Recent Comments

1. about 17 hours ago on For Better or For Worse

   She was badly discouraged. She thought she would need to find a bad high school because she wasn’t able to learn. The staff pushed her off her special education IEP as fast as humanly possible (they tried to do it mid-year, but her 5th grade teacher refused). They told her she never should have been on an IEP (which was NOT true – they had no idea how far she had progressed). Then they refused to provide any classroom supports, and failed to follow through on supports we got teachers to agree on for more than two weeks at a time. She was simultaneously told that she would never learn to spell because she was dyslexic and that she just needed to study harder on the spelling tests. One week, she studied three hours for the spelling quiz and still failed to get a passing grade. I had met with two people about accommodations for her in October and BOTH of them told me in the spring that we had never met and they had no idea she needed help!

   We have switched to a normal public school now, and she is getting great support and encouragement, even without a formal plan in place for her needs. Her learning has improved by leaps and bounds.

2. about 23 hours ago on For Better or For Worse

   I’ve had this happen in the last few years, too. It can happen in the other direction as well in female-dominated settings.

   The same thing happened to my husband in reverse at a school we were considering for our daughter. She has special needs, and they had a great sales pitch about supporting those needs. It made us uncomfortable at the time, but we should have taken the way they treated my husband as a major red flag and run the other way. It would have saved us a couple of years of being ignored, gas-lighted and dismissed by the school staff.

3. about 23 hours ago on Candorville

   I relate to this. When my daughter was in elementary school, she was terrified to go to sleep at night for weeks after the fire department visited. Tornado drills had a similar effect. The ones that took the cake were her fears of tsunamis and volcanoes – we don’t live anywhere that either one could possibly impact us. Telling her that changed nothing. No natural disaster documentaries for her.

4. 1 day ago on Dilbert Classics

   No, it’s more expensive with less functionality. Good marketing to those who don’t know technology, though.

5. 1 day ago on Frazz

   She had breakfast for dinner but didn’t eat any breakfast today. It’s not about having a sugar crash, it’s about the timing of the food intake.

6. 1 day ago on PreTeena

   Our daughter had a friend sleep over this weekend. They are in our COVID bubble.

7. 1 day ago on Non Sequitur

   I suspect that isn’t the only person who has been booted from social media lately.

8. 1 day ago on Dilbert Classics

   I hate sales and marketing teams. It doesn’t matter what company they work for, they all do this.

   The place I work just bought an expensive product set to replace our core database, and also paid a large amount for data conversion (against the recommendation of IT). The vendor delayed the start for a few months, did all the data conversion tasks they were in charge of incorrectly, and failed to provide adequate documentation or even a detailed project timeline. We were forced to bring the data conversion effort in-house, speeding it up significantly in the process. In the quarterly business review, the vendor blamed our IT team for “changing strategy” and for taking too long on the data conversion. Everything on their end was sunshine and roses – according to the vendor’s marketing staff.

9. 1 day ago on Thatababy

   Thank you! My 12 year old refuses to open pull tabs because she sliced herself badly the last time she tried.

10. 5 days ago on Dog Eat Doug

    Just like human anxiety, it seems dog anxiety runs in families. One gets it, and then you all have it.