:iagree: Perhaps she was dishonest, but have you thought about why? And whether it could have to do with knowing she'd be punished for unreasonable restrictions? Yes, it's true that a kid who lives in your house has to follow your rules. But it's also true that the rules should be appropriate for the child's age to begin with. Telling a 12 year old "you're grounded from everything for two weeks because you snuck and used the phone at 11:30 when you weren't supposed to" MIGHT be more understandable. But telling a 17 year old that is crazy (to me). How is a 17 year old supposed to learn to be an adult (which they will be, in UNDER A YEAR), if they're never allowed to be one? How will that 17 year old, who is not allowed to be an adult and who is SO very restricted, supposed to be honest knowing how strongly her parents will react to such minor infringements on overly strict rules to begin with?

Would *I* wear something like that? Heck, no. Would I be concerned that it was going to have some sort of adverse effect on the preschoolers? Nah. (I'd be more concerned if it were a youth group with teen and preteens lol). You'd think she'd have a little more common sense about what's appropriate but some people just don't. Is it possible she comes straight from working out or something and just doesn't think about it? I mean, I guess someone COULD say something to her but that would be so awkward and to me just not worth it, especially if she's good with the kids and causes no problems in any other ways. So personally I'd probably give my eyes a little roll (internally) and keep my mouth shut. It'd be a case of 'pick your battles' for me.

I spelled alcoholism wrong in my spelling bee. I said "alchoholism" or some such. :P

I DO know who the Pearls are and they DO make me sick. Truthfully, I was not even aware that Amazon carried that book (or some of the others that recent events have brought to light). Like Sparrow said, I haven't had the opportunity to read every book that Amazon sells. When I go on Amazon, it's to search for a VERY specific book that I want/need. Then recommendations are made for me based on the books I've searched and/or purchased. Until all this stuff about the pedophile guide came to light, it never crossed my mind to wonder what types of things Amazon was selling that I HADN'T been looking for. If someone had told me Amazon had a porn section, I wouldn't have thought twice about it. I couldn't care less if adults want to buy porn depicting things that go on between consenting adults. It wasn't until somebody told me that Amazon was selling a how to guide for pedophiles that I got upset. And I said that I would not buy from Amazon again unless they dropped that book. They dropped the book- but you know what? I probably STILL won't use Amazon again regardless because now I've found out that they also were willing (at least temporarily) to sell a video game that promoted raping a mother and her daughters, that they were and presumably still are willing to sell the Pearls' book on how to beat your babies, they're still carrying that other 2002 title mentioned herein that also pertains to pedophiles, and other things I've heard in the past couple of days that I found really disturbing. My stance on the pedophile book but not other horrid books like those wasn't being a hypocrite. It was being uninformed. Asta, I agree with you on the Pearls thing being comparable as I do consider that child abuse promotion as well. I still DISagree with you on the other things (i.e. homosexuality, porn, masturbation and so on).

Definitely.

Cool :) I live about an hour and a half from there. What do you plan on doing while you're there?

Do you have a desk or wall calendar that you use regularly? If so, when you get home with your books, I'd look at that little slip that tells you what day they are do back, and then I'd mark those days- right away- on your calendar.

I disagree. The OP does not have to go over there all like 'your son tried to kill my son!!!!' It's FINE to say "Look, I know he was just playing around, but still!" The kid's dad is a police officer, for crying out loud. He KNOWS that accidents happen while "playing around." I really doubt the seriousness of the situation is going to be downplayed by anybody. And if it is, it's because the parties involved are idiots, not because the OP acknowledges that she knew it wasn't a real (aggressive) threat (which is not the same as saying her son wasn't threatened by the situation).

Uh... Yeah? I have nothing against pornography, homosexuality, masturbation, rough sex, or anything else that goes on between CONSENTING ADULTS. But sexual acts with CHILDREN? Uh yes, I have a problem with that. And I'm NOT seeing the comparison.

1) The authors can look into publishing elsewhere. Maybe THEY should take a stance when it comes to Amazon selling a how to be a better child molester type book too, and do business with someone else. 2) boycotting the author wouldn't have gotten the book removed from Amazon. The book being available on Amazon- available to CHILD MOLESTERS- was dangerous. Sure all of us "normal" people could "boycott the author, not Amazon." But the people who wanted to USE a "guide for pedophiles" would certainly not be boycotting the author- they'd be thankful that Amazon offered such a service, they'd be buying the book, and maybe they'd be learning how to cross a line with a child that they might not have been confident enough to cross before. 3) It's not my responsibility to make sure that some authors on Kindle can make a living there. It's my responsibility to make my child's environment as safe as possible. Not having books available to the mainstream public (and by default easily available to every child molester out there) that were written for the purpose of telling them how to be a better pedophile does not make my child's environment safe. I still don't get why you care about this issue so much. But, really, is it relevant now? The "people" have spoken, and it worked. Amazon dropped the book. Many of those "people" will now go back to shopping there. Some won't... but that's their business.

I haven't read all the posts, but :grouphug: oh man, how scary!!! When I was a teenager, a 14 year old boy from my school died from an accidental gunshot when he and his friends were "playing around" with a loaded gun in one of the friend's houses. Thank goodness your son is okay! I WOULD tell the father/parents what happened to ensure that something like that hopefully never happens with this kid or any of HIS friends. I would have to really think about (and it may depend on how the conversation with the parents go) whether I'd let my son go hang out over there anymore (perhaps I'd say if he still wants to hang out with this kid, they can do it at your house or somewhere the kid won't be bringing his gun. Like you said, he's obviously NOT responsible enough to have one!!

I have her review words that I see her spell wrong in her writing, for the most part. On a given week, I'll jot down words I see she spells wrong in her writing assignments, and the next week, those are her spelling words, which she'll review in various (usually fun/creative type of) ways, and at the end of the week, she'll get a quiz on them (she pretty much always gets them all right). That's really all we do for spelling.

If you are friends with this mom, you need to talk to her. You need to tell her straight up that the comments her son keeps making to your daughter are coming across as "bullying" and that they are hurting your daughter to the point where she feels like she wants to quit this co-op, and that you REALLY need her to run interference with her son and not let this happen anymore. You could also talk to whoever is "in charge" of this co-op and see if they will enforce some sort of group policy, too. And if worse came to worse, I'd say something to that boy myself if his mother didn't, the next time he made some obnoxious comment like that. But if all else failed, I'd be out of there and looking for (or starting) a different group. I wouldn't let my 7 y/o keep being subjected to things like that.

Thank you! :)

I don't know what the point is- fellowship and fun maybe! But I remember when I was about 14 I was living temporarily in a foster home of a methodist family and I got involved in Youth Group (even though I was raised Jewish lol) because some of my good friends went and it was something to do, and one night they had an all night thing, too, which I was allowed to participate in, and I remember it being SO much fun! (and very innocent) :D

Hmm... maybe you should tell your husband to feel free to skip the disk you found and to just let her sit down with him while he messes around on photoshop and to let her watch what he's doing, ask questions, let him make commentary to her as he goes, then he can let her mess around with it and give her tips as she goes and so on. Maybe that would be much easier, and less overwhelming, and more fun that way- maybe he feels that it's too much of a 'to do list' at this point with feeling like he needs to plan and set up specific lessons. Like, my husband is REALLY into saltwater fish and he's got a BIG saltwater coral reef tank and he's got this crazy filtration system that runs up from the basement, and he buys different coral and fish and so on, and just from casually showing things to our daughter and making comments to her and letting her watch him put things in and feed the fish and ask questions and so on, she knows more about all the things in that tank than I do already. I'd just encourage it to be more informal, since formal lessons seem to be falling by the wayside! And to answer your question, I do most of the school things with my daughter, but if there is a specific experiment or project or craft or some such that I think my husband would be good at/better than me at/ particularly interested in, I might say to him "Hey tomorrow (or such and such a day) would you do this project with dd?" and he'll say yeah, and when that day comes I'll remind him and help them get the materials ready and make sure they're set up to get started and so on and then I leave them to it.

:iagree: Yeah. In this case, I'd want to try to get her to enjoy reading more than I'd want weekly book reports. Letting her choose her own books with regular library trips is one way. Signing her up (IF she wants) for a library book club or some such where she might get to see OTHER kids enjoying reading too might work. Definitely saying you'll rent the movie after you read the book so you can compare it (conversationally) is a great idea. Reading together is a good idea (sometimes my daughter likes to be read to, sometimes she likes me to read to her, sometimes we take turns reading aloud to each other). She also enjoys trying things that the main character in her book tried. Like after reading and watching Heidi, we tried goat's milk. (Yuck. But still. lol). When we read about how Addy (American Girl) got to choose her own birthday and they had an ice cream party, we put Addy's birthday on our calendar and the next year, we had ice cream. Also maybe a visual display of the books she finishes might be fun for her... like making a colorful construction paper 'chain' that you can add another link to for every book read and hang it over her bed or some such. Just try to make it fun again. :)

Yes, this is what I mean.

The Never Ending Story sounds like it might be a story she'd love (although I've never (YET!) read the book myself- loved the movie!- and I'm not really sure if it's got illustrations? Maybe somebody else could tell you.

My daughter is 10 and in 5th grade, and both last year (age 9, 4th grade) and this year (age 10, 5th grade) our curriculum (Oak Meadow) has always assigned a book which she generally has THREE weeks to read and then the fourth to write a report on. So like one book report a month? So I think that a book a week is too much, like another poster said. I also agree that she may fight less if she has some control over what she's reading. Maybe you can let HER pick the book, instead of you picking it for her. Or at least give her some choices, reasonable ones for her age and interest level. And also, what kind of book report are you making her write? Because you can find some really interesting/creative ones that would be much less dull than a 'standard' book report. Maybe she can write a letter to a character addressing their behavior. Maybe she can write a new ending to a story. Maybe she can add in a new chapter or adventure to a story. Maybe she can draw her own comic strip or storyboard kind of thing. Maybe she can talk about how a particular event would have turned out differently if a character had made a different decision than he actually did at one point. Maybe she can compare and contrast her life to the character's life. Maybe she can make a diorama. Maybe she can make a video presentation of an oral report, or pretend she's a news reporter on the scene, as if the story were really happening. I'd also consider how MUCH you're making her write.

But what if, developmentally, he was still 9? or 8? Or 7? Yes, assuming the school would let me review their multimedia materials- and I don't know that they will- but I'm more worried about what might come out at "circle time" if we're talking about a wide range of development (not age). If everyone is put in this "circle" because they are secondary students, but it's a special needs school, and some of those secondary students are developmentally more in line with elementary students, I'm worried about how they will handle the fact that not all of them will be ready or able to internalize and process and understand and deal with sensitive issues like sexual abuse and suicide that others are, you know what I mean? I can't know what will come out of those kids' mouths at "circle time" and I can't preview it. Yes, I understand this, although I would HOPE that my daughter will continue to be pretty well supervised even at 21- she will be going into one of those sheltered workshop type places in a small setting close to home and it IS supervised... I do know that maybe they won't all be supervised as closely as I might hope at ALL times- so of course she should know what to do if somebody tries to inappropriately touch her or bully her or whatever, I don't want her TOTALLY in a bubble- but neither do I want her hearing graphic details of sexual abuse or suicide or some such, because I don't think THAT is necessary in order to teach her what she needs to know. Anyway, I really DO appreciate your thoughts and I actually DO agree to some extent (even if it doesn't sound like it lol)... I'm just having some concerns and mixed feelings, I guess.

EXACTLY. I try to give to various charities here and there. I donate blood regularly. I do (and involve my children in) various community service type projects here and there- we've done Earth Day cleanups, we recycle, we've sent care packages to deployed soldiers, my daughter's scout group has visited nursing homes, we do what we can. Is it just a drop in a bucket? Of course. But it's SOMETHING. And so is taking a stance about material like this being so easily provided to the child molesters at large. Maybe easily accessing a book like that would make just one child molester out there who was previously too wary too cross a line, confident enough to cross it. Maybe he'd cross it with my child. Or yours. Or someone I never heard of or met and never will. Regardless, if taking a stance against filth like this and lending your voice to the many others that DID SUCCEED in causing Amazon to drop this book... if that helps even ONE child SOMEWHERE out there NOT be molested? That's freaking fantastic. But to turn around and say "if you're going to do this, or take a stand against that, you should do this, this and that, too" is just being argumentative and unrealistic. Nobody can do it all. And WHY anybody would want to take that stance on an issue like THIS? A how to guide for child molesters of all things? Is just beyond me.

:iagree: (and P.S. My brother comes home from Afghanistan next month! :) )

I just want you to know that I appreciate all of your thoughts and feedback and questions- I used some of them in my initial email to them, and I used some of them again now in my follow up email, and I'll see what he says about some of those things!

Me, too. Yoga type pants or sweats and a regular teeshirt, with a sports bra under it.