The past couple of weeks question of "what grade are you in" has popped up. My 7 year old has a cousin who is his age and she is in 2nd grade, so he likes to consider himself as a 2nd grader. The 6 year old thinks that Kindergarten sounds cool and that's what he says when people ask. I have told them that they can say they are homeschoolers, but it seems that they have learned that adults feel the need to "quiz" them. They make it clear with their expressions that they are not trained seals and usually the adult gives up the silly questions.
My 7yr old has been working on reading and we had a really good time with sentence structure and the use of periods as sentence stoppers. Math and science have been his biggest loves lately and he and the 6yr old take great pride in paying for their purchases at the gas station themselves. Which leads me to a tiny rant...we (myself and our 4 boys - DH stayed in the car) went inside a convenience store on Friday night and the decision regarding what non-sticky/chewy candy each of them should buy usually takes FOREVER, but makes them very happy when I noticed out of the corner of my eye that there was someone watching us. I looked over and noticed the cashier was standing there watching us and I was ticked off to say the least. I mentioned to the boys that we were being watched and that it was time to make our way to the counter. Once we reached the counter, the cashier was very rude and ordered us to place all our items on the counter. I explained to him that the 2 oldest boys would be paying for their items themselves and it was important to them to do so. Typically that gets a big thumbs up from the person working and they are glad to help out with the math lesson. Not so much with this guy. The 6yr old made his purchase with exact change, but when the 7yr old handed over the $1.20 for $1.18 purchase, he received no change. I questioned the cashier and he replied, "Does he need it?" to which I replied, "Yes, sir. It is his money." Not exactly what I was thinking in my head, but much nicer said outloud.
Then I had to have a conversation about being on point with the boys. It's already a crazy world, but as homeschoolers we are a pretty laid back family. My sons are fairly easy going and think the best of people. They are always surprised when people are rude. I had to explain to them that people have prejudices that we aren't always prepared for, but need to be. Because we were a family of young children at the candy isle, this person assumed we would be more likely to steal. If my husband would have been in there, it is possible that he would have had an issue with him because of race. Anyway, it is really hard to balance being a nice person with being prepared for other people's baggage...
Ok, enough of that and back to some cool stuff.
We examined a grasshopper yesterday and found (and picked up) a cool caterpillar that I need to research and find out more about it. Cool website for those with nature loving families is www.acornnaturalists.com
Enjoy these beautiful fall days and hug your family!
Peace & Blessings.
Monday, November 23, 2009
Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
The Joy of being autodidact!
Life has been hectic, but learning continues everyday! WKRP (7) has been teaching himself how to read and at a pretty rapid rate. It's amazing how fast he can pick up words that he has seen on billboards and tv, etc. DAP (6) is having a little bit of trouble with attention more so than the words as he is reading some easy books that I printed out for him. A good site to access some free books is www.readinga-z.com.
Money and time are also big topics for all 4 boys. They love being able to count out their change at the convenience store and buy something. Although sometimes the decision as to what to buy can take up 15 minutes as they determine price and volume of each item. So needless to say, we try NOT to be in a hurry on those trips!
I am hoping that after our move we will be able to set up an area that is just for their books/workbooks/art stuff. I think it would be helpful for the boys to have an area that is just for them and they can control what happens in that space.
Wanted to share this quote as I enjoy Jung's theories:
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. ~C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939
Peace & Blessings.
Money and time are also big topics for all 4 boys. They love being able to count out their change at the convenience store and buy something. Although sometimes the decision as to what to buy can take up 15 minutes as they determine price and volume of each item. So needless to say, we try NOT to be in a hurry on those trips!
I am hoping that after our move we will be able to set up an area that is just for their books/workbooks/art stuff. I think it would be helpful for the boys to have an area that is just for them and they can control what happens in that space.
Wanted to share this quote as I enjoy Jung's theories:
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. ~C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939
Peace & Blessings.
Monday, August 17, 2009
Crafty mamas (and dads) and a swap idea
I am a crafty mama with a similarly crafty husband and sons. We come up with all kinds of ideas to create items and especially love to use recycled materials. But it is always great to find sites and blogs for inspiration. Check out http://www.skiptomylou.org/ and there are instructions for a juice pouch pencil case and a crayon roll. Two ways to organize our tools and a wonderful way to transport those tools while in the car!!!
Also, as we who unschool/homeschool are always looking for frugal ways to take care of our families...anyone interested in participating in a swap (clothes, small housewares, books etc) in a couple of weeks? Just need a popular location where we can all meet up and the ability to pass the word out to other families. Any takers?
Also, as we who unschool/homeschool are always looking for frugal ways to take care of our families...anyone interested in participating in a swap (clothes, small housewares, books etc) in a couple of weeks? Just need a popular location where we can all meet up and the ability to pass the word out to other families. Any takers?
Youth friendly theater productions
I have heard good things about this theater company and my boys enjoyed a production they saw last Spring. Here is the upcoming schedule located at http://www.interactivetheater.org/on_stage.html
Wednesday, August 12, 2009
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
An insider's perspective of health care reform
A good friend of mine is a pediatrician/activist/mother and she wrote an amazing letter regarding health care reform from an insider's perspective. I wanted to share it with everyone.
Peace & Blessings.
=================================
Krenie Stowe, M.D., J.D.
H.E.A.L.
Health Education, Advocacy & Literacy, Inc.
www.healthedadlit. com / 713-201-6704
July 16th, 2009
Honorable Congressman Conyers,
The legislative approach to health care reform currently under consideration by both branches of Congress is fundamentally flawed. Health care cannot safely or ethically be considered a commodity. It must be understood as a human right.
If our homes catch fire and we call a fire department for assistance, are we asked if we have insurance or cash to cover the cost of extinguishing the fire? If we are robbed or assaulted and call the police, do they require payment before services are rendered? Of course not. Yet we accept this standard when it comes to the delivery of health care services.
For profit insurance carriers have an interest in money to shareholders. The function of such entities is to enrich those shareholders. This function must, by definition, undermine providing coverage to those who are ill. Insuring the sick is simply not profitable. No regulatory structure will change that underlying fact.
Currently, thanks to skyrocketing health care costs and the perpetually growing number of under and uninsured, there is energy focused on real health care reform. Astronomical costs tied to health benefits of employees and retirees contributed substantially to the collapse of the auto industry. Health care expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy. The perfect storm is brewing.
The health care bill under consideration in the House is nothing more than a bail out. Perhaps the most glaring flaw is that after spending over $1.5 trillion, there will still be 17 million uninsured. But more troubling is the failure to address the administrative waste in the current patchwork system. The fabric of our current health care system is akin to a large, tattered quilt. The stuffing has leaked out. There are more holes than intact segments. Yet instead of accepting the inevitable, we grab another handful of scraps and try to stitch it back together. And we don't even notice who handed us the scraps!
The system cannot be repaired. It is in decline. The only viable options, if our agenda is a healthier population, are to euthanize it or to let it die. DO NOT RESUSCITATE.
If those in Congress squander the political and popular will that are building each day on a mediocre piece of legislation, the result will be a deeply flawed and expensive system that will be used as a political football in the election cycles that follow. Every policy maker on the right will revel in the brand new, costly, failing health care system that still leaves millions uninsured.
Single payer health care is the only way to realize significant administrative savings. That statement must stand alone.
I am a pediatrician with 25 years of experience in clinical medicine. For over a decade, I operated a grass roots, non-profit health care facility in rural counties outside Houston, TX. During that time, we cared for over 11,500 children and their often uninsured parents and grandparents. I was the sole clinician. We had a staff of six, myself included. Three of the six staff members, including our executive director, spent essentially all of their time negotiating third party payers. They spent hours filing claims, appealing denied claims, getting authorizations for treatment, attempting to obtain coverage for children whose insurance had been terminated. Those hearing the horror stories would often comment that Medicaid was the problem, but we had more difficulty collecting from private payers than from public ones; and the problems with Medicaid collections escalated significantly when managed care was enacted because we then had as many as eight different Medicaid plans (insurance companies) to negotiate. More than one third of our operating expenses were devoted to billing and collections. Overhead of that magnitude is simply not possible for small practices to absorb over the long haul. The result has been the virtual death of the solo practitioner and of the small group practice. Administrative costs are forcing the consolidation and centralization of medical practice. This hits primary care providers in under served and rural areas especially hard. And it is taking the heart and soul out of medicine.
Perhaps you do get what you pay for. Corporate, for-profit health care is necessarily the result of corporate, for-profit insurance companies orchestrating medical care. The notion that "government run health care" will put a public bureaucrat between patient and doctor is absurd; there is already a massive private bureaucrat standing in the way. Empathy and humanity are not terribly profitable. And time is money. So the one thing that folks really need from their doctors, time spent explaining or answering questions or just listening to concerns or fears, is definitely not available in a profit driven system.
One of the deep ironies is that truly competent clinicians, clinicians who take careful medical histories, do thorough physical exams and exercise sound medical judgment, cost less. They order fewer invasive and diagnostic tests, they use medication more prudently, they resort to hospitalization less frequently, and their patients have better medical outcomes. But the one thing that physicians and other medical practitioners do not get paid for is their time, and this, too, is a function of third party payers. That's why surgeons earn more than primary care providers. Invasive, tertiary care pays.
The final point that I must make relates to the culture of medicine. If the object of health care reform is to improve the health of the population, than the conversation needs to go far deeper than methods of payment. We currently have a cesarean section rate of about 33% in the U.S.; at least 10% of children are on psychotropic medication; many feel they need to see a doctor because they have a sore throat or a stomach ache; we have become a nation of drug addicts believing that all ills require a prescription. If we are all insured, the situation may be, in some sense, worse: a cesarean rate of 50%; 1/4 of all kids on Ritalin; everyone able to ingest as many drugs as the doctor orders because cost will be no object.
There are also troubling questions related to the "benefits package". What services will be covered under the new umbrella of health care? Will midwifery be included? Abortion? Psychotherapy? Circumcision? Will certain treatment be mandated, like vaccination?
The things that are driving illness; obesity, isolation, inactivity, environmental degradation; are not things that can be surgically or pharmacologically repaired.
I believe that we have an opportunity to reshape health care. It requires bold action. The progressives in Congress must stand their ground. At some point, compromise is just a euphemism for selling out.
There is no healing left in health care in this country. A system of payment alone, even a single payer system, will not change that.
I would be more than happy to come and meet with you, Congressman Conyers. I would like to help shape this debate and to shine a bright light on the propaganda being peddled by the opposition. Please let me know your thoughts.
In Unity,
Krenie Stowe, MD, JD
Peace & Blessings.
=================================
Krenie Stowe, M.D., J.D.
H.E.A.L.
Health Education, Advocacy & Literacy, Inc.
www.healthedadlit. com / 713-201-6704
July 16th, 2009
Honorable Congressman Conyers,
The legislative approach to health care reform currently under consideration by both branches of Congress is fundamentally flawed. Health care cannot safely or ethically be considered a commodity. It must be understood as a human right.
If our homes catch fire and we call a fire department for assistance, are we asked if we have insurance or cash to cover the cost of extinguishing the fire? If we are robbed or assaulted and call the police, do they require payment before services are rendered? Of course not. Yet we accept this standard when it comes to the delivery of health care services.
For profit insurance carriers have an interest in money to shareholders. The function of such entities is to enrich those shareholders. This function must, by definition, undermine providing coverage to those who are ill. Insuring the sick is simply not profitable. No regulatory structure will change that underlying fact.
Currently, thanks to skyrocketing health care costs and the perpetually growing number of under and uninsured, there is energy focused on real health care reform. Astronomical costs tied to health benefits of employees and retirees contributed substantially to the collapse of the auto industry. Health care expenses are the leading cause of bankruptcy. The perfect storm is brewing.
The health care bill under consideration in the House is nothing more than a bail out. Perhaps the most glaring flaw is that after spending over $1.5 trillion, there will still be 17 million uninsured. But more troubling is the failure to address the administrative waste in the current patchwork system. The fabric of our current health care system is akin to a large, tattered quilt. The stuffing has leaked out. There are more holes than intact segments. Yet instead of accepting the inevitable, we grab another handful of scraps and try to stitch it back together. And we don't even notice who handed us the scraps!
The system cannot be repaired. It is in decline. The only viable options, if our agenda is a healthier population, are to euthanize it or to let it die. DO NOT RESUSCITATE.
If those in Congress squander the political and popular will that are building each day on a mediocre piece of legislation, the result will be a deeply flawed and expensive system that will be used as a political football in the election cycles that follow. Every policy maker on the right will revel in the brand new, costly, failing health care system that still leaves millions uninsured.
Single payer health care is the only way to realize significant administrative savings. That statement must stand alone.
I am a pediatrician with 25 years of experience in clinical medicine. For over a decade, I operated a grass roots, non-profit health care facility in rural counties outside Houston, TX. During that time, we cared for over 11,500 children and their often uninsured parents and grandparents. I was the sole clinician. We had a staff of six, myself included. Three of the six staff members, including our executive director, spent essentially all of their time negotiating third party payers. They spent hours filing claims, appealing denied claims, getting authorizations for treatment, attempting to obtain coverage for children whose insurance had been terminated. Those hearing the horror stories would often comment that Medicaid was the problem, but we had more difficulty collecting from private payers than from public ones; and the problems with Medicaid collections escalated significantly when managed care was enacted because we then had as many as eight different Medicaid plans (insurance companies) to negotiate. More than one third of our operating expenses were devoted to billing and collections. Overhead of that magnitude is simply not possible for small practices to absorb over the long haul. The result has been the virtual death of the solo practitioner and of the small group practice. Administrative costs are forcing the consolidation and centralization of medical practice. This hits primary care providers in under served and rural areas especially hard. And it is taking the heart and soul out of medicine.
Perhaps you do get what you pay for. Corporate, for-profit health care is necessarily the result of corporate, for-profit insurance companies orchestrating medical care. The notion that "government run health care" will put a public bureaucrat between patient and doctor is absurd; there is already a massive private bureaucrat standing in the way. Empathy and humanity are not terribly profitable. And time is money. So the one thing that folks really need from their doctors, time spent explaining or answering questions or just listening to concerns or fears, is definitely not available in a profit driven system.
One of the deep ironies is that truly competent clinicians, clinicians who take careful medical histories, do thorough physical exams and exercise sound medical judgment, cost less. They order fewer invasive and diagnostic tests, they use medication more prudently, they resort to hospitalization less frequently, and their patients have better medical outcomes. But the one thing that physicians and other medical practitioners do not get paid for is their time, and this, too, is a function of third party payers. That's why surgeons earn more than primary care providers. Invasive, tertiary care pays.
The final point that I must make relates to the culture of medicine. If the object of health care reform is to improve the health of the population, than the conversation needs to go far deeper than methods of payment. We currently have a cesarean section rate of about 33% in the U.S.; at least 10% of children are on psychotropic medication; many feel they need to see a doctor because they have a sore throat or a stomach ache; we have become a nation of drug addicts believing that all ills require a prescription. If we are all insured, the situation may be, in some sense, worse: a cesarean rate of 50%; 1/4 of all kids on Ritalin; everyone able to ingest as many drugs as the doctor orders because cost will be no object.
There are also troubling questions related to the "benefits package". What services will be covered under the new umbrella of health care? Will midwifery be included? Abortion? Psychotherapy? Circumcision? Will certain treatment be mandated, like vaccination?
The things that are driving illness; obesity, isolation, inactivity, environmental degradation; are not things that can be surgically or pharmacologically repaired.
I believe that we have an opportunity to reshape health care. It requires bold action. The progressives in Congress must stand their ground. At some point, compromise is just a euphemism for selling out.
There is no healing left in health care in this country. A system of payment alone, even a single payer system, will not change that.
I would be more than happy to come and meet with you, Congressman Conyers. I would like to help shape this debate and to shine a bright light on the propaganda being peddled by the opposition. Please let me know your thoughts.
In Unity,
Krenie Stowe, MD, JD
Thursday, August 6, 2009
Looking to the future and a note regarding the past
Since dh and I decided way back before the birth of son #1 that we would always homeschool, we have had one heck of a journey to find that we are really unschoolers. With 4 boys ages 7, 6, 5 and 3, we have experienced a lot of growth and as parents have renewed our love of knowledge.
Currently #1 & #2 are enjoying math and reading using some workbooks and through exploring calculator functions. All 4 boys have recently asked about taking different classes including martial arts, dance, gymnastics...the list grows by the hour.
Being artists who are activists has made parenting a truly interesting experience and has solidified our resolve to making the world a better place. Hopefully this blog will help to find and share with other like minded parents in the Houston area and throughout Texas.
Here's to the future and a life long path of learning.
Peace & Blessings.
Currently #1 & #2 are enjoying math and reading using some workbooks and through exploring calculator functions. All 4 boys have recently asked about taking different classes including martial arts, dance, gymnastics...the list grows by the hour.
Being artists who are activists has made parenting a truly interesting experience and has solidified our resolve to making the world a better place. Hopefully this blog will help to find and share with other like minded parents in the Houston area and throughout Texas.
Here's to the future and a life long path of learning.
Peace & Blessings.
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