Just finished War & Peace, which was a pleasant surprise - a far easier read than I had expected. I went through a Russian phase years ago (pre-kids!) with Solzhenitsyn (lots), Dostoevsky ( Crime & Punishment, The Idiot, Brothers Karamazov, Notes from the Underground), The Master & Margarita (I found this challenging), Gorky's My Childhood (greatest last line ever), Tolstoy (Anna Karenina, Resurrection, short stories) and Dr Zhivago. My absolute favourite would be Doctor Zhivago. I could happily open it anywhere and just drink the language up, and I like the characters. Running in second place would be The Idiot, I like the integrity of it. Actually that's what I like about Doctor Zhivago too. Anyway, what you would say is your favourite? Any favourites I haven't read yet?

The problem with relying wholly on direct instruction is that it limits a learner to what the teacher has decided to present. It becomes very narrow for both teacher and student, and perpetuates the idea of 'one answer'. History doesn't have one answer to why ww1 was started. Even in maths, the answer depends on where you're coming from. I really value flexible thinking and I don't think direct instruction encourages that, at all. The other difficulty is that the key to learning is interest. You remember what you're interested in. You tend to have in depth knowledge of the things you find interesting. That's why I feel it's really important to provide time for a child to follow their own interests, look things up for themselves, and turn those interests into whatever output they choose. I think people struggle when they hope for direct instruction output ("child will complete 10 sums with 90% accuracy") and discovery learning methods ("here are some blocks!"). If you want to do discovery method, let go of the expectations. Conversely, if you truly want a particular outcome, own it, and work out how to get there, rather than getting frustrated that the kids are in a different place than you'd hoped. I bang on about Lori Pickert's book, Project Based Homeschooling, but it's a good one for understanding interest-led learning. Interestingly, her husband still taught her boys maths directly, with daily lessons.

Don't know if this will help, but years ago I went through an existential crisis, and reading about existentialism was helpful. It helped me work out for myself my own philosophy.

Thanks! I will have to have a read!

I'm wondering if anyone can recommend a good book for kids about the Roanoke colony? It is an interesting mystery, and it occurs to me it could be a good way to have conversations about colonisation and so forth, in a different setting from our own country (Australia). There seems to be a few out there, when I google, but I'm wondering whether anyone can recommend any - or anything to be careful about?

I work out about 1 in every 32 people in the USA have had Covid, whereas in Australia 1 in every 980 people have had it. That's based on over 10 million cases in the USA, over 26,000 cases in Australia. If I have got that maths completely wrong, let me know!

This is anecdotal, but I read this article about a guy early on in Sydney who had Covid, went to the pub, sat outdoors at either end of a long table, so further than 1.5m, and the friend still got it. So it's possible - but of course, there might have been other factors that they didn't recall at the time, something they both touched or something.

I do it every year with my kids. My tip? Do the youth version. You can set any word count you like, and it cheers you on as you achieve your 2,000 w or whatever! It's far more cheerful than the adult version, I find.

I've had massive 180s. Very religious to atheist; very pro ABA for Autism and now the opposite (and if you know the field, it can be like a religion); big change on feeling re abortion. Definitely none of them overnight. All to do with increased information leading to conclusions that I had to either accept or ignore. And then you ignore for a while - but after that, you have to accept or live as liar. There's a lot of things I still haven't made up my mind about though, like legalising marijuana. I can see both sides there. I absolutely remember listening to a talk regarding a therapy for kids with autism, coming away furious, how dare they, this is just quackery. I had to keep listening because I was working with parents who used this therapy, and my overarching philosophy is respecting parent choice - their child, their family. I ended up (a few years later) being trained in it.

Here's a good graph of the wide differences between countries in the Nordic area of Europe: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1102257/cumulative-coronavirus-cases-in-the-nordics/ The one country that did not lock down has multiple times the amount of cases than the others. There are vast differences in approaches and outcomes, which is why you can't say "Europe is doing badly". Some countries are, some aren't. Also - when people say 'there's nothing to be done' - reminds me of the old Onion article about US gun control. https://www.theonion.com/no-way-to-prevent-this-says-only-nation-where-this-r-1819576527

I'm no expert, but isn't the north of your country pretty different from the south of your country, politically? Kind of like the flip of ours, actually.

Can I be the first to mention that Europe isn't a country? Thank you. There is massive variation on how well/badly countries across Europe have done. UK is the worst, and if you look at their policies, you'll see why. Others, such as Finland/Norway have done better. There certainly is an element of chance when it comes to it suddenly spreading. In Melbourne, the second wave can be traced to the actions of one family in quarantine, who had a corrupt security guard who was infected. In Sydney, a security guard who was infected also did the wrong thing but for whatever reason, no one caught it from him. But once the spread happens, then action needs to be taken. I believe Ireland's gone into lockdown and a few other countries are going into stricter lockdown such as Germany. They have test and trace programs set up; from what I hear in the UK, it is far more disorganised. So, to repeat - massive variation across Europe, with vastly different policies dependent on their leaders and governments. The one thing in common of course is that everyone is tired of it all. That doesn't help, as they go into winter. We feel very, very sorry for the people of the northern hemisphere right now, from our side of the world.

My aunt is a lot better, out of ICU and at home, and has recovered sense of smell/taste. Very glad about that. Still quite weak but on the mend.

Maybe they'll choose some other alphabet? Or maybe if it hits the last day, they'll just call it '2020'

There's 18 more letters after Zeta (last letter is Omega) so you've got a few to go.

No idea how to link it (and the picture was dumb anyway), but there was a meme on my facebook: No energy for Christmas this year? Tell the kids Santa didn't make it through Covid. Now while I get it is just for tired parents, I'm kind of terrified some crazy parent out there might run with it . . .

NaN, I recommend you read Playful Parenting, if you haven't. Could be very helpful - I like this book and his other one about rough housing. https://www.amazon.com.au/Playful-Parenting-Connections-Encourage-Confidence-ebook/dp/B001LOEG04

I've got a very challenging 9 yr old, also gifted. Hair is now cut off very short in a style she chose, because she just would not cope with it being brushed (very sensitive scalp - matching her emotional state lol). From 7 onwards she has turned into a tween and has needed to take total control of everything. At nearly 10 she seems like a young woman in some ways! It's been very important to allow her a lot of time on her own interests. It's very important equally to know when it's me moving forward. 'I know you don't want to do this, but I'm requiring X.' Less talk, less emotion. Plan in advance what you're going to say. Write down the behaviours you're struggling with, divide them into 'simply annoying but that's kids' and 'behaviours to stop'. Ignore the former, choose one of the latter to begin working on. I'll repeat - my daughter has been challenging behaviourally since babyhood, but gosh she's amazing. It's a crazy thing, watching them grow up, but it's wonderful.

Oh yeah. My tradie husband just says "that's not work" to anything that isn't physical. CEO? "They don't really work." Teacher? "That's not real work." (Yes, drives me nuts, but I also understand that he never finished high school, so it's part of an inferiority thing). I feel that the protestant work ethic thing is a way for bosses to really solidify capitalism. Making 'hard work' next to 'godliness' really works when you're the one squeezing the labour out of people. When I worked in a stressful job, it wasn't about 'hard work' or whatever. It was about the people who took responsibility for their work (and the people they were in charge of) and those who didn't. I could trust some colleagues when I handed over a caseload to them. For other colleagues, I had to follow up and sometimes micromanage, because they didn't feel that same sense of responsibility towards their work (which in our case were struggling families).

If you'd like to try a form of unschooling, I'd strongly suggest Lori Pickert's Project Based Homeschooling. It works like this: You provide the space for learning with a wide range of materials - drawing, making, books You provide the time for learning - name it - 'this is project time' - and allow them to do whatever they choose. You journal what they're doing, as simply or as complex as you like. Use what you notice to help. Eg "I notice yesterday you were looking at the whale pictures in the book. Would you like to get a whale book from the library?" Or "Remember you started a black hole poster yesterday? It's over there, if you'd like to finish it". It's different from typical unschooling in that you don't secretly 'strew' items around. You're open. "I saw you were drawing mermaids. Here's a mermaid book.". However, it's similar in that you don't say "you must therefore draw more mermaids." You can choose to spend a chunk of the day like this, or all day. Lori Pickert's husband 'required' maths of her boys (which he taught), and she 'required' they read a certain number of books of her choosing, which they'd end up discussing. That was it from them. Others might not require anything at all. Some would limit screen time (eg, playing screen time is not during project time) and some wouldn't. That's up to you. I did this with my kids when they were little and they are really curious learners who seek out information and who have an incredibly broad general knowledge. Wanted to add that I feel this works when you have rich discussions, lots of reading and documentaries, a household rich in ideas and language. I followed a lady online who went with 'radical' unschooling and her son, quite literally, spent the next 6 years playing video games and did nothing else. Let's say it didn't end well for that poor boy.

Change the word from 'luck' to 'chance', I think. I personally think everything is chance. Got parents who tell you to practice your music? It's not that you 'worked harder' - it's because you had the parents/teacher etc who taught you how to practice. Healthy? Statistically, at least half of cancers are random mutations. Obesity is strongly related to child trauma, and it's also linked to societies with lots of high calorie food easily available. Born in those situations, you've got a higher chance of obesity. Regarding the idea - we have to TELL people it's hard work, or else they won't try - try to reframe it on a society level. Let's look at what research has said about better health - you've got a better chance of living with less disease if you eat a mediterranean diet (or whatever). X doesn't equal Y, it just gives you a higher chance. Like to master that song? It's not 'hard work', it's - you're more likely to master it if you spend half an hour each day playing it over more slowly. And so forth. The 'work hard = success' idea favours people who are already 'successful', as a way of justifying themselves. I read a great article on the change in the past from 'my birth gives me the right to be rich' to the current 'my hard work gives me the right to be rich' which has occurred over the last 100 yrs or so.

No help, but if anyone is planning on writing something like that, I'd like a book that already has the solutions in the question. I see these cool visuals on facebook, for example the one of the clock face where every hour has a 9 in it - eg 9/9 is one, 9 with the square mark is 3 etc. It's fun because you're not trying to work out the answer, but the way to get there.

Different situation for us, as our lockdown was short and sharp. My kids were far more affected emotionally by the fires in Dec/Jan, and we are already nervous heading into summer again. However, they definitely felt the worry and stress of Covid, we had to cancel a family holiday, stopped swimming for two terms, and still won't go into the city or attend large events. One of the thing I've really noticed is that they are both young, under 10, at school and they're coming home with a lot of political talk. This is not from teachers, it's from other students, about covid and Trump. Seeing we are not even in the USA, and they're fairly young, I thought that was interesting.

Congratulations! You should be really proud of yourself! I've published a number of short stories and am on the home stretch with my first novel. It's a slog! I know that there's a few people on here who write in various forms, poetry, fiction, non-fiction.

$400,000 would be a good price for an acre up here - it'd be snapped up in 5mins. No water, no sewage, but electricity and garbage truck. Internet hit and miss. If it had a house of any sort, 650,000 would be the minimum; one went recently for that and the house was only half built. Edited to add - just realised you didn't mean it had to be one acre only. Another property had 30 acres, went for 900,000. In some ways less than an acre is more sought after, as less maintenance. Ten years ago, you could've got everything about half of those prices, but then everything has boomed since then. Our property is worth at least 3 times what we paid for it.