Concerns of the week

Last year, our youngest son was homeschooled all year and our oldest son went to school for 3 classes & did the other 4 classes at home. This year, our oldest is at the high school for 6 classes & he does 2 at home. Our youngest went back to public school full-time. He's very VERY social. He met with other kids a minimum of 3 times a week last year during homeschool-1 day for a whole day of school, 1 day for 1/2 day activity, and then going to church activities one night a week but he felt like that wasn't even close to enough and I thought it took a lot of time and effort managing that much. We gave him a choice to homeschool or try public again and he wanted to try public again and he is actually really loving it. He started in a school that is brand new this year. They gave each student a Chromebook to keep with them for 7th-9th grade. It comes home every day, goes back to school every day. My concern was privacy but there were some great tutorials about how to disable a lot of trackers and I felt a lot more comfortable. If I sound crazy-ha ha-you have no idea! :)

This week I had a chance to substitute at my youngest son's school two days in a row and it was my first time being there. Some interesting things are going on there that aren't happening in other schools. The biggest problem is that a large percentage of students cannot put their Chromebooks away. I will make a very specific announcement about not wanting to see them and 10 minutes later 5 Chromebooks will be out. I will make another announcement and if I'm lucky 1 student will put it away. This doesn't happen in other schools because other schools have a classroom set of Chromebooks and students don't feel personal ownership of them. It would be weird for them to go grab a Chromebook if the teacher doesn't ask them to but at this school, students only have to reach into their backpack to access a Chromebook they feel ownership of. In addition, more students are playing games on the Chromebook instead of doing the assignment. Because they can use it at home, they install games and they know what games are available at all times so they don't feel as many restrictions. Some of the 7th grade classes I taught had to take an assessment, which came after an assignment they needed their Chromebooks for, and it literally took about 10 minutes for all of the Chromebooks to be put away. The kids have an unhealthy attachment to these things. In most schools, there is a widespread problem with phones and I did have some problems with kids using their phones during class but that is a smaller problem than their addiction to the Chromebooks. This was very eye-opening to me about what's going on at that school.

In all of the middle & high schools I've been in this year, many students have handwriting that is nearly unreadable. They use keyboards so much more than they use physical writing that they are not mastering how to write something another person can read and nobody is holding them accountable. I see students that need to be entertained. If you are not teaching them something they enjoy or giving them an assignment they enjoy, they refuse to participate and they pull out their phones or use their Chromebooks in alternative ways, using them to be entertained instead of learning anything. They demand to be entertained or they will disengage completely and there's no middle ground. Turning people into functional human beings is not just fun and games. There is hard work involved and it concerns me how few are willing to do the work. I think the thing that concerns me more is that parents as a whole are clueless about all of this. I hear about employees who contact parents concerning their student's excessive use of phones during school and a common response is "teenagers and their phones. That's just something they do at this age." Another response that I hear too much is "Well, what can I really do?" Parents know there's a problem but they give up without even trying to solve the problem. Without parent support, teenagers have no accountability because their poor choices are now widely acceptable, at least to other teenagers and to many adults. There's a good reason why teenagers don't run the world or at least why they're not supposed to. I'm DEEPLY concerned about how few of students have mastered multiplication, even by middle school. There's a widespread belief that there's no point. Most people have constant access to calculators. I wish I could spread understanding about how teaching your brain to do math makes your brain capable of so many non-math-related things that make it necessary for being a functional human. I'm not even talking about trigonometry or calculus, just basic multiplication. It's a life skill. If you emerge from school unable to perform basic equations, how do you figure out in black and white when you're being overcharged for something or how to find the best deal on anything you buy in sizes or quantities? How do you even think about computing life problems to come up with solutions?

I wish I had some hopeful thing to end my concerns on. I guess I'm glad I saw the inner workings of my son's school so I can have very targeted conversations with him about my concerns and so I know what problems to address that he could possibly fall prey to embracing. There are some fantastic students out there and my heart is always softened by kind and thoughtful acts I do see amidst the trouble so there is still plenty of wonderful things going on at school as well.

Vaccinations

Until 4 1/2 years ago, I'd never met anybody who had a child they believed was injured by vaccines. To this day, I don't personally know anybody who has not vaccinated their children. When doctors told me they were giving my children vaccinations, I never gave pause. I never questioned. I never had any reason to believe there would be a problem so my children were given all of their vaccinations on schedule up to the age of 12. When my daughter was 12, I'd heard of Gardasil, seen ads for it. I'd lightly looked up a few things about it on my own but didn't dive in too deep.

We went to get her shots to prepare for junior high. They told me she was getting a couple shots & an HPV vaccine. I agreed but didn't remember hearing about an HPV vaccine. While they prepared shots, I read a little about HPV and realized it was the same thing as Gardasil. I knew I didn't feel good about the shot. I couldn't tell you specifically why. I just knew that I didn't want her getting it. The doctor came back in and I said my daughter could have all the other shots but NOT the one for HPV. The doctor looked at me like I was a crazy person, told me all the benefits she'd get from the HPV vaccine, and put a lot of pressure on me to agree to the shot. I wouldn't. The doctor asked me to leave the room so she could have a private conversation with my daughter. I'm a tougher person now and wouldn't leave but back then, I'm sad to admit I did leave the room. I found out afterward that the doctor asked my daughter if she wanted the shot and tried to tell her how good it would be to have. She told her she would be able to give her the shot if she wanted it, even if I had said no. Luckily, she said no to getting it. That had been our doctor for about 8 or 9 years but we never went back to her. How can you trust a doctor that would try to undermine a parent with their own 12 year-old child?

When my son turned 12, we went to a new doctor for his junior high shots. The doctor asked about getting all the same shots but this time, I already knew what I was avoiding so I said yes to everything but the HPV. The doctor said, "Do you want more information about the HPV vaccination? I plan to give it to my own kids and I think it's a good thing." I told him I appreciate it but I'd done my own research and was choosing to avoid it. He tapped my son on the shoulder and said, "We gotta do what Mom says, ok?" and that was it. That's how I knew he was a good doctor for our family. He pushed a little but when I pushed back, he let me be in charge of my own family, even when he disagreed with my decision. Our youngest son went to the same doctor before starting 7th grade. We opted out of the HPV. There were no problems. I have related what I thought our worst problem with vaccines has been. My kids have all been vaccinated on schedule, with the exception of avoiding the HPV vaccine, which isn't a mandatory vaccination anyway.

It's important to note that my experience is very similar to most of the people in this country. I vaccinated all of my children on schedule. I didn't think about it. I didn't wonder if I was doing the right thing. I honestly never considered an alternative. If somebody would have suggested not vaccinating, I would have probably thought they were a little crazy, possibly super granola, not relatable and I would not have listened. I may have even been angry they would suggest such a thing. Experience and information changes everything. 4 1/2 years ago, I met somebody who has 4 children. 3 of them are autistic. The only child that isn't had his vaccinations delayed. It took a while for her to open up but about 3 years ago, she told me play-by-play what happened to her oldest child. She got the MMR vaccine around the 1 1/2 year old time-frame. She had been a verbal and well-tempered child, hitting all the regular milestones. Overnight, her daughter became inconsolable, started banging her head into the wall, screamed a lot and couldn't focus the way she had before. She would no longer sleep at night. She would just wake up and bang her head into the wall. She was eventually diagnosed with autism. My friend thought nothing of it but had a similar experience with her next child. Her child was fine, hitting milestones and then it seemed like he randomly changed a lot. When he was diagnosed with autism, she didn't want to see her children limited in life so she hired professionals to work with her children 8 hours a day in her home and it cost her $40,000 that year to get her 2 children to a high-functioning level. I don't know how she pulled it off financially. I don't think that's a possibility for many people. She waited several years to have another child but still hadn't pinned down what the problem was so she did everything the same way. When she noticed him changing after his toddler MMR shot, she finally, and regretfully had that lightbulb moment that maybe the shots were linked to the autism. Let me be clear. Her family members carry the MTHFR gene, which leaves them more sensitive to many things in their environment than the average person. My kids had all the same shots and never became autistic. My kids also don't carry the MTHFR gene. On her last child, she still wasn't anti-vaccine. She was just wondering if a delay would help so she didn't have her child vaccinated on schedule and he never ended up with autism. My friend opening up to me about her experience (and she did so very reluctantly because people did not usually receive her story well), was the first time I ever wondered anything about vaccines. She invited my husband and I to a documentary with her husband and her and we decided to go, just to see what it was like.

We saw Vaxxed in 2016. I have to be honest. I watched it as a skeptic. I didn't believe everything in the movie. I didn't believe many things I saw in the movie. I found it interesting but I could see that it was being presented from an angle that really believed one way so I took in the information but wasn't easily swayed. One really helpful thing though is that at that showing, Del Bigtree, the Vaxxed producer, and others involved in the movie stayed for a Q&A after the showing. I think I learned more from the Q&A than I had from the movie but I don't recall many specifics. I was a skeptic but for the first time, I went home asking myself, "Could there be a problem with vaccines?" I spent the next year doing a good deal of research and personal reflection about vaccines. I kept saying, "I'm not anti-vaccines but shouldn't we ask questions?" I talked about it with 7 or 8 different people, most of them not very happy about the idea of even asking any questions. I'd like to know what's wrong with asking some questions? If things are as great as they seem, that will be discovered but if there's a problem, that can also be discovered. Either way, isn't it helpful to ask some questions? My big question, as I thought about vaccines was, "Why do newborns get a Hepatitis vaccine? They're unlikely to be promiscuous or involved with drug-abuse. Why do they have to have that shot before even leaving the hospital?" Once you are able to reasonably question one thing, your mind begins to open up to other possibilities. "Why are so many shots given to babies? Why do we inject newborns with aluminum, which their body treats like a toxin?" As I was doing my research, I spent a good deal of time reading from the CDCs own web site. What I would consider some of the most damaging information I got about vaccines, I got at the CDC web site. When people say anti-vaxxers "Just saw one misinformed meme on Facebook and jumped onboard" or they get all their facts from uncredible sources, I get insulted. That same organization that many quote as ruling vaccines are safe, the CDC, is exactly where I learned just how un-safe vaccines are. I can't use any more of a credible source than the very source everybody else is believing. I learned that some vaccines were grown on aborted fetuses but the CDC says that shouldn't matter for two reasons: 1)That was the first round in the 1960s so it's not like today's vaccine was directly grown on an aborted fetus and 2)The Pope said it's still okay to get the vaccines. If either of these two arguments lay all of your fears to rest, that seems concerning since neither piece of information seems fully acceptable.

I also learned from the CDC web site that vaccines can contain cancer and injecting them into your child can possibly give your child cancer. The CDC claims it would be too costly and take too long to test everything to make sure there is no cancer to start with but they say the benefits outweigh the "unlikely" negative possibilities. Let this fact digest for a bit. What if you gave your child cancer by vaccinating them? This week I saw the 2nd Vaxxed movie, The People's Truth.

This is the show that tells the stories of people with children who have been vaccine-injured. This isn't a bunch of random facts and ideas. This is parents saying, "My child was at this certain point but this is what happened the same day as they were vaccinated." Parents have nothing to gain by saying this. They get rejected by their communities, rejected sometimes by their doctors. Speaking their truth only brings them heartache. Several girls (and 1 boy) who received the HPV vaccines lost their ability to walk. Two girls in the movie that got the HPV vaccine (which is said to prevent cervical cancer) got cervical cancer within months of getting the vaccine. Some girls died from the HPV vaccine and Colton Berrett lost his life after feeling like a burden from HPV vaccine complications.

The movie includes interviews with doctors, all of them claiming that they don't receive much training in vaccinations. The movie then goes on to show many children who have never been vaccinated. They are smart. They are beautiful. They are high-functioning. The parents say they are healthy as can be, rarely need to see a doctor, heal quickly when getting colds. Some parents vaccinated older children before avoiding vaccines with more children and say the healthier kids are the unvaccinated kids. I have never considered my children to be vaccine-injured. I thought back to their early childhoods. Our first two kids got really sick early on. Our daughter got a cold at about 6 or 8 weeks old and it lasted around 10 days and was terrifying. Our second child got RSV at 4 weeks old and started turning blue. He was admitted to the hospital and put in ICU for about a week. What if his natural immunity wasn't so faulty but being injected with aluminum as a newborn made his immune system struggle just to survive so that he actually had a weaker immune system, leaving him open to get and suffer anything he came in contact with? How would he have done if he hadn't been immunized? When he got a little older, he would get life-threatening bouts of croup, which he was hospitalized for twice and his lungs would retract into his body when he would breathe. Our youngest son was quarantined by us for months after his birth because of our experience of having an infant with RSV. He did, however, get some "unexplainable" illness at the age of 3, which he was hospitalized for. I feel like I did the best I could, or at least the best I knew how to do for my kids. There's no way to know if the outcome would be better or worse had I made different choices. It could go either way. There are so many out there crying for parents to be forced to immunize, crying for protecting all children in the way they feel is best. Is it the best? The more time you spend online, the more arguments you could find for either side of the debate. Both sides claim to have studies that prove their point. Both sides have claims that the other sides arguments don't make sense because of X, Y, or Z.

I write this hoping for two things in the world to change. We have to protect a parent's right to choose. I understand that there is scary information out there about what could supposedly happen to "other" children if unvaccinated children are allowed to walk around unregulated but as soon as we start letting the government decide what's best for families, we lose our true ability to parent and we give up natural rights. The other thing is that I truly am not anti-vax but I am pro Let's Ask Questions. What would be different if people were no longer afraid just to ask the questions? Why do newborns have to get a Hepatitis B vaccine before leaving the hospital? Why don't doctors receive more training about vaccinations? Why do cancer-free young women who get vaccinated against cervical cancer end up with cervical cancer just months after the vaccination? Why does the CDC refuse to do a study that compares vaccinated children to unvaccinated children over several years of time? Why do many doctors who have studied patients that have been vaccinated and patients that have not for years come to the conclusion that unvaccinated patients are far healthier? Why would anybody truly believe that it's okay to take away the rights of a parent trying to oversee their child's well-being and give those rights to the government or to society in general? It wasn't long ago that I would never have asked these questions. I may have been annoyed to even hear them. I have been exposed to undeniable information that no longer makes it possible for me to just go along for the ride. I have to ask questions and I have to fight for a parent's right to choose for their own family.

Homeopathic Update

We went to a homeopath starting in May and with visits going through July and treatments going through August. Here is how things went by person: ***For my youngest son who has severe allergies & has been on Zyrtec for years, we tried the suggested treatments and there is no permanent change in his allergies. Some say we should have tweaked his treatment until we got something that would work better. Honestly, we couldn't afford to but I'll talk more about that later. We tried a full round of treatment. There didn't seem to be a long-term change in his symptoms. I'm really committed to getting him off Zyrtec though so for the last month, he has only taken Boiron histaminum hydrochloricum, homeopathic pellets, and they have done great! It costs about $11 for 1 1/2 month supply & they have a stronger dose for the summer (when his allergies get worse) that we will probably get. We tried the homeopathy with a professional for him. I didn't love the results. I felt like I can manage this on my own and we have a course that I think will be helpful.

***For my other son, he couldn't stop throwing up. The homeopath said it was likely to be a parasite problem at first. We used a few things, including wormwood and it seemed to help a little but he was still really sick and he was still throwing up. The homeopath did muscle testing and then had him do a few physical things to hone in on specifics and said he had a gallbladder issue and we did a round of using Lidan primarily and a few other things. My son stopped throwing up!!! He still says he doesn't feel good but he doesn't take the supplements anymore and he hasn't thrown up for a good while now and I think that's a miracle!!! Because I still worry about him feeling sick, we followed up with traditional doctors. He's had an x-ray of his gallbladder and a nuclear med hydascan to see his gallbladder in action and nothing was determined to be noticeably wrong. Based on our experiences & timing, I believe he did have a problem with his gallbladder, the homeopathy fixed the gallbladder problem, and by the time we followed up with traditional medicine, there was no longer a problem to diagnose. Him not feeling great could be anything but without throwing up all the time, at least he can lead a semi-normal life. I feel like going to the homeopath was well worth everything just to see my kid not have to throw up all the time anymore.

***For my issues, I was diagnosed with a gallbladder problem and put on lidan. It helped me digest food for the first time in a long time! That was lovely but as soon as I quit taking it, I still felt yucky all the time, couldn't digest food well. I don't take it now. It's too expensive to take long-term ($17 for a 9-day supply). The homeopath said my physical issues don't need as much attention as my emotional issues. He originally put me on pulsatilla but as I read more, I told him I thought I was more natrum muriaticum and he asked some questions, said he believes that's right and apologized for starting with something else. It's not a big deal because the treatment for both isn't too expensive. I actually take both because I haven't found anything that says you can't try treating both things at the same time and I think the natrum muriaticum is more important and better describes me but the pulsatilla has a few things that are spot-on. I have changed a lot emotionally since I started. There are a few ways I have stood up for myself more and taken more control of my life. In part, I have been open to other things that have helped me (books about cognitive behavioral therapy and sitting in on several sessions of it as well as being places where people discuss little tips & tricks which I try and find helpful) so that a combination of things are fortifying my emotions and putting me on a healthier path. Does my husband think I've drastically changed? I don't know. I don't know if he notices the changes but I have noticed.

***Final Thoughts-seeing the homeopath was very affordable-all the visits combined were $50-$60. Treatments ended up costing a fortune. We spent hundreds of dollars and it was pretty much most of my personal savings. I price-checked many other places & they had the lowest prices on almost everything so I don't think the store was over-inflating costs. It's just that it's an expensive route to take and insurance doesn't cover any of it. I'm happy for every penny spent. My kid doesn't throw up! My emotions are getting under control! We found a way to manage allergies other than Zyrtec. It wasn't perfect but it helped us in great ways. I would recommend it but I would hope you have some savings to help cover the costs of the treatments, especially if 3 people are going in at the same time.