It is unusual for children to have teething symptoms for as long as mine did before actual teeth came in. When it comes closer together, the fussiness, gnawing, drooling along with the tooth coming through, it is more obvious. The drooling didn’t stop in your children when their first teeth came in because they were still teething. They had lots more teeth to come. My children were quite fussy with their drooling and gnawing. The fussiness stopped within a few days of starting the D. This experience has been repeated with multiple patient’s children. I’ve also had lots of patients who had babies with no teething symptoms at all except the day or two the tooth/teeth broke through.

What made me think it was teething was how the baby was moving his mouth and gnawing on his fist. The same thing that made my MIL think it. Shortly after that, drooling started. He could completely wet my whole shirt front. 3-4 days after I started the D, the drooling stopped and never came back. Multiply that exact scenario three times with three kids. My older sister had twins when I was 12. She lived at home with us until they were three. She was only 17 and was very immature. I was very responsible and was heavily involved in their care. Although after I had twins, I wished that I could go back and help her more. My first child of my own was really the third baby I was responsible for.

Said the mom who didn’t have kids with teething problems. My 3 bio kids started with teething symptoms at 2 months old. First tooth didn’t show up until 5 months. When it first started with my first child at two months, I thought, “I swear it looks like this baby is teething.” I never said a word about it to my mother in law (had 3 children and worked in day care) who came over that day and declared, “That baby is teething.” 400 IUs of Vitamin D cured all teething symptoms except teething related fever, which was cured by calcium lactate. At about 10 months, my not very fussy kids started to get fussy again. I increased to 1000IUs D and all fussiness stopped again. Lots of kids have no or very little teething symptoms. Growth spurts sometimes require the very same two supplements. My kids would get a fever sometimes with growth spurts. Cure:calcium lactate. I love this thread because some of the extremes of good parenting/educating are on display. Really Lewelma, reading about your steadfast determination to work around limitations to get to the genius, brought Anne Sullivan to mind. Not a number, you bring out some of the most interesting posters to play.

I have definitely been afraid of this. Mostly with my computer obsessed 8 year old. They have only been doing Prodigy as their MAIN math for 1 semester. They have been playing prodigy for years though.

I wouldn’t disagree because I don’t have an opinion. I’ve never taught anyone math. All we did for math last Spring semester was drill math facts, which I think was a good use of time for those few months. Yes, prodigy still doesn’t explain stuff. It just occurred to me that they have to be understanding it to be answering all the questions right. My oldest couldn’t answer the long division questions so I showed him that and then he did. I am really not sure if I am right in this. Hence the question. How are they getting the answers right if they don’t get it? The idea of kids needing to be able to talk out math seems like a good idea. It just sort of “rings true.” Not that I knew that before you and not_a_number agreed upon it here.

Wendyroo, thank you for typing out that awesome description. I always love your posts. It is amazing what you do and the high level you teach, considering some of the challenges you face. I feel like I could explain why long division works now. I would rather you taught my kids too. I think you are too busy though.

This is in a tiny private school. The public school didn’t adapt well to online very well last year when Covid started. I wanted them to be IN school, not do waste of time online school. I was happy with the gifted program in public school for my oldest, before Covid. I was told by his gifted teacher that the public school won’t let them accelerate math even in the gifted program and long, drawn out arithmetic was the bane of my existence as a child. Other than that, I would probably send them both back to public next year, or whenever they can actually be IN school full time. The owner of this tiny school accelerates all 5 of her kids in an unpushy way. For her older kids she unschooled them in elementary, used Kahn academy for math when they got to Algebra, used our community college for middle school, and three of them started our local university this year at ages 14 and 16 (twins). The 16 year olds are majoring in engineering. All three got full ride scholarships, their SATs were so high. I know they used Kahn academy for SAT prep too. Her two younger kids are in my children’s classes. Those are some of the reasons I chose that school, beside the fact that the littles stay outside for three hours a day if they want to.

I don’t think so but neither can I. haha. I will ask him. Maybe I will learn something. I would much rather you teach them. Double haha. I guess I’m in good company.

My 8 year old has to be explicitly taught vocabulary. He isn’t “behind” in it for grade level, just way below his decoding ability. He doesn’t glean vocabulary from context like my 9 year old. He loves the computer and loves gamey apps. He doesn’t get any non educational video games other than Minecraft, so that is probably why. I think he would do well with a vocabulary computer game if I knew one.

I put my 9 and 8 year old into a tiny private school so they could be IN school this year. They have always gone to school except for spring semester last year. I just didn’t make them do the work at public school from home because it wasn’t appropriate for them. I gave them my own work. It was great for them. The private school is an interest led model and the kids can pick whatever math they want to use. My sons chose Prodigy. I know it doesn’t teach but my boys are both good at math and they get the answers correct in most topics right away. The others they might get a percentage wrong but they figure it out on their own and get to mastery pretty quickly. They both had a really good Montessori math background for three years starting at ages 3 and 4 When Prodigy started asking long division questions my oldest asked me how to do it. I showed him a 5 minute Kahn academy video. He said he got it and went on to answer those questions correctly and completed Prodigy’s 4th grade curriculum not too long after that. That is the only thing either of them have asked me for help with this school year. Has anyone looked at the topics that are covered? Are there a some holes? A few, a lot? If the kid answers the questions correctly, I am wondering if there are still some future downfalls of doing this. Is it possible they don’t need to be taught the math, that someone math inclined can just figure it out themselves? This is the only school my 8 year old hasn’t tried hard to avoid going to. He tested the highest among 200 1st graders in the gifted testing last year in public school, so public school isn’t going to be a great fit for him until the gifted program starts in 3rd grade.

Iron complex has the bis glycinate form of iron. Phosphorylated=coenzymated=activated. P5p is the phosphorylated form of b6. The Xymogen multi has iron in the bis glycinate form (but only 2.5 mg) and b vitamins in the activated form (except for thiamine). It is good to note that you can take too much iron too. A menstruating female who has a period on the heavy side will need to supplement usually. Men and postmenopausal women usually don’t. I have a degree in medical technology. Back in the mid 80’s, when I learned labs, a person’s hemoglobin had to be above 12.5ish to be in the normal range. The normal ranges lab for anemia indicators have gotten broader over the years. A few years ago I had a patient with every symptom of anemia with a 10.9 hgb and it was listed on her lab report as being in the normal range. The normal lab ranges of things that vitamins, minerals and nutrients treat have gotten broader and the normal lab ranges for things that expensive drugs treat have become narrower. Never underestimate the financial influence and tremendous reach of big Pharma. Because the brain always requires oxygen, and a lot of it, anemia is FAR worse than the vast majority of doctors give it credit for. It is largely missed now too.

Xymogen’s multivitamin has an excellent b vitamin in it, so you don't need one separately. It also has many other positive things going for it. The b vitamins in it are phosphorylated, which helps them give you energy. You will actually feel energy from taking them, unusual for a multi. Iron Complex by Now Brand. It is pretty cheap but very effective. A very similar formulation, only with 80mg iron glycinate, is a $400 a month prescription. MDs usually prescribe ferrous sulfate which should all be thrown into the ocean. Iron Complex and the $400 prescription have iron glycinate. I can take two iron complex pills at one time and no stomach issues at all.

I would have thought I would have heard something about this ahead of time. I guess I don’t watch movies or television anymore so there’s that.

Ooh ooh yes. I was so good at so much of science except I struggled more with concepts of electricity. OK and organic chemistry, much harder for me than any other chemistry.

I did my first spinning class and I can’t believe no one warned me about the beating my tush would receive. I asked out loud if I would ever get used to it. Everyone seemed to think, yes, after months. Shouldn’t I have known this by now?

The tetanus case in Oregon happened in 2017. Dr. Thomas’s license was suspended weeks after his vaccinated vs. unvaccinated study was published.

Dr. Paul Thomas has a very large pediatric practice in Portland Oregon. He allows his patients to choose which vaccines they want. He has a book, the Vaccine Friendly Plan. I will give one example of a vaccine that I personally would not want for a child, the hepatitis B shot. Hepatitis B is a sexually transmitted/ IV drug user disease. It is completely unwarranted for a newborn baby of a mother who doesn’t have Hep B. Three shots are given because it is notorious for not creating antibodies. When I was in Med Tech school at Indiana University School of Medicine, I worked in the chemistry lab. We were required to get the Hep B shot. Unlike for newborns, It is definitely warranted for an adult who is working with blood products. There were 26 students in our class. After we had the series of three shots, our class decided to run titres to see if we developed antibodies. 50% of us did not develop sufficient antibodies to be considered immune. So it is unwarranted for babies and not very effective even for adults it may be warranted for.

Yay.

Does anyone use or like brilliant.org? Our local math circle used it for older kids.

Yes, I am nothing but white and I was unprepared for college level calculus. I don’t think it was my fault. I would have worked hard in high school in any math that was available. I was one of the very best math students in both of the two high schools I attended. Don’t take anything in my tone as if I am offended. I am not in any way. I think my experience is described very well in the Richard R. video I mentioned and you, thankfully, reposted recently. The high school math I got wasn’t hard enough and it started too late, hence, this post. Btw, freshman calculus was the only thing I felt unprepared for. My undergrad degree, Medical technology, required me to finish pre-med in 3 years instead of 4 (with the exception of two classes with labs), so maybe all of pre-med in 3.25-3.5 years. Required isn’t exactly correct. I’m sure they would have let me into the program if it took me longer, but that is the path they put you on and I just did it. I didn’t realize until years later that is what I did. Organic chemistry was up there in the challenging department too, but I am not sure what else could have prepared me for it. I recently read that that is what keeps a lot of wanna be doctors out of med school, their inability to pass organic chem. I just got my Cs in one semester of calculus and organic chemistry, got A’s in everything else and moved on. Pre-med doesn’t require calculus based physics either. I never thought of premed or medical school as being as “hard” as engineering or computer science because the math is easier. Apparently a lot of engineers don’t think that way. The endless lists of straight memorization inherent in medical education intimidates them. In my first week of chiropractic college I had to memorize 150 named prominences of the skull and spell them correctly. One of them was external occipital protuberance. I actually like your article. Yes, she was a little whiny, but I admire her hutzpa and her grit. If Stanford wants to accept people on an equal opportunity basis, they shouldn’t just throw them to the wolves once they are there. They shouldn’t lower their standards either. So colleges have to teach high school now. I don't feel bad for colleges. They are charging enough they should be able to do lots of things.

I have a grand total of two professor patients. Only one is a math professor. She didn’t believe me when I told her there were people teaching things like number theory and counting and probability to kids even before high school. It could be the level of the only university here also. Old Dominion University is not MIT. I just thought the topic of elementary and high school math inadequacy might come up among the hundreds of parents of “high performing” students, or even the many high school or elementary math teachers I’ve met throughout the years. It hasn’t and I’ve specifically asked about it a lot.

I’m pretty sure that is the video that not_a_number posted that I referred to in another recent thread. I loved her for posting it and now I love you too. I wouldn’t have found it again on my own. He says so much. I normally don’t like lectures because they are so slow compared to reading the same info but he says so, so much in a relatively short amount of time. Is he always this pithy?

Here’s another thing I never hear about, it is that people in general will be better at either algebra OR geometry/trigonometry. I do believe there are mathematically minded people who are good at both, but in general, people seem to be much better at one than the other. I don’t know why. Maybe calculus would be more on the algebra side. If I remembered enough math I might know that. I personally found geometry and trigonometry much easier than algebra and calculus. Maybe they just have simpler concepts, but I seem to hear individuals say they are much better at algebra but struggled with geometry/trig. So individual people will tell me THEY were much better at one than the other, almost universally, but I never hear educators, or anyone else talking about math, verbalize this as a tendency.

Yes, it’s the root cause issue that they don’t get. I hear a lot of complaining about students being coddled, complaining, not willing to do work, behavioral type things, never that the level of math education that preceded college isn’t adequate. Never. The blame is always on the student/parents attitude, work ethic, which I am sure is a problem too. In my area, where everyone moves because the schools are so “good,” “math circle mom,” who has children high school age, tells me that the public schools were terrible to work with in allowing her to accelerate her own two children in math. So besides the math education being inadequate, the public school blocks you from working around it yourself. My oldest was in the gifted program in the public school last year for third grade. His teacher had been doing gifted education for 30 years and she had a really good reputation. I asked her if I kept my kids in the public school gifted program would I be able to accelerate them in math, just provide materials, not require the teacher to teach it. She said some teachers will allow it and some won’t.

You posted a video by Richard R about people being unprepared for college calculus even after the highest level of high school math available. I was so glad to see this said out loud by someone. This was my experience exactly, which does indicate that college academics in the US are good even if the education before college isn’t. I have been so surprised that I have never heard even one person mention this problem since I experienced it in 1984 until you posted that video. Is this what he refers to as “the calculus problem?” ... or is that something else? That’s the only time I have heard him speak, so it just might be my exposure to a bunch of people who don’t need much math (pre med, med school and chiropractic college). Although I do take the time to talk to engineers and math teachers, even at the university level who happen to come in as patients. Very few math teachers that I have come in contact with are aware of “contest math” either.