than reading skills, though their reading and writing skills mainly grew side-by-side rather than having such obvious differences as M does.

Motorhead's Lemmy Kilmister died of cancer recently, which many are seeing as the three with David Bowie and Alan Rickman. :( :( :(

Hobs for either gas or electric though rings also is heard a lot around here as well. East Midlands, England though from South Ohio, US.

The bold was a sentiment that I heard expressed by a few German women that spoke out on this. Carnival in Germany, mentioned elsewhere in the thread, often has far higher rates of sexual attacks usually by native White German men, but many German women find it hard to get police to act, especially in areas like Cologne where police have apparently been understaffed and underfunded for quite some time, or the media to acknowledge this sometimes even locally let alone nationally or internationally. It feels like a perfect horrendous storm situation as many of the areas that were attacked this way like Cologne seem to be tourists spot with easy transport in and out [so ease of escape for perps] and lower police level due to cuts and other things during a festive time when lots of people are out. My heart aches for those attacked, and those who likely will be attacked in retaliation to this, when it seems like it will be very difficult to get justice for anyone.

Another one is Statetris which currently has UK [which is why we got it - we wanted one that had all the UK counties], Brazil, China, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, US [and counties of South Carolina] as well as countries of Africa and Europe.

Well, tomato is a Spanish take of a Nahuatl word and chili is a Nahuatl word. There are plenty of foods from the Americas which still use names either from or derived from actual American nation's words for foods that colonizers used and we still use. I guess they coined these terms by communicating with locals like most of us now would probably do for things we found unfamiliar things in a strange place. It would explain why so many died from unprepared maize... I asked my British husband, who is trained as an archaeological scientist who made displays in museums, and he says he would assume any modern text using the word corn would mean maize or sweetcorn unless it was a direct quote from someone in the appropriate time and then they would put the modern term in brackets if in a museum or education piece for clarity. Putting forward something that presumes knowledge of archaic use of language would not work. He is also the type who will tell off the TV regularly if there is history programme on that is wrong and/or putting forth the most sensational and usually least supported choice out of a range of choices so I imagine many others are more flexible than him about this ;)

Quiet. I typically do a lot of reading and writing and thinking time. Also, cake and cherry fizz and in the evening playing board games or video games with my partner. This good time is amplified by our family situation. My birthday is the day after M-6's. M is very social and loves having people around her - the last 2 year's she's had 2-3 friends over for a sleep over [plus her 2 older siblings get involved as well]. Very loud, late one with too much watching minecraft videos and no one going out to play for very long even in the middle of summer. So for the last 2 years, my birthday has been mainly me recovering from that. I debate on ensuring next year she picks something that doesn't last overnight so I can enjoy my birthday more or if that would make hers less fun.