Are your kids a reflection of your parenting abilities.....

I read an article in a psychology journal which got me thinking.

Eye color, hair color, left-handedness, drug addiction, dimples, mental disorders, and color blindness are all things you can inherit from your parents but you can also inherit their cycles of dysfunction as well.

So lets say if a child suffers abuse as a child, they are likely to be abusive to their children as well or other children.

What other situations do parents pass down that are repeated by their children? Infidelity, enabling, and abandonment just to name a few.

Picture this, suppose your father had two kids at some point in time.  He decides that is not the life he wants and dumps those kids and goes off to be with someone else and has additional kids completely neglecting the two kids he already has.  That is a disgusting cycle that can repeat itself.

Or what if your mother's mother enabled one of your siblings so much so that said sibling lived with their mom their entire life and now you also have adult children living with you because, again, the cycle is being repeated.

If you act like a bully, your child might too.  If you are violent, your child could be violent too.

When you are a parent, you have to realize that your kids are watching what you do and will likely repeat behaviors especially from the same sex parent.  It is unfortunate for some kids but there is not much you can do about it except ask yourself if you would want your child to be like you and go from there.

“Instead of treating your child like how you were treated. Treat them with the same love and attention you wanted from your parents while growing up." -- Jonathan Anthony Burkett

Halloween triggers my ghoulish spirit.....

I love learning about the hauntings of abandon castles with diabolical dungeons, eerie cemeteries filled with nefarious spirits, and ethereal beings lurking in the shadows of murderous forests but what I love the most are asylums.  I know but there you go.  I also love Italy.  I say that all the time so when I came across an abandon asylum in Milan, I turned on the Italian ghostbuster in me and found a gem of a wicked place full of history dating back all the way to 1863.


If you happen to be heading off to Milan, Italy, you might want to check this place out and please let me tag along.

Lesson in Italian, Manicomio is the Italian word for mental hospital.

The hospital was built in 1863 in Limbiate, Italy, close to Milan.  This place has a rather intriguing past to say the least.  The villa was constructed by the family of Lombard noblemen Pusterla.  The villa changed hands a few more times and became the headquarters of Napoleon Bonaparte (Villa Napoloen) during the French Revolutionary War while he was campaigning in Italy.  I did another post about Napoleon's time in Italy, and you can read that here if you like.

The villa was ultimately abandoned and was purchased by the Municipality of Milan (a fancy way of saying city council).  They decided to reconstruct the villa and transform it into a psychiatric hospital (Mombello di Limbiate).  In 1879, the Ospedale Psichiatrico Giuseppe Antonini was opened as the psychiatric hospital of Milan.

This new hospital could accommodate up to 900 patients but when they opened were already overcrowded and had upwards of 1200 patients.  There were only six doctors so you can do the math on that one and to complicate matters further, during the First World War, there were 3,500 patients.  This was the largest psychiatric hospital in Italy during the twentieth century.  They divided the patients up by degree of illness and severity of their disease.

There is documented proof that the earliest forms of electroshock therapy, a.k.a. electroconvulsive therapy, a.k.a. ECT, was developed by Dr. Ugo Cerletti, an Italian neurologist.  It is said he had this idea when he was at a slaughterhouse in Rome.  He observed the responses of pigs being electrically shocked prior to slaughter which cause them to convulse and become docile which in turn made it easier to kill them.  I guess he just thought, hey, lets electrocute humans to induce convulsions and see how it goes, which he did.

Those lucky patients with schizophrenia and depression were shocked to the point of convulsion repeatedly.  And while there were improvements, 80+ years later, psychiatrists will admit they are unclear how this technique actually works.  A few believe that this procedure causes a "good kind of brain damage" what ever that is.  Someone should have tested out this method on the good doctor himself.

In 1978, the asylum was shut down due to the Basaglia Law (Italian Mental Health Act of 1978).  The property was neglected and abandoned.  The buildings became dilapidated and were vandalized.  A few buildings were spared and are in use by a high school and a smaller healthcare facility but they are on borrowed time and will most likely be shut down in the near future.

I also found two random factoids that I thought were interesting, for example, did you know it is illegal for anyone to name a pig Napoleon in France.

I know, this is not really relevant but since Napoleon once resided here, I just thought I would throw that in here.  I do what I want to do.

Here is a better one.  The hospital (Mombello di Limbiate) hosted the illegitimate son of deadbeat dictator, Benito Mussolini.  (You can learn more about him here if you like but FYI, he is a total douche bag).

Yeah, so, it turns out that Mussolini attempted to arrange the death of Ida Dasler (his first wife) and his son with her, Benito, Jr.  Mussolini sent a couple of his fascist thugs to erase all evidence that either of them existed and kill them both.  Not only had the thugs failed to kill them, they missed a very important piece of information, a marriage certificate.  Oh, and there was also a document ordering Mussolini to pay child support (poor guy, he did not realize he was actually supposed to support his own children).

Mussolini eventually forced Ida Dasler into a mental hospital to silence her, and she was told her that her son was dead, which in reality he was not.  She ended up dying of a brain hemorrhage in 1937.  (They called it a brain hemorrhage but I am pretty sure a bullet in the brain can cause a brain hemorrhage but what do I know).  Benito, Jr., was kidnapped and imprisoned at Mombello di Limbiate.  In 1940, he tried to escape but that did not go so well.  He was captured and eventually died in 1942 under "mysterious circumstances."  That story is mentale, right?  I get on a roll and literally cannot stop.

If you are ready to head out and take a tour, click here for info.


I found this great video on YouTube if you want to take a look inside.

In bocco al lupo and Ciao!

Curriculum for our final year of homeschooling...

Finally had a minute to get this 12th curriculum post out.  I am more than just a little busy even with grown kids.

A17 is in 12th grade ((GASP))!

Its awesomely fantastic and fantastically awesome!

Apologia Physics 
Hewitt Lightening Lit 
Hewitt Speech
Spanish II-Mango and Duolingo
Writer's Inc.
Teaching Textbooks PreCalculus 3.0
Economics
Magruder's American Government
Khan Academy
ACT Prep various resources
There will also be a mix of acting jobs, volunteering, book clubs, a little traveling, babysitting, pet sitting, and whatever else she decides to do along the way.

Happy homeschooling......

One week until A17 takes the ACT......

I HATE STANDARDIZED TESTING, and I have not made that a secret.  I do not think standardized tests are an accurate representation of the majority of students (99%). 

They are an archaic measure at best and need to be done away with. 

My kids have always tested above-average but that does not even matter to me. 

Some kids/people are just not good test takers but it is a nonnegotiable matter at the moment so we will play along.  Good luck A17 and the rest of the guinea pigs taking the test next Saturday!

Ramped up studying for the ACT......

ACT help.......

More helpful ACT links.

ACT science
ACT strategies and tips
ACT math prep
More ACT tips and tricks

ACT....yeah you know me............

                                          Great ACT online practice tests.

ACT Crash Course: Last Minute Tips

ACT Blitz: 10 Rules for 2 Extra Points on the ACT

ACT Math 21 Concepts to Boost Your Score

The HARDEST ACT Math Problems

Kid #2 heading to the ACT........

I just do not know where the time goes.  C18 is in college and A16 is getting ready to take the ACT.  I am just posting a few more resources for test prep.  You can find other blog posts here for resources that C18 used.





~ACT official website.

~So I found these great online flashcards at Union Test Prep.

~Hit the jackpot here at Power Score Test Preparations.  They have four ACT practice tests with answers in PDF format.

~Prep Scholar math.

~Best ACT prep.

~Free Test Online.

~Great math review videos can be found here at Mometrix Preparation.

Homeschooling Q&A........

I am going to take a minute and answer a few questions for the homeschooling community that have been submitted as comments on various post through out the blog, and this post specifically about graduation.  I had to disable the comments for public publishing for a number of reasons but I do read them all and comment back if I know who you are.

Anyhoo, my recent post about graduation.  The question was if you homeschool year round but the homeschool groups have graduation in May like traditional school, how does it play out.  So this is a good question.  We homeschool year round because it just makes more sense.  When kids are out of school for three months straight, their brains start to die plus in GA, it is 99 degrees all summer long so we tend to stay in during the hottest parts of the day so why not do school work?  Plus it allows for more frequent breaks, taking a break if you are sick or they are sick, being off on your birthday, moving, vacation, being random, and just free time.  For example, both my girls love to be in movies, and GA is the place to be for that!  Recently, they have both been filming two different movies for months including several overnight shoots which leaves no time for anything but sleeping and eating, the day shoots really are not school friendly either since they are usually out for over 12 hours.  After they wrap this second movie, it is back to school full blast.  They love participating in the movies and are lucky they can so there is no way I would let a math lesson take that away from them.  Real life experiences are far more educational than anything a book can teach.

So we homeschool from August to August every year.  Graduation is usually in May, sometimes June.  As I talked about in the other post, public schools will allow a student who has not met all the "graduation" requirements to walk with their class for graduation but will be given a blank, unsigned diploma.  At that point, the student has to meet the requirements over the summer to be able to receive their official, signed diploma.  Same thing with homeschooling.  Your child can participate in as many ceremonies as they like but until they meet the requirements and attendance, they are not officially graduated by the state you live in.  When you file a letter of intent to homeschool, you specify your child's academic calendar and will be held to that calendar accordingly.  We have a few friends who start in September so they can participate in a graduation ceremony but will not be recognized by the state until the attendance has been met.  September is many months away from May and/or June.  

Another person asked how to submit transcripts for college admissions when you have not determined the final grade for the year.  When C17 was filling out her admissions applications, her transcript reflected the fact that she does not have a final grade for the 12th grade year as of yet.  Obviously if the school year has not ended, there is no way to know the final grade.  Her transcript said in progress and had a mid-term grade.  Don't worry too much, she still was accepted to four colleges without final grades on the transcript.  I think colleges are more laid back now because so many kids dual enroll these days.  If you are dual enrolling, most likely your child is in 11th or 12th grade (sometimes 10th grade but this is a little ridiculous to me--dual enrollment is great but its not for child) and have no final high school transcript anyway.  It is also possible that your child has not taken an ACT, a PSAT, or a SAT either but they can still dual enroll and go proceed with college classes.  If your child does not dual enroll and applies to college in the 12th grade, the ACT and/or SAT are mandatory and hold a lot of value.  They pretty much speak to the schools.  

So the bottom line is don't worry.  Your child can be accepted to college without being officially graduated from high school.  

I hope that explains it.  Always check with your state's guidelines about anything you are unsure of. Thanks for the questions.  

Happy homeschooling...........

Tomorrow is C17 last go at the ACT.......

She did well enough the first time around to get in pretty much which ever college she wanted but she is going to take it again for the sake of taking it again.

Good luck, C17!  You got this!

ACT round 2 coming up......

Even though C17 got a great score the first time around, she is going to take this test one more time in February.  Some students take the ACT three or four times before applying to college.  The nice thing about this is that the tests are super-scored so only the highest scores will be used by the colleges.  

Extra, extra, get in the car and lets go.......

Being a movie extra; the good, the bad, and the evil.

My kiddos have developed a great interest in movies and acting and all things drama really, and I get asked all the time what do you do when they get parts so here is my official answer.

I will start by saying if you want to be an extra, you need to be a fairly organized person to pull off what needs to happen before each gig.  You also need to be extremely flexible and have the patience of a Saint.  In the last six days, the girls have had three separate parts on three different projects.  That is insane!

It might appear that being an extra or having a small part would be easy money and a piece of cake but I can assure you, it is not.

C17 is the one who finds most of the parts and makes contact with the directors.  Then C17 and A15 submit their photos and correspond via email with the casting directors.  They are so good at this!  Then they just let me know so I can verify that they can participate, print, sign, and scan forms, and then we wait. and wait. and wait.  The waiting stinks!

When they do get parts, they are not given call times or locations until late the night before, and there is always a chance that the time and location could be changed so you have to be flexible, very flexible.  For example, they might tell you to be here at 4 p.m. and at 11 p.m. the night before, change it to there at 8 a.m.  Crap!  This does happen, it is a stinker, but if you want the part, you do it!

Casting directors can be very picky people, and you want to make them happy.  You will be given a dress code which varies significantly from one director to another from one movie to another.  They might require solid, light-colored clothes.  Clothes with no logos.  No stripes.  No patterns.  Jeans with no holes in them.  Jeans with holes in them.  Shoes do not matter.  No shoes.  Nothing black.  Nothing white.  Dress like a gypsy.  Always bring two alternative outfits in case they do not like what you wear when you get there.  Pulling together clothes like this for each different part is a pain in the butt!  If you don't have a lot of money like me (single mom every penny counts), you have to go to vintage or thrift shops to hunt down your movie clothes.

Another aspect of being an extra is time on the set.  Usually the law will only allow children under 16 to work 4 to 6 hours a day and never before 6 a.m. or after midnight.  If school has to be done on the set while your kiddo waits, then an instructor can have them work on the school work or homework when they are not shooting.

The weather can also be a factor on a movie set.  The show much go on if it is 20 degrees, 95 degrees, raining, snowing, or storming.  My kiddos have worked in both extreme heat and extreme cold.  I definitely prefer the cold to the hot.

You may also have to leave your house at 3 a.m. when the location is far away and since you do not know the location or the call time until the night before, you really cannot plan for it, you have to just go!  This gets really tricky for me since I have a job to support my kiddos.  I am grateful for the amount of flexibility I have in my job, and they are too.

The movie sets are also more fun when the famous actors are on set.  For the most part, they just act like regular peeps.

Did I mention food?  Depending on the production company, there is usually a smorgasbord of food, snacks, and drinks on the set.  Feeding people keeps them happy.

This is pretty much what happens when you are an extra/small role character.  It is not all that glamorous, it is very unstable, long hours, long drives, and weather variations but in the end, it is great fun, educational, and wonderful opportunity.  Even the most famous actors had to start somewhere.

5SOS Sounds Live Feels Live.........

So we have been to three 5SOS concerts in the last two years and now we are seeing them again for the 4th time, and this time we are VIPing it!

We saw 5SOS the first time as the opening act for One Direction on October 1, 2014.  That concert was nothing short of AmAzinG!  So glad we got to see One Direction before they took a break.

5SOS came back to Atlanta August 5, 2015 with Rock Out With Your Socks Out Tour, and we loved it so much, we headed to North Carolina to see them again, same show, on September 9, 2015.  We planned on going back to see 5SOS when they came back to Atlanta at that concert as VIPs.  That was nine long months ago.

Here are a few tips that we have learned over the last two years of concert going.

~First, get there early and prepare to wait, wait, and wait.............

~Bring a lot of water, a lot!

~Be prepared for rain, just in case.

~Make sure your phone has a fully charged up battery.

~Always have a sharpie out and ready.

~Bring easy to carry and nonmeltable snacks.

~Shoes---have to be comfortable for all that standing.

~Just have cash and ids, don't bother with a whole big wallet full of stuff you won't be needed at the time.

~Always look around you for the band because sometimes they try to blend into the crowd-a few of their moms will do that as well.  Listen out for anyone with a handheld radio.  When we were in North Carolina, we heard the security say that the band was entering the parking lot through a back entrance so we ambushed them at that entrance and saw them drive in.  They waved and laughed.  It was so much fun!

So as I said, this time we are going the VIP route and things will be a little different.  They have a schedule for us that starts at 1 p.m. but this time we will have no lines, no waiting.  We have top-priced seats and private access to the sound check before the show.  We also get to have a Q&A session with the band right after the sound check.  We also get to visit the merchandise vendors before everyone else.  They have a special entrance for the VIP crowd and special edition commemorative tour lanyards and laminate which identifies us as VIP.  We will even have a host to help us out.  What????  This is going to be so much fun.  The girls are both so excited, and so am I!!! Now if Sunday would just get here already...................

Then the count down for Twenty-One Pilots begins.

Mommy bragging rights..............

So proud of my girl for getting ACT scores, the first time taking it, better than good enough to get in to almost any school she wants.

She said next time, she will do even better!

Way to go C17!

ACT testing is finally here................

Tomorrow is a big day for several high-schoolers we know; C17, my nephew, a handful of friends, and thousands of high-schoolers!

It is the final ACT of the year.


So good luck to all of you students and way to go to the parents that have helped them get this far and are willing to get up at 6 a.m. on a Saturday and drive them to their testing destinations!


Click here for a checklist of what to bring and what not to bring.
Peterson's tips.

more tips.

Great video.

Poor guy, he has no idea she still has 3 hours to go on the ACT prep.....