Avant Parenting Archives
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Avant! Welcome to my parenting blog archives
As you can see by the dates below, this blog is no longer being updated. However, there’s lots of good stuff here, much of it as true now as when it was written. Please feel free to browse, or follow these links: One last piece of parenting advice: Enjoy today even if it’s a rough…
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How [not] to teach science
I was thrilled to be able to go to the San Francisco Academy of Sciences homeschool day. It promised both a reduced price and fewer crowds. We had been to the Academy one time since it opened. The crowds were so thick we couldn’t see the exhibits. Downstairs in the aquarium, we were in a…
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I am a Cat Mother
At first, I didn’t really want to believe it. I tried to ignore it, but it didn’t go away. I suspected it had something to do with Tom’s visits. He comes by occasionally when I have an itch that needs scratching. Sometimes he just comes for companionship, which to him means arguing over the end…
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Ding, dong, the witch is dead…
Oh, bless the man who wrote that song. (Harold Arlen, by the way.) It serves as a theme song for so many days in my life. The first time was when Richard Nixon’s obituary appeared in the paper. I didn’t mean to think ill of the dead, but I went around unconsciously singing that song…
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Private/public choice revisited: high school
One of my correspondents let me know that my private/public school piece a few days ago, though it was written with families with younger children in mind, was very helpful to her in thinking about the high school choice for her son. In many ways, the issues are the same. But then again, you’re talking…
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Jewish storytelling, for free!
We are a completely secular homeschooling family. However, we are also trying to walk that tightrope of raising our children with a Jewish cultural identity. This was much easier for my husband’s parents to do, given that they were raising him in Brooklyn and New Jersey. But out here in California, our kids are affected…