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As you can see by the dates below, this blog is no longer being updated.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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Fear of saying anything at all
As an interviewer, I have noticed what seems to be a growing trend. Perhaps it’s not a new trend, but it has been standing out more and more starkly in interviews. I’ll attempt to get my interviewee to something, anything quotable, yet they keep falling back into vagueness, empty jargon, and platitudes. I’ve been pondering…
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Resist irrationality: fight or flight in a time without lions
We humans obviously needed our fight or flight response in the past. When faced with a hungry lion, we needed to be able to bypass our pre-frontal cortex “professor brain” and act quickly. But although fight or flight is very useful in situations of physical danger, it’s become maladaptive for modern times.
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Looking for a good online class? Here are some tips.
What makes a high-quality online course? I discuss a variety of features that parents should look for when they are shopping for a course.
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CA legislators want to restrict Independent Study. Here’s why that’s a bad idea.
UPDATE: The changes to the law were enacted. Our local homeschool programs have responded in a variety of ways, from struggling to comply by canceling or postponing services, to hoping that what they’re doing will be seen as compliance. And it turns out that it’s not only homeschoolers are who inconvenienced. (Who woulda thought?) Neighborhood…
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An Open Letter to California Lawmakers about Restricting Educational Choice
Dear Lawmaker, Today as I read in CalMatters that state lawmakers have introduced an amended budget bill that would require schools to offer independent study programs, it occurred to me that Independent Study is a particularly important issue for LGBTQ+ students. I am writing to urge you to keep our at-risk students in mind when…