This article confirmed what I had been observing in other people. My dh and ds definitely do have the genes that cause them to fall apart under short term stressful situations such as standardized test taking. The interesting thing I took away from the article is that these people need to practice dealing with them, not avoid them. I can see that we will have to talk a lot more about this from now on. Thanks for the article. I'm saving this one.

I've been concerned for a while about my eleven year old ds who is our sixth and last child. I had been able to assign seat work to my older kids at around that age but my ds can't seem to do his seat work alone yet. Well, he can somewhat, but he struggles to stay on task and finish his work. Maybe because he's bored but when I sit with him, he doesn't seem to mind doing it. Another thing that bothers me is that he falls apart when he's under stress. Today, when we were running behind to go somewhere, I told him he had to finish his math. He kept getting distracted by getting snacks, getting ready to go out, or checking on his stuff in his room and so on and on. He told me that he couldn't sit still to focus because he was so stressed out. That happens every time I try to hurry him along. He just falls apart. My dh is the same way. I'm concerned because in the future, he will fall apart when he has to take the yearly standardized tests or some other tests. When he took the standardized tests two years ago at a private school, he had a horrible time trying not to panic there. Might he have a significant problem such as ADD, or is it just a normal but annoying weakness that a lot of people have? Is it just part of being eleven years old, and he just happens to have a harder time dealing with it than his older siblings? I don't know many other eleven year olds to compare him against.

I should have explained that it was not exactly a game of softball. The ball is more like a dodge ball than a softball except that the kids hit the ball with a bat instead of throwing it. Also, the kids tag each other by throwing the ball to get an out while they are running the bases. My ds is eleven and in sixth grade so he still needs me or my husband to intervene for him. I was just wondering why the change in the teacher's behavior this year.\, and I appreciate several suggestions on how to go about the talk. My ds is a bit of a clown and also he's hard of hearing but still, the teacher has known him since he was about seven years old. And he was not being a clown or not hearing the teacher at the time of the incidents. Oh, well, we'll just have to wait til my dh talks to the teacher to see what's going on.

My ds is not the only good player in class. And I am not sure whether to take this seriously or not because we didn't have problems until this year and the teacher had always been very pleasant to everyone so I'm not sure what to say to him when we have the chat.

Here's a situation that I'm uncertain of how to deal with. We have been going to a home school P.E. class with the same teacher once a week for a few years now. I don't think my ds had any problems with him until this year. A few months ago, he was called out of an indoor hockey game several times for raising the hockey stick too high. I was not there at the time so I thought maybe he was just being silly or rebellious though he wasn't normally rebellious. Then everything seemed to go okay. A few weeks ago, he was called out a couple times again. This time, his friend noticed that he was being singled out so she tried doing the same thing that my ds was called out for right in front of the teacher. The teacher looked straight at her but did nothing. She did that several times but still got away with it. Then last week, while the kids were playing an indoor softball game, the teacher threw the ball right at him to tag him out several times. He laughed it off but later he told me that it hurt. Also, he was the only one that the teacher hit. So what exactly is going on, do you think? Why is he being treated differently this year than the last few years? And why is the teacher picking on him? Or is he really picking on him or am I overreacting? The other mothers just sit there and don't seem to notice. I am going to bring my dh to class next time but I doubt that the teacher will do anything in front of him.

Praying for you, dear Julie.

Yes, the kids need you more than ever.

Jean, I came to this late. I'm sending prayers your way that the doctor will be helpful.

An update, thanks for asking:) Due to the Christmas season, we didn't do anything with the troop. Then we got an forwarded email to the troop recently saying that about half of the positions needed to be filled, including the scoutmaster's position. So I guess that's why the leaders had been preoccupied, not like before when our older boys were there a few years ago. Anyway, a badge counselor just announced a new group to work on a badge so our ds is excited about that. Thanks.

Hello, Our youth group had an outing today to go ice skating in another city about half an hour away. Since our ds is only eleven and new to the youth group, my dh and I decided we'd better go along to keep an eye on him. When we arrived, we found that the youth pastor was the only adult there to supervise a group of about fifteen kids aged eleven up to seventeen or eighteen. It bothers me that there weren't any more adults there to help the pastor in case of emergencies. And the pastor didn't know that we would show up until we did. So are there general guidelines for this? Such as should there always be more than one adult in charge of a group this size even though the kids are in middle school and older? Also, shouldn't parents sign consent and medical forms? I'm not sure if I should say something to the youth pastor about this as this might come across as criticism of his leadership. But I need to get this resolved before sending our ds on another outing like this. I'd like to hear how other churches handle situations like this. Emily

Oh, I didn't know that the home school division died about 4 years ago! Wow! What a pity. No wonder the curriculum has changed so much from what I could see on their website. I bet Hillyer is rolling in his grave.

My dh is hard of hearing too, always has been, and has been gradually losing his hearing over the years so that he is now quite deaf. He is seventy years old. Has your dh had his hearing checked lately? Like many hard of hearing people, he might have been losing hearing gradually. He might need hearing aids which will help him socially.

The homeschool science fair is coming up in March. My eleven year old ds loves yoyos so does anyone have suggestions on doing a science project with them? He might do the one on sleep times with different lengths of strings but are there any other ideas he can explore?

I am having problems with finding older posts whenever I click on a member's posts. I seem to get only a few most recent posts for each member I click on. Is that a permanent feature?

Another question about the way the troop is run....Just what is the role of a patrol leader? I'm asking because today, I found out that my ds did not know which patrol he belonged in and who his patrol leader was. I got the info. from the scoutmaster but I found it odd that after eight months of being in the troop, my ds still wasn't sure. Is that normal? I know that he is supposed to show initiative in getting his requirements signed off and all that but still....I would think that the troop leaders would be a bit more helpful and communicative, don't you think?

Ah, now I understand better my and my dh's role in this. We just didn't want to step on anyone's toes or have unrealistic expectations. Okay, we will contact the patrol leader and go from there. Start reminding our ds to get his stuff signed off and help him get started working on a Merit badge or two which we haven't done yet. Thanks so much! And we really should start talking more to the other parents there. Emily

Hi, My eleven year old ds joined a Boy Scout troop last March. He's gone camping several times, worked on a volunteer project, and learned a few knots so far. One time, the leaders administered a physical fitness test to a group he was in. He's been in the troop for eight months now. The leader has not followed up on the checklist for rank advancement. He has not talked to me or my husband about the progress our ds is making. I don't want to bug the leader. Are the parents supposed to go over the checklist themselves and when the checklist is all checked off, then inform the leader? But the boxes to be checked off are supposed to be done by the leader. We've had two older boys in the troop before and there were always parent/scout meetings every few months. This leader is fairly new. Is this the norm for the leader? Emily

I missed Halycon's decluttering threads for the month of November. I see that this week is for decluttering the children's rooms so I intend to do that. I'd also like all of the previous decluttering posts so if someone would be kind and post them in one place, I would greatly appreciate that. Emily

I put a little baking soda in liquid Cetaphil or the generic version to form a liquidy paste to scrub my face with. It really works to soften the face and smooth it out. I do it about once a week or month.

Deaf people can't hear the tone of the speaker's voice so they depend heavily on facial expressions. Also, they read lips along with signs so this interpretor did an excellent job of enunciating the words while signing which is hard to do. She was more animated than average but I'm sure it's because of the nature of the message about the storm which is certainly quite dramatic in itself.

My ds has been using Calvert math for the past few years, but this year, he is having a hard time with the abstract concepts such as the exponents and multiplying with zeros. Well, he does understand them somewhat but he doesn't care much about them. He is a very kinesthetic learner but he's not very hands on. He learns with his whole body so Calvert doesn't provide for that and I'm not sure of how to help him on my own. I had used BJU math when he was in third grade who did quite well. I dropped it the following year because it took so much of my time to teach it. I think I'll have to return to it for his sake unless there is another program out there that is similar but not as teacher intensive? BJU covers the mathematical concepts thoroughly in a way that is pretty interesting to my son but not to me.

We just had to spend a fortune on our car so there goes our Calvert money:( Thanks for your feedback. I'll just keep doing what I am doing.

she is a student at Gallaudet University which is a designated Federal shelter for the deaf so she has a place to go if power goes out in her apt. I'm mostly worried about the roads she will have to travel on if she needs to evacuate and the trees falling on her apt., etc. but she is well prepared with food, water, etc.

I am getting tired of planning our lessons and making schedules, etc. I used 6th grade Calvert in 2002, I think. I'm sure there have been some changes since. So are you happy with it so far? Any regrets?

When my ds was ten, he loved forming clubs with his neighbors. It almost didn't matter what the club was about. He had about ten clubs going that summer, I think. He loved reading nonfiction books about the weird and unusual stuff and he had and still does have a huge collection of stuffed animals that he talked to a lot. At age eleven, he's now learning tricks on a yoyo and on a skateboard. I never thought of introducing a bonsai to him, actually, I think he would like that. Another son of mine was into archery at that age. All of my five sons were into Pokemon. Not all of them loved legos.