Volume 1: Ancient Times
From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor
by Susan Wise Bauer

History's not my subject, and ancient history least of all. But I'm afterschooling my kid, and this book looks like a good pick.

It reads in story form, with a cozy tone you can curl right up to. Starting sensibly with a discussion of why archeology is so important for revealing ancient history knowledge, it plunges in quickly to nomadic times.

But not without a connection to the reader. Each chapter starts with a thought-provoking question or a jog of the memory, and then sweeps up the student into the next phase of times long ago.

Having a weak history background, I never really pondered before how much artifacts and early writings mean to the construction of ancient history.

But this author paints artifacts with lively descriptions, leading the reader to value them for the secrets they reveal.

Wrapping up with the end of Rome, the reader is left with a revelation of some Latin words he probably didn't know he knew, including the meaning of the P.S. at the end of a letter.

From the Egyptian battles for power to the atrocities (toned down) of Attila the Hun, there's nothing text-bookish about The Story of the World.

A book for depressed kids? Sounds like a bright idea from some detached ivory tower "expert." But who, in heaven's name, would actually read it?

I would have, had I been such a kid. With its appealing over-sized type, it begins this way, "I know some of you would rather be doing just about anything other than reading this right now. in fact, I'll bet that some of you aren't actually reading. You're just sitting there with the book open, pretending to read. Yes I know that old trick..."

Had I been between 9 and 12 and struggling with self-esteem or depression, I would have been hooked.

Then the author strikes a deal with his reader, offering four credible promises that seal the deal of honesty and trust; one of those promises: if you keep reading, you will continue to hate your homework.

Based on the CBT model (Cognitive-behavioral therapy), this delightful kids' book brings a level of humanness and reasonableness from the page to the frustrated child. After all, when you're a kid and you're depressed, you're frustrated. No kid wants to suffer so.

According to WebMD, CBT is "a type of counseling that focuses on modifying certain thoughts and behavior patterns to control the symptoms of a condition. Cognitive-behavioral therapy is used to treat a variety of problems, including stress, depression, anxiety and panic disorders, eating disorders, ongoing (chronic) pain, and chronic fatigue syndrome."

Indeed, CBT, in one of its earliest forms developed by Albert Ellis and dubbed Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, has been used in a wide range of venues as an alternative to the more emotion-based, long-term psychoanalytic approach that may be more familiar to adults but less accessible for kids.

Why does it work? Because it appeals to the rational mind. The human mind longs to rise above the entrapment of its own distorted beliefs about self. And for kids, the method is quick and present-day. CBT is an effective and efficient tool for moving forward in one's life with greater clarity of thought and therefore greater access to joy.

No affront intended, but you'd never know the author has a PhD. In this case, that's good news. The tone of the book projects an image of Dr. Wilde crouching down on bended knee, softly smiling, sharing his heart with his reader eye to eye.

Jerry Wilde walks his befriended reader through a simple, clear explanation of the symptoms of depression, the reasons for it, and what to do. He offers practical advice and mental tools that actually work.

Want to know what an alligator thought is? Read it yourself first before giving it away to a deserving child.

Only 72 pages long, including a handy index, this book begs to burrow its way into the life of a sad child desperate for a lifeline, and find its way under the bed covers with a flashlight for some late-night reading.

Therapists, parents, and even teachers could brighten a child's world with a gift of this book. This reviewer will donate her copy to the local school library.

In spite of a somewhat uncontrolled vocabulary that might prove challenging for a few readers, this book has earned five stars.

Want to read something for adults? Try Three Minute Therapy: Change Your Thinking, Change Your Life by Dr. Michael R. Edelstein.

This book for teens entering college comes packaged remarkably like a blog or a well-designed web site, with small, digestible chunks of good sound bites--perfect for the multi-tasking generation.

This is a handy guide to college issues crossing the spectrum, but not in a surface kind of way, nor from the voice of a distant professional. It's written in all its glorious detail and anecdotes from the point of view of an author not much older than its readers.

And it works. With its mix of tips, stories, personal quotes, and wise advice, this book achieves its aim to allay fears, provoke deep thought, and lead gently to prudent decision-making like no parent can for a young adult on the brink of college.

From barbecues to bipolar disorder, from technology to thank you cards, the robust index simulates a Google search nicely. Any student surviving the technology age with an ability to read will appreciate its likeness to a computer, both in accessibility and format.

One warning--if you're seeking a book to reinforce conservative or religious morals regarding such things as sexuality, this may not be the book of choice; its flavor is more of that of personal values clarification. However, it is this reviewer's opinion that students of this age already own their values, regardless of your book of choice.

This book gets five stars.

I need some ideas. My daughter's self esteem is pretty low because a "mean" girl in her class tells her every day that she is ugly and stupid. I tell her again and again that it is not true...she is smart...beautiful...etc. As soon as I get her self esteem up again, is just gets knocked down.

Her teacher is aware of the situation, but nothing is being done
because the "mean" girl's mother works at the school.

Any suggestions for building up her self esteem would be greatly
appreciated!

As much as I hate to say it, this isn't about fixing the mean girl. There's a belief system your daughter harbors which can get fed into by anything anywhere anytime.

Belief systems can happen to anybody. We all have them. When they're grossly inaccurate, they lead to things like low self-image.

Worse, her belief system is like teflon. Anything you say doesn't stick. It may brighten her up for a day, but that's all.

I've sometimes discussed belief systems with my kids. What they need to know is that their belief system is up to them, not up to me. She can continue to look for evidence that she's less than otehrs, or she can get fed up and decide to ditch the belief system.

Here's an example of a different belief system I've dealt with. My kid had the belief system that I'm not fair to my kids. She interpreted everything I did as evidence that she was right--that she was getting a raw deal. A mother can make herself crazy trying to show otherwise.

I finally sat her down and explained to her her own belief system. I helped her see that she will look for evidence to support it, no matter what I do. Then I declared myself done with trying to show her evidence to the contrary. I explained that day forward, she would be responsible for what she believed. She would have to decide for herself that I either love her or I don't. That I'm either already doing my best to show it, or I'm not. I wasn't going to go out of my way anymore.

It took her only a few days to realize I had dropped the whole game. So did she.

Somewhere in that, she decided to take responsibility for what she believed. It hasn't been a problem since.

Giving your daughter complete responsibility over her own belief system will be a relief to her. But first you might want to think this over, and become sure FOR YOURSELF that what I'm saying is true.

So in a sense, you have belief work to do first. LOL :) Keep us posted. I find belief work with kids to be fascinating. It requires a lot of work from us.

But that's not the lying about lying that I'm talking about. I'm talking about us parents. We lie all the time about lying. And when we do that, we damage our relationship with our kids. That's because lying, when done for the wrong reasons, damages relationships.

What we all want is a good relationship with our kids, right? That's how we will all get through their adolescence intact.

Even the ultra-conservative Dr. James Dobson, whom you would think would offer hard and fast rules about raising an adolescent once said: "Your main goal as a parent is to help them weather their adolescence."

And if we work at a good relationship now, maybe we'll even have a shot at a friendship with our kids when they reach adulthood. No guarantees, of course, but I, for one, am game to try.

But notice something said above. Lying damages relationships if it's done for the wrong reasons. Are there some right reasons to lie? Yes, and that's where we go wrong. We don't tell our kids the difference.

I'll explain. When we paint a black and white picture about lying vs. not lying, telling them they should never lie, it isn't true. Conscious of it or not, we're lying to them about lying.

When we dare to ponder this thought at all, we usually come up with the standard three exceptions to the rule:

1. Lying about a surprise party
2. Lying on the phone about who is home
3. Lying about how someone looks

Hopefully, we're telling our kids about these exceptions, but we should also tell them about the fact that lying has exceptions.

It backfires to say "no lying" and then to model lying. To say "no lying" and then to model lying wreaks havoc on our credibility. How can our kids ever trust us? We need to get honest.

There are more, though:

4. Lying to your nosy competitor at work that should have known better than to ask you about your company's secret plans
5. Lying to protect someone from serious harm
6. Lying that you don't feel well, and can't make it, when in fact you're in your first trimester of pregnancy and on ordered bed rest, and you're not ready to tell anybody the good news yet.
7. Criminal investigators know that "no comment" sometimes gives away too much information to the press. To protect evidence, they must say they don't have information that they do have. To give away too much evidence is to lose a chance at a cloaked confession from someone who knows details that no one else knows.

The list goes on and on.

The issue of lying is more subtle than "don't ever lie." Lying is complicated and nuanced--more so than we like to admit. A few salient points about lying:

1. Lying can bless people
2. Lying is part of being social
3. "Don't lie" is the wrong lesson
4. Whether a lie will hurt a relationship is a better lesson
5. Modeling and explaining are, together, the best ways to teach our kids discernment about lies

It's not even always easy to discern whether lying will hurt a relationship. In the case of the pregnancy, for example, your relative might understand afterward, but might not. In this case, know your own boundaries. If this is a relative who's likely to spill the beans before you're ready, you might have to take the chance of offending her, and stick to your lie for now. You're sort of sick, right? After all, you are lying down.

There are other boundaries around lying, too, aside from whether the lie will hurt a relationship.

We need to also consider: whether we could get caught, what are the consequences of getting caught, how we will feel about the lie, and sometimes...is it simply the right or wrong thing to do.

The able-bodied woman who gets away with parking in handicapped parking while her disabled husband isn't with her in the car may get caught, leading to the loss of the privilege of a handicap license for her husband. This could be a devastating consequence.

Some parents feel that Santa and the Tooth Fairy are lies. When their kids outright ask, they tell the truth. Other parents are fine with this kind of lie, as it furthers a fun childhood tradition, and the risk of hurting the relationship is nil.

The citizen who cheats on his taxes may feel just fine, but it's simply the wrong and unpatriotic thing to do. Inside all of us is a core of integrity against which we can measure certain decisions. Some people call it a conscience. And we all know when to call upon that integrity. We just know that it is wrong. Whether we choose to ignore our conscience is a different matter.

Clearly, lying is more complicated and nuanced than many of us have wanted to convey to our kids. But not explaining this fact is a terrible mistake.

We need to stop lying about lying, on the basis that this kind of lie is precisely the kind that hurts our relationship with our kids, possibly irreparably.

We need to instead engage in some rich, honest discussions about all the subtleties of lying, including how to discern when lying will damage a relationship.

Then we can tell our kids we trust their discernment, and can release them to use it. And watch what happens:

Watch how appropriate lying falls into place in a young teen in a way you wish you saw in a lot of adults you know.

Watch how quickly they catch on to not wanting to hurt relationships, including the one they have with you--after all, your wisdom is of such great value in their eyes.

And when you catch them lying to you appropriately, let it go.

If you think that giving your daughter the HPV vaccine is an action that speaks louder than your words, then you are making the stunning admission that your values don't rate. You have a bigger problem than whether or not to give the HPV vaccine.

To say that the HPV vaccine condones premarital sex or careless sex is a fatalistic attitude that belies your own sense of powerlessness as a positive model to your kids.

And I know this statement might bring the sting of conviction, but folks who choose not to immunize their daughters in the name of morality or religion are more concerned about sending a message than with the safety of their loved ones.

What's more important to you--your daughter's safety? Or your platform?

I know which I choose for my two daughters. And since I don't live in Texas, I don't even get the luxury of blaming it on my state when I willingly haul my kids to the doctor this spring.

My girls, age 11 and 13, respect my values. But even if they do choose my values, which as adults will be up to them, and they do wait until marriage to have sex, what about date rape? What about getting a spiked drink at a party? These are risks, too.

And what about the young lady who remains a virgin until marriage, but her husband didn't do so well? A member of the Teens and Tweens message board put it this way:

"I could not agree more with those who say sex belongs only in marriage. However, even if a young woman remains abstinent until marriage and monogamous throughout her marriage, if her husband does not, he can pass this virus to her. The virus does not care who it infects.

"The sad reality is that for the most part, most of our daughters will not have future husbands who have been abstinent until marriage; therefore I will do whatever it takes to protect them. I liken it to learning CPR, better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it."

I want to reduce all of my daughters' risks, not just some. So I talk about everything that can happen, from spiked drinks to cancer. I want to keep them safe in every way. To me, if your kids know your values, there's no contradiction.

HPV causes cervical cancer. Cancer kills. I want my girls to live a long life.

Bringing my girls to the doctor this spring for the HPV vaccine is a poignant way of communicating my love for them. The message that I love them this much will help them make good choices in their sexual futures. And the message that I refuse to use them as a platform will only double the love, thus doubling their self-care.

There's one other compelling reason to seriously consider this vaccine now: it's only effective if given before sexual activity begins.

Is the vaccine safe? That's a different question, and I will research it for myself before their appointments.

It's not so unusual a sight in my dear teen daughter's bedroom--she hosts many a girl sleepover in her otherwise cordoned off haven. This room is off limits to all but the invited, and is especially closed to siblings. Set apart from the rest of the house, it even has its own smell, that of an air freshener that wafts out into the hallway whenever the door is cracked a smidgen.

But this was a weekday and there was no sleepover. Admittedly, it took three days for me to notice it, but that's because I am one of the forbidden except for once a day when I step over books, magazines and dirty laundry to make the bed.

I figure it this way--she gets up so early there's no time to make the bed herself. Yet it's nice for her to come home to a made bed, the only tidy part of her room. So every day I dutifully make her bed, sometimes stepping over the skewed cot mattress to do it.

Making the bed this morning, it finally dawned on me to ask nobody in particular, "why is the cot mattress in here this week?"

My husband is away all week, and things are a bit topsy turvey. My eight-year-old feels lonely without him, necessitating extra hugs at night. That may be why I'm so tired and not noticing things. My little guy wakes me up for those hugs.

Sibling issues among my four are often worse, too, when hubby's away, and my dear teen daughter and the eight-year-old are no exception. They've been snapping at each other a bit. I am ever hopeful for the future, though, because my teen really does have a good heart, beneath all the vicissitudes of adolescence.

Today I thought to ask dear daughter about the cot mattress, but I forgot until after she'd left for school. So her eight-year-old brother became the recipient of the question. It's amazing how much a little brother knows about the goings on of siblings, so I thought it was worth a shot.

So on the way to school, I asked him in the car--why does your sister have the cot set up? "Oh" he said," that was for me while Daddy's away. She said I can come in and sleep there any time I feel lonely. I was there last night."

My heart goes ka-thump today.

Following is my response:

Congrats on having a "different" child. Contrary to what some say, I don't believe God chooses special parents for special kids (at least not in my case!) Rather, I think as parents, if we're given a special needs child, we rise to the occasion as best we can. It's a tall order, but it makes us grow if we're doing it right.

As you know better than anybody, there's never one big solution to helping a child with special needs. Instead, we manage our kids' differences on a daily basis. I have a little experience with kids who are different.

My first child (14) has Down syndrome, making him both physically and mentally delayed.

My second child (13) has NDA. That stands for "not diagnosed with anything."

My third child (11) was born with a muscle missing in her face, causing her smile to droop on one side

My fourth child (8) is both gifted and color blind, setting him apart in many ways, yet making him dependent on others (can someone please find me a brown crayon?)

Both my now 13 year old daughter and I have been published in Exceptional Parent magazine, which is the number one selling magazine for parents and professionals in the disability community.

My family has had the good fortune to spend twelve summers at a disability camp, where we've had the privilege to meet a whole range of kids and adults with every kind of difference possible, many quite severe differences, delays, and disabilities.

So I guess you could say we've dealt with this topic, and, as you can imagine, I have a few thoughts.

Because of my oldest, I end up being a sounding board again and again for parents whose kids are classified. Most of these parents have kids who look normal from the outside, and are very high functioning. These seem to be the parents who struggle the most, perhaps not so surprisingly.

Many of these parents work hard at normalizing their kids, and I can't say that I blame them. They come to me because they're frustrated by how their kids are treated at school.

There's a weird thing that goes on in our schools, and it has to do with privacy. Teachers and administrators are charged with protecting your privacy to such a degree that they are never in a position to talk about differences.

All other differences, such as race, religion, and culture are celebrated in school. It's called diversity. But when it comes to learning differences, disabilities, or medical issues, it's called privacy.

That kind of atmosphere leads to shame for the child, and ignorance for the other kids. Kids crave information when it comes to someone a little different, and when they get it, they're satisfied. Then they're able to better interact with a kid who is different. In other words, being "out" about a child is what normalizes him.

The parents end up making a mistake, and it's an understandable and right-hearted one. They take their cue from the school, and stay hush hush about their kid's difference. But parents are not bound by the privacy law.

Parents and schools are on the same team, but as you know, a team's players don't all play the same role. They all have different jobs to do. Parents are allowed to be as open as they care to be. It is my opinion that in most cases, the openness is what's needed.

I asked a teacher once to discuss my third child's facial difference in class. It took a little convincing that I was allowed to ask her to do this, and that she is allowed to do it if the parent asks. She was so accustomed to privacy that it took some persuasion for her to remember that parents can override this privacy. Once she warmed up to the idea, she was able to run with it.

The catalyst for my request had been the day the kids got their professional photos back from the photo lab, and they were distributed in class. My then 8 year old daughter's smile was crooked in the picture, and someone made fun of it.

The result of the class discussion turned out to be so earth shattering that I wrote the whole story, sent it to Exceptional Parent magazine, and the story got published in the March 2004 issue of the magazine. At the end of this article, I'll provide the link to "Outing My Kids."

Once you've read "Outing My Kids," there's a second essay, and I promise it's much shorter. It's one of my blog entries, and it's called "Following the School's Lead? Not!" I'll give you that link too.

I've worked hard at setting a tone for discussion in my children's schools. Once, when a child on the playground commented on my son's unusual eyes, and the infantile way that he plays, I went over to the child and praised him for his observation skills. The kid couldn't have been more than seven, but he was fascinated with my simple explanation that my son has a disability called Down syndrome, that this means he looks a little different and maybe acts a little different, but that he likes to play just like other kids.

Then I suggested to this mesmerized child that he might grow up to one day be a doctor or social worker who cares very much about people with disabilities. He went away beaming.

That child could easily have been misinterpreted as being nosy or mean. But he was just asking, and he's entitled to an answer. If he'd asked such a question in school, he would have been hushed. As parents, we need to combat this.

When we as adults avoid a subject, we communicate loud and clear that the subject must be terrible and shameful. In contrast, when we do allow discussion and provide explanation, children can fill in their natural curiosity with information.

Children will fill in the blanks with something, no matter what you do. It's up to us as adults to decide if they'll make something up, which is usually not good, or whether they will receive the right information. And there's always a way to explain it, even if the child has a specific diagnosis. What curious kids need is a word. At very least, you can tell them, "Oh she has some cognitive delays, which means she may have to work a little harder than you to learn things."

It may come down to our own comfort with our child's differences.

Here are the articles:

Outing My Kids

Following the School's Lead? Not!

Sit down at your child's computer. All you have to do is to go to Google Images (if you have the Google toolbar, you can click on that little G with the arrow, and change it to "search images.")

Then try typing in "teens" just to see an example. You may get explicit pictures on your child's computer, even though NIS Parental Controls are installed and configured . That's because Symantec is better at blocking web sites than at blocking images.

There are other software packages that do a better job at filtering images, but if you don't want to shell out the bucks, here's a solution. You can use Google's SafeSearch filtering.

Go to google's web site (www.google.com). Click on that tiny link that says "preferences." Scroll down to SafeSearch filtering, and you'll see you have some choices. Click "strict filtering" for the most stringent filtering of images.

If your child uses other search engines besides Google, you'll need to change your preferences for each one.

Yahoo is a widely used search engine nowadays. To adjust Yahoo, go to the Yahoo home page (www.yahoo.com) and click "search" as if you're conducting an empty search. Then, at the bottom of the search page, click "search preferences." Look for "safe search" and click edit. You'll see your choices. Remember to click "save" when you're done.

Obviously, these settings can be explicitly mucked with, and locking them is a different topic for another day. But for the innocent kid who's just trying to do his homework and wishes not to be surprised by a pornographic image he never intended to find, "SafeSearch" works well.

If your child sometimes uses your computer, you might want to set up SafeSearch there, too.

I'm not always consistent about doing this. However, I'm finding that every time I do speak to them in this way, I get good results. That's reinforcing.

Lately I've been doing it more and more. I find that kids like code words, and now "track marks" has become one of our code words.

So instead of the lecturing and long explanations such as "Okay clean up your room as best you can today and then during the week would you try your best to keep up with it and I'll try too," I simply say, "Hey, track marks in your room this week."

They love it. But of course it means we need to adjust our own beliefs about standards. Can it be okay if they do a so-so job? Does this mean they don't care?

I believe it doesn't mean they don't care. It's just as best as their teenage brains can do. And if they're trying, is that good enough? Do we even believe that they're trying?

Sometimes I misinterpret sloppiness as lack of trying. Yet they're trying so hard that I'm frustrating them. That's why I think they sometimes end up underachieving. They don't do that on purpose. it's just that our standards are too high, and it's too much pressure for them.

Here's a children's song you might know. I've added the bold:

I picked the reddest apple from the tree. 

It was the finest one that I could see. 

I saved it all except a bite or two. Just for you. 

I carried home the groceries from the store. 

I wanted to be helpful with a chore. 

I put them all away except a few. Just for you. 

Someday I'll be grown up too. 

And if I can I'll grow up just like you. 

I ate up all my lunch just like you said 

But I think there was a little too much bread. 

And so I left the crust when I was through just for you. 

Someday I'll be grown up too. 

If I can I'll grow up just like you. 

Just one more thing before I go to bed. 

And everything I have to say is said. 

There's something special that I want to do.

Here is a kiss, just for you.

Cookie-baking, in a teen's mind, is about baking only. What teen do you know that considers the planning, the purchase of ingredients, the cleanup, and the storage of the baked cookies afterward? None, I'm afraid.

And if they really did think about all these parts of the task ahead of time, they might decline on baking cookies. Too much work, too many things to remember, too much pressure to get it right. Too complicated for their young, still developing brains.

Here's what I've noticed. Teens harbor secret beliefs, just as we adults do. One of those beliefs, while only subconscious, influences our everyday interactions with them. It permeates cleaning their room, doing their chores, practicing their instruments, and the list goes on. You get the idea. The belief goes something like this:

"If I agree to do all that work, it will always be expected of me from this day forward. Instead, I'll conveniently forget all the parts I don't like. Then they can drag it out of me, and they'll be happy if I just clean up the spilled chocolate chips on the kitchen floor and nothing more."

Not long ago, I recalled a friend of my husband's who used to invite his buddies to his parent's summer home. His mom had a rule: "If you're going to use my summer home, just leave track marks in the carpet so it looks like you attempted to vacuum and clean up."

Remembering this, I shared the anecdote with my teen. Just a few days later, she brought up the subject (a wonder in itself that she remembered something I told her.) She said, "Mom, do you remember the story about the track marks in the carpet? Well, that's how I did my chores today."

I've never seen her so earnest about housework. She had a sparkle in her eye. It occurs to me that when I tell my kids they only need to give the appearance of trying, it takes the pressure off of perfection, and they're more willing to try. After all, adults will always do a better job, so they're already set up for substandard work. Lowering the standards may be just what they need to get motivated.

I've used this tactic in the past without realizing it. At times I have said, "Can you two please pretend you get along while we're all in the car? Can you just give the appearance that you like each other?" Thinking back, that worked pretty well. Low pressure. Track marks in the carpet.

Yet, hear me out. This is not a spoiled kid. All four of my kids are well aware of both what they have, and what they don't have.

We've had numerous family discussions about the fact that we are "visitors" to a fairly wealthy town, and that although they have less than many of their friends, they likely have more now than they will as adults. We tell them they're probably at a higher standard of living now than they will in their futures.

When I say we're "visitors," I don't mean that literally. But it helps them to think that we don't really belong here in this town. It helps them appreciate what their friends have without feeling deprived of such things themselves. Heck, they get invited to way cool parties!

By reminding them that they may be at a higher standard of living now than they might be as adults, I think we're helping relieve any pressure they could otherwise feel as adults to earn a huge income. I'd rather they follow their hearts to satisfying careers.

Every family makes choices according to personal interest. Since my husband and I are both computer geeks, all four of our kids have nice computers, even the eight year old. But nice furniture? Lavish vacations? No. We all make our choices. When visitors come to our house, they often sputter out, "It's so...kid-oriented!"

Indeed it is. But here's my latest tussle with my teen. I'm my children's private systems administrator, and right now I'm making software repairs to her computer. And the fact that I'm fixing her computer right now is inconveniencing her.

She knows better, but when I interrupt her IM chatting for a few minutes so I can test something, she sits an inch from me and heaves deep sighs while waiting. Then when I blow up at her (I already go out of my way to keep things as convenient for her as possible), she claims not to know what she did.

She's a reactive person. Gee, I wonder where she gets it from. I think this is a classic case of daughter being a little too much like her mother. So I get unnerved and yell at her, and she promises to do better but then it happens again, and worse, she does this "clueless" teenage stutter that's meant to indicate she has no idea what she's done and that she's being persecuted. Sometimes in desperation, I imitate it, which she finds hurtful.

Got a pretty good picture? Yesterday it happened again, and then she went off on a school field trip. It's days like this when I'm sure she'll be in some fatal school bus crash, and I'll be haunted the rest of my life with how I talked to her before she left the house.

Hey there's nothing profound here. I'm just spilling my guts. I have a mantra these days, which I repeat to myself often. My mantra is "Xanax."

Today, after taking the time to cool off, I tried again to express to her that I already go out of my way not to inconvenience her, but sometimes that's not possible, and then I feel hurt when she expects it. I cried a few real tears. I think she was surprised.

Once again, she promised to "do better." I'm not expecting anything, though. She says the first thing that comes to her, and thinks later.

I generally don't pick reactive friends, because one of us is enough in a friendship. Instead, I tend to pick the calm types. But I have no choice. This is my daughter. Can she be my friend?

Perhaps I need to re-frame whether it really is okay if sparks fly. But I know I hurt her back sometimes, and I'd strongly prefer not to do that.

I guess I need to be the grownup in the situation, and see if I can be less reactive myself. It's important.

1. Regardless of which book you start with, if your child has received little instruction in metric or English measurement (weight, capacity, and length), buy the 3B home guide, text and workbook. Weeks 3 through 8 cover these in-depth. The books after 3B assume this knowledge.

Moreover, these chapters on measurement do an excellent job on reinforcing the real meaning of place value, as they offer exercises in adding and subtracting units that are other than base ten (for example, pounds and ounces.)

I was surprised to discover my children had not learned metric measurement in school. But even more of a surprise came when I discovered, during my teaching, that they had not learned English measurement, either.

I'm not sure what the reasoning was behind this, but I can imagine it might have been that this kind of learning can be incidental.

But this assumption about incidental learning can have shocking consequences, as I quickly learned that my fifth grader could not distinguish between metric and English measurement. This distinction is an assumption we might all all mistakenly make. The reality is that if it's not taught, it's not necessarily learned.

2. Don't buy books based on grade level. Chances are you'll get it wrong. Instead, follow the instructions on the Singapore Math web site to give the free pre-tests and determine proper book level. These pre-tests will determine precisely where your student needs to be.

Chances are your child will start at a fairly low level of book as compared to his grade in school, so it's perhaps best not to link the books to any grade level when speaking to your child. If he does notice, point out, truthfully, that Singapore teaches topics in a slightly different order than he may be accustomed to, and that fact accounts for why he is in a low grade level in the materials.

3. It's easy to teach math wrong, and to cause profound confusion. By reading a bit about how to think about mathematics, this can be avoided. I recommended a thorough reading and study of the book, Knowing and Teaching Elementary Mathematics by Liping Ma.

4. Go to the Singapore Math site, and order ALL the manipulatives that are suggested in the Home Guides. You don't know you need them unless they're already staring you in the face on your kitchen table. And they're lifesavers.

5. The Home Guide is a modified teacher's guide that's written for homeschoolers. If you're tutoring your child at home, this is a perfect fit. And they have the answers to the exercises in the back, so don't order the answer books. It's redundant. The Home Guides are actually written by somebody at Sonlight (publishers of homeschooling materials.) They're great.

6. The Home Guides divide up the material into chunks of one week's worth. To stay organized, I called them
" modules, " and marked the start of each module in the Home Guides in red pencil so they stand out. This gives us some kind of guideline to follow.

We're doing two modules per week, which is aggressive when you consider we're doing this entirely on weekends, but it's working so far. We don't cover every exercise.

7. Hold off on buying any of the supplemental or enrichment books from the Singapore site until you've been teaching for a while. We learned that the basic books (the home guide, the text book, and the workbook) contain more than enough exercises for drill. We don't even use them all.

Linda Moran's helpful resources:

The Singapore Math lens

The Parenting Teens and Tweens lens

lens

Sign up for the free Yahoo! TERC Math Ridgewood message board

Sign up for the free Yahoo! Parenting Teens and Tweens message board

For those of you new to my blog--no, I'm not a homeschooler. My kids are public schooled in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Our school district is a mystifying blend of good teaching, high standards, and misguided experiments. I've always said, "I'm a homeschooler wanna-be but my school district is too good."

I still say that, even though I'm replacing their math instruction at home. Search around my other blog entries to find out what I like about our school district, and the history of how I came to be home schooling my kids in math. But in a nutshell--they're getting TERC Investigations in school.

This entry today is about home schooling my kids in Singapore Math.

In the last few weeks, I did this prep:

1. Researched which curriculum I'd like to use

2. Ordered the books

3. Started reading Liping Ma's book about a comparison between American and Chinese understanding of math concepts, and its effect on students

4. Ordered some manipulatives from the Singapore Math site

5. Made some manipulatives with paper, markers, photocopies, and clear contact paper (the poor man's version of laminating). They're pretty creased, but they work

6. Went shopping at Office Depot for a few items such as a meter stick, gram scale, triangle, and protractor

7. Unpacked my thinking with my husband, who will be teaching, too

8. Meditated upon math teaching, and what my goals really are

9. Rearranged some shelves in my dining room to make room for all this new stuff. The dining room is now doubling as the math room

10. Talked to our kids about why we're doing this, our goals, and what they'll get out of it. For the second grader, that includes a Twizzler with every lesson

I've spent about $200 to $250 in supplies, but that's cheap compared with the expense of tutoring.

Does the choice of curriculum make or break good outcomes? Does curriculum reign supreme? No. There are many right curricula. Take Saxon, for example. I did not look into Saxon math, but I know it's widely used by homeschoolers and lauded by a lot of the folks on the web that would like to replace TERC.

Liping Ma also has a curriculum that's focused more on undoing some damage caused by bad teaching. Bad teaching is NOT our problem here in Ridgewood, however. The short version of our problem is lopsidedness.

Singapore math is more well-rounded, and also does some instruction in a different order. My main goal is to accelerate my kids so they're doing Singapore grade level work, which is two to three years ahead of grade level work here.

(Actually, Singapore is two years ahead of the U.S., but if you compare to individual states, Singapore Math is three years ahead of New Jersey. Which by some strange measure means my kids are doing okay, in that they are meeting New Jersey's expectations.)

I would strongly recommend to parents that they seek out a replacement curriculum for their kids that is right for their particular situation. A replacement curriculum can be administered by the parent, a tutor, a tutoring business, or a new school. Reactive tutoring, as opposed to replacement curriculum, isn't such a good idea. Read more about reactive teaching.

As a trained teacher myself, I have always known that good teaching involves discovery, personal connection, and any other way to engage the student in taking an active role of learner (and a teacher to others.)

Now that I've started working with my kids with a replacement curriculum, I'm tapping into my good teaching skills, and I'm really noticing them, especially because I'm simultaneously training my husband. Our plan is for him to teach the oldest one (for a variety of reasons I won't go into now.) Hubby's a fast learner.

As soon as I see my kids make a connection and really understand the concept, I move over a notch. For example, start with tens cubes to illustrate subtraction with decomposing (also called borrowing). Once they get the concept with the cubes, we can move to number disks, which are halfway between concrete and conceptual, since each disk has the numeral written on it but cannot be broken up into smaller units.

Actually, the disks haven't arrived in the mail yet, and I'm anxious to get them. I'm thinking they may prove to be an important tool.

Then when they see the concept with the disks, we can move to a few ways of working the algorithm. Then, in the final step, you help the student discover the quickest way for him to do the computation. After that, occasionally go back to the concrete, especially for new topics.

It's so simple. But in the long run, the kid needs to know any useful shortcuts so he can have something quick and effective in his pocket. He can also learn to use the calculator at that point.

The more I immerse myself, the more appalled I am that the school is vilifying direct instruction. Happily, though, this aspect of TERC Investigations is so misguided that it probably won't last. I predict it's the first thing that will fall away as they begin to attenuate the TERC Investigations program.

They will never admit the error, though. Instead, they'll find a fig leaf, in the form of "we've enriched TERC further." But that's okay with me. As long as they do it soon, for the sake of the other kids in the school.

The child should definitely participate in the learning process, but the teacher is the one who knows the goal and the bigger picture. Direct instruction can be done badly or well. With good teaching, direct instruction involves discovery.

Several years ago I taught my stubborn nephew to ride a bike. He was getting too old, and his parents had given up. I used a different approach. I handed him the wrench. Take off your own training wheels. This served to equip the child with ownership of both the problem and the solution. Constructivism? I guess so. I just call it good teaching. He learned that day to ride his bike.

Here's a summary of how it went the first weekend:

1. Our grade 2 kid: He responded well to the lesson. He recognized the manipulatives, and it quickly became clear that he has used manipulatives extensively for this level of math, which is a review for him.

So I touched lightly on the manipulatives, just making sure he knew the concrete. He's a wiz at mental math. I'll check in with him once in a while as we progress. At some point, we'll get ahead of the school, and he may need more help with the mental math from me.

2. Our grade 5 kid: For her, this was mostly a review, but next week will be new material already--she'll be doing metric length. It was an interesting lesson yesterday because the entire thing was on mental math. I found out she hasn't done much mental math since fourth grade, and was rusty.

As we discussed mental math, and our different strategies, she ended up learning one new strategy from me. I did not set out to teach a new strategy, but she liked my personal strategy better than one of her own.

Until this week, I did not even know I used mental math. And I'm learning some new strategies myself. Over the course of the session, she got quicker at mental math. I wonder why she hasn't been using it.

3. Our grade 7 kid: She went along swimmingly with the level 4 curriculum until they hit a section on mental math, at which time she had a complete breakdown. This is fitting for her personality.

But it also means she has some kind of mental block around mental math. Certainly, much of what I learn about my kids and math will be unrelated to the school. Every kid responds differently to math instruction, and they all have math personalities.

Apparently, she never felt she could do mental math. We can't really tell how much instruction she's received, but we suspect that mental math has been emphasized more in our district in only the last few years, so she got less of it than our other two.

Summary: Everyone is cooperative (or at least resigned) and willing. The Singapore instructions are pretty choppy, though, so the plan will be Saturdays: use the home guide and the text, Sundays they do independent work in the workbook. Less choppy that way, and we get to do the dishes on Sunday.

My plans: I think I will plan all curriculum during the week. Then on Friday or so, I'll take a half hour to transfer plans to my husband for our oldest child. I'll show him the manipulatives, the material, and any notes I've written on what to emphasize, some teaching tips, and so on.

In fact, the country of Singapore once again scored number one for the 2003 TIMSS (a study based in Massachusetts that looks at how countries score in math achievement.) In Singapore, they use the Singapore Math Curriculum.

The materials look very thorough, and they move nicely from the concrete to the conceptual. For each unit of study I will, as always with good teaching, start with a constructivist approach, and then move beyond to direct instruction.

The kids' textbooks and workbooks are appealing-looking, and the home guides are great. Instead of buying the teacher's guides, I bought the home schooler's guides, because they're more oriented toward one-on-one teaching.

Someday I hope my district decides to learn from homeschoolers. Now that would be a wise move. I'd be so impressed. But they're not there yet. Imagine--best practices from home schoolers. They're a wealth of knowledge.

I've resigned myself to the time and expense (mostly time) it will take to home school my kids in math. The reason it's okay with me is because in the bigger picture, they're getting a great education. I shall always hold these things dear to my heart:

1. Reader's Workshop (language-intensive reading program)

2. Writer's Workshop (thought-provoking constructivist-based writing program that produces middle school and even high school level writing in an elementary school).

3. Open Circle (social skills program that has served my children well.) To find out something wonderful that happened to my daughter in Open Circle, read my story called "Outing My Kids." This story was published in Exceptional Parent magazine. I've thought to send this article to Wellesley, but haven't gotten around to it.

I'm thinking that I probably won't need to say anything at all to my principal or teacher(s) in the next few years. That's because TERC Investigations and Singapore Math can reside nicely side by side in my son's brain. He's a smart kid. I've already begun to tell him that he can do math the TERC way at school, and any way he wants to at home. He understands this.

He also understands that the school can't be perfect. He's used to this, as we've had such discussions before. When the school nurse was teaching the old food pyramid, I helped all of my kids understand that the food pyramid was faulty, but that it wasn't the nurse's fault--she was required by the state to teach it.

So they knew to answer the questions on the test the way the teacher wanted. They knew to spit back that fats and sweets are bad, and that you should have ten zillion servings of carbs per day. (Okay that's an exaggeration, but it really was wacky.)

And they also learned from me the truth about food balance. They can live with this dichotomy and still respect their teachers and school.

Another topic I discuss with all my kids is the difference between education and indoctrination. Education allows for critical thinking, and arises from a teacher who thinks critically. Indoctrination is a replacement for thinking. The artificial divide between "good foods" and "bad foods" is an example of indoctrination instead of critical thinking. Another is the teaching that all drugs are bad, without mention that heroin is used as a base in some pharmaceuticals.

They can live with this too. They're smart kids. They've learned from me to be active, savvy consumers of their own education.

I think my child will benefit from TERC Investigations. It's just that it's not math. Rather, it's an interesting extended language program. We can laugh about it at home. And my child will be laughing all the way to higher mathematics.

I'm so glad I started my kids young in handling dichotomy, in thinking critically about their school environment, and in discerning between indoctrination and education. It's the reason that doing Singapore Math at home, while doing TERC Investigations at school, will work nicely for my remaining child in elementary school.

I feel bad for those parents who don't have the time, courage, or background to tutor their kids. I know that lots of parents are paying a bundle to get formal tutoring for their kids. Others can't afford it. No Rich Child Left Behind.

It's nice that I'm a licensed elementary teacher with a 7-9 math extension. However, home schoolers produce high-achieving students with no teaching license at all. I'm hoping other parents will take the advice to heart that if you want to home school your kids, all day or in just one subject, you can figure it out.

I call this home schooling instead of tutoring because tutoring implies the kid needs extra help. Home schooling implies more of a full curriculum, and that's what I've chosen. That's why I selected Singapore Math, which is a far cry from raw drill. In fact, its biggest criticism is that for some kids it doesn't offer enough drill, but that can be supplemented.

It's interesting that in Singapore, the kids do receive drill, but it's after school. I call that well-rounded!

Tomorrow I'll go shopping for my manipulatives. My list is about 30 items long, and includes metric weights, base ten blocks, linking cubes, hundreds chart, place value cards, and much more.

Redundant? Nope. The idea is to get them ahead of where they are in school, then keep them there. That's why I'm teaching my middle schoolers, too, even though they're not getting TERC Investigations anymore. They're just plain behind in math, and that's more the fault of the NJ State Standards than anything else. The New Jersey state standards are heavily constructivist-based.

Besides, there are problems with what is known as reactive teaching.

Actually, according to the Federal Department of Education, it's my fault my kids are behind in math. According to our government, the education of our children is the ultimate responsibility of the parents. So I should have been getting them tutoring earlier, like some other parents I know have done. But I was trusting my school. Silly me.

When my kids get to college, I want them to have all majors open to them, not just the ones that are light on the math requirement. That's my bottom line.

Sign up for the free Yahoo! Beyond TERC group

Moran is also LensMaster of the teens and tweens lens and the owner of the teens and tweens message board on Yahoo.