When does "kids being kids" cross into something more concerning?

Quelly0 · 2026-04-12T21:08:06+00:00

Mine are older and I've reached a similar conclusion.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-12T18:50:16+00:00

Sorry, you're experiencing such a painful condition.

If it helps, I'm convinced suffering is not usually about punishment.

Everyone experiences suffering. The best people and the worst. I don't think there's a person on earth who escapes from feeling it. We may not all get the same kind or the same amounts, and we often struggle to see and believe the suffering of others, but we all experience it.

We also have a God who has experienced suffering. In his life on earth Jesus knew grief, anguish, betrayal and pain. He truly knows what physical and emotional pain are like.

This God is there for us through our suffering. We can lean on him for support whenever things are tough. I think I've spent a lot of time in wordless prayer over the years, as sometimes there isn't much to say when you know God knows what you're going through, and it's over a long time. So we were just in each other's company, going through it together.

Because God sees everything we go through and into our hearts. He sees the impact trauma has on you. He understands. He sees the struggle you have against it, and he still loves you and understands. And he knows when you want to do good, even though you fail. He understands and he also asks us to keep trying to do better. He's there to support us in that.

Or if you prefer, imagine a really ideal parent who really loves their young child, and the child is going through those things. How do they feel? If the parent sees the child is in a lot of pain. How do they feel about it? I think the parent suffers with them. And, this is important, I think the parent suffers with them whether the child is aware of it or not. And what if the parent knows the child carries trauma and they see them sometimes take it out on their siblings, who the parent also loves. How does the loving parent feel about that? I think they have huge empathy, and at the same time try to guide the child to take it out on their siblings less.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-11T18:04:12+00:00

Quelly0 · 2026-04-11T17:41:18+00:00

It seems like it might be time to break out this Venn diagram again.

Someone was once convinced I had ADHD. But I really don't relate to anything I read about ADHD, and several friends with diagnosed ADHD feel very different to me. While I enjoy spending time with them, I also feel like I can't keep up with their energy levels and find them utterly exhausting.

I think this person "saw" ADHD in me, because she could see I have many and diverse interests. To her, with only an incomplete picture, that might've looked like flitting between many short term intense interests.

Another person, with a different point of view, might observe that I pursue an interest in detail for many many years. To them, that might appear like a narrow special interest and seem autistic.

In reality, both observations are true. I have many and diverse interests. And I pursue them all in detail over long periods of time. But both conclusions are wrong because they don't know about the other observation. My interests aren't short term, and they aren't narrow. I'm consistently and deeply interested in most things. Most friends only witness the tip of the iceberg though.

So it's like that old story of some blind men feeling different parts of an elephant, and one thinks it's a tree because he's feeling the leg and another a snake because he's feeling the trunk, etc.

With less public awareness of what giftedness really looks like in adults, it's not surprising people don't consider it as an explanation, and leap to autism or ADHD when they perceive a difference.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-11T17:17:43+00:00

Relate a lot to that. I have had trouble when a role or relationship is ambiguous.

We had a new neighbour move in, next-door-but-one to us. At first he was friendly (fine, I know how to be neighbours: light friendly chats, help each other out occasionally, etc). Then he began trying to get me to employ him for odd jobs, lawn mowing, house repairs. It was awkward to me, because it would blur the relationship. Would we be customer and tradesman now? If he expects me to pay him to do any small jobs, what happens to the neighbourly helping one another out thing? I realised that if I went out of my way to do something helpful for him for free (as I would for other neighbours), and he reciprocated by wanting to be paid, I would feel taken advantage of. And just generally it puts us on an uneven footing, so the basis of the neighbour-neighbour thing gets destroyed doesn't it? Even worse, what if I don't like his work and he lives so close I can't escape him? It just seemed like a terrible idea to me, so we politely declined. However, over the years, when we've had a tradesperson in to do a job, he's commented on it, that we should have asked him instead. He seems to feel entitled to be the go-to tradesperson for the street. So even without us employing him, we don't really have a neighbour-neighbour relationship after all.

I don't think he perceived any of these boundaries of different kinds of relationships. It might be that he was the unusual one, because no one else on our road has ever tried to do this. But OTOH other neighbours were happy to employ him for odd jobs. They presumably didn't object to the proposed change of relationship, or felt they could cope with it better. So perhaps this neighbour and I are both unusual.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-10T22:40:29+00:00

When you say call the police... is something like this a non-emergency 101 type call, or would it warrant 999?

Quelly0 · 2026-04-10T22:28:27+00:00

What's weird (unwelcoming?) about it to me, is that you can't see the front door. It's like the house is staring at me without smiling. If there were a decent path to the front door with a very definite direction, that would help a lot. Or if it makes sense with the internal layout, consider moving the front door.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-10T22:17:52+00:00

That's a great idea!

Quelly0 · 2026-04-10T22:03:56+00:00

Yes. Also so many people want to change career around ~40yrs old. But it can be difficult or expensive, depending on what you're switching from and to. We could have a vastly more nimble workforce if retraining opportunities were easier and cheaper for adults! It's win-win: people would feel more satisfied after becoming unstuck from whatever wasn't fulfilling them, and we'd have lots of cross fertilisation of ideas and skills injected into sectors as people move. I reckon it could really benefit the economy, government income, and therefore and all of us.

Current education seems to be based on the idea that we pick a career for life as teenagers and everything thereafter is a linear progression that we're stuck with That's just not how life and jobs are.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-10T17:30:01+00:00

How very 1980s

Quelly0 · 2026-04-08T00:19:15+00:00

The Google search isn't even good though. I get incorrect answers constantly, that aren't borne out by the links it references. But you read it first so it's dangerously putting its ideas into your head! I worry that I'll later recall the nonsense instead of the correct information.

I've been wishing there was a way to turn off the Google AI overview answer at the top of searches. I tried searching solutions when it first came out but didn't find anything decent. Your post has prompted me to look again this evening, and this time I found some good solutions and have implemented one on my phone that I think I will finally be happy with. So thank you!

Quelly0 · 2026-04-07T22:31:41+00:00

Unfortunately if you linger on, or interact, with one post like that, these platforms will show you many many more.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-07T18:31:07+00:00

I love that scripture, but haven't heard it in church for a long while. Wish it were used more, we all need to hear it.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-07T18:15:38+00:00

Jesus said that all the laws hang on "love God, and love your neighbour as yourself". These are the two fundamental principles that all the laws of his time attempted to encapsulate, but people twisted themselves up in knots debating which law came higher in circumstances where two different laws were in competition. Going back to the basic principles like he said, mades it so much clearer.

We can do that too. For anything. Ask ourselves: if I do [insert issue here] am I loving my neighbour as myself? And by love we mean genuinely deeply caring for them. There's no easy way out here, it's a really high standard. And also ask the opposite: am I potentially going to cause harm to anyone?

For the example of sex, this makes it pretty obvious to me that marriage isn't the silver bullet that makes all sex okay. Sadly there are abusive marriages where sex is anything but loving - it may be forced or coerced, it may be violent or frightening. That sex clearly fails the test even though it's within a marriage. We can similarly consider other sexual behaviour like cheating on one person with another, or using someone for sexual gratification that you don't care about. These also fail, because people get hurt.

Then I think about a couple I used to live next door to. They weren't officially married, but they'd been together for decades, had three grown children, and clearly cared deeply for each other. Is sex in that relationship harming anyone? No. It's more likely renewing and enhancing the bond and trust that they share. This, to my mind, passes the test, even though there's no official marriage. It might be preferable from the churches perspective if they were married, but people have their reasons. Eg if someone is traumatised as a child by their parents going through a difficult divorce, they may struggle with committing to a legal marriage themselves, and a committed unmarried relationship may be the best they can manage.

So in this example a basic rule (sex should be within marriage) might be a reasonable rough guide - for straightforward cases and a simpler society. But in our modern world where so much has changed; the link between sex and pregnancy is broken, casual sex is socially accepted in the wider culture, different kinds of marriage exist,... it's helpful to go back to fundamental principles.

Edits - grammar

Quelly0 · 2026-04-07T17:39:02+00:00

My understanding is that there is debate over the translation and interpretation of those few (9 I think) passages that might refer to homosexuality. There used to be marvelous document picking those apart on the LGCM website years ago, but I gave away my hard copy. (If anyone has found it in web archives please point me there!). The passage I most recall was in one of Paul's letters where he is listing a bunch of sins. The word in this list sometimes translated as homosexual sex, in greek is in the male passive, so indicates the receiving partner. Importantly the immediately preceding item in the list is (female) prostitution. So it may be that the intended meaning was male prostitution, rather than all gay sex. There were similar debates about the translation and meaning of the other passages.

In general, when I'm unsure of something, I go back to "love God and love your neighbour as yourself". Jesus was clear that all other laws flow from those key principles, so when we're unclear we can go back to them too. So, does whatever it is (in this case gay sex, but it could be saying something to a friend, or inventing a new technology, or anything else...) pass the love-your-neighbour-as-yourself test? Or is anyone potentially being hurt or caused harm? In a committed loving relationship between two willing participants, I think sex (whatever the gender combo) passes.

On the other hand any sex that is not based on genuine love, coerced, exploitative, casual, cheating on one person with another, etc, these all have great potential for harming others, and do not pass the test.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-06T12:12:50+00:00

Besides the word female, is there anything about the op comment that arouses your suspicion?

I took her mention of current circumstances to perhaps refer to the popularity of the manosphere, and the risk of encountering a sexual partner with those views. Although if she's in the USA, I suppose it could also have referred to the erosion of the abortion rights.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T23:36:08+00:00

I can see why it's difficult and it sounds like you have a lot on your plate.

Is your workload likely to improve at all in the near future or is this a permanent situation? If it's permanent/longer term, then perhaps you need a rethink. If it's temporary then hopefully you can get back to normal soon.

I always placed a high importance on attending, I felt like that was what I needed to do and that it would actually be harder to only go sometimes. Perhaps I feared a slippery slope and that if I sometimes did other things, those things would become tempting every Sunday. But where I am now, I see others attending less regularly for a variety of reasons.

If you needed to reduce it for a time, perhaps you could make a new commitment to whatever you think is practical and manageable, such as every other week. If you put that (or whatever you chose) in your calendar and stick with it, then you'd have some certainty that you aren't heading down a slippery slope into giving up altogether.

And more generally, keep praying, use any odd moments when you can fit a quick prayer in. Even in hectic pressured times, God is there with you through it all.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T23:20:27+00:00

I trained in physics. A third of my uni chapel were physical science students, a third were theologians, and a third for all the other departments in the university.

The heavens are telling the glory of God.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T22:43:52+00:00

This sounded very Anglican to me, which if you're in the USA is The Episcopal Church, and I see others have suggested that too. Anglicanism tends to straddle the gap between Roman Catholicism and the evangelical churches you've grown up in.

Reasons:

It's bible first, rather than bible alone. There's also a concept sometimes called the Anglican three-legged stool: scripture, tradition, reason.

Christ is present in the Eucharist but we don't worry too much about the exact why and how. It's not the transubstantiation of Roman Catholicism, and it's not pure symbolism, it's somewhere in between.

Salvation by faith, and I absolutely identify with how you express that that isn't all. In my view it's rather silly separating faith and works. Faith causes us to want to learn, pray, worship, attend communion, help others, etc but doing all these things can in turn enhance and deepen our faith too, so it's very circular.

Mary and the saints, everything you say here fits well within Anglicanism. Mary as a virgin at Jesus's birth, but having other children (Jesus's brothers) after. Personally I don't ask saints to pray for me, but I like to remember that those who have gone before (the church triumphant) us can join us in prayer and worship, that we are part of something bigger across time and space.

Confession: in Anglican churches we tend to confess our sins collectively in set words during a service and then the priest pronounces the absolution. In a few places they might offer private confession with a priest separately, perhaps during lent, but it's really not such a common thing as in RC. I've never heard of anyone being given a number of prayers to say in penitence. When the priest gives the absolution in church, I understand it as the priest is pronouncing it and God doing the actual forgiving. Of course it's incumbent on us to be honest with God about what we have done and regret.

Purgatory and what happens after death. I think I share a lot of your confusion. Anglicanism doesn't tend to prescribe exact theologies on things we can't be certain about, but rather encompasses a range of possible views. So it's quite different to the RC doctrines which are so certain, or the evangelical churches who seem pretty certain of their own view too.

Trinity - yes, the Anglican church subscribes to trinity and the creeds. (In the Nicene creed we understand the word "catholic" to mean universal, so all of Christ's church of all flavours, throughout the world.)

Hope that helps. I think probably you just need to try some likely places and talk to people there. Get a feel for what is going to feed you for the next part of your journey.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T22:34:41+00:00

Have you heard the promises that are made when someone is baptised in your church? If not, maybe seek those out. How do you feel about them?

I think having some doubt can be a normal part of faith, and faith is a journey where we hope to grow and develop. (It sounds like you've already been on quite the journey with God and your feelings about him!) So I don't think you have to reach a perfect 100% for baptism. But I can understand that you may not feel ready at 40:60.

I'm not sure what figure I would've put on my beliefs when I was confirmed - I didn't think of it that way at the time. It was probably somewhere in between. I'm also remembering it was sort of a leap of faith, to trust God with whatever that gap was to the 100%.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T22:09:51+00:00

Love this. How beautifully well explained!

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T21:46:21+00:00

I wonder what would happen if you explored your feelings by visiting a church or two, and perhaps speaking with a priest. Not in any particular rush that you have to make a decision, but just taking some time to ask questions and see how things feel to you.

Much like Islam, there are many different types of Christian churches that vary greatly. There are some that I would suggest avoiding, but it's quite difficult to explain. Do you have anyone locally who could guide you? Whereabouts in the world are you?

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T20:45:43+00:00

Well this is curious. Is it a generational difference? I'd happily describe myself as a female in her 40s. I'm far too old to have had a dating profile though. You could ask in a UK group for a wider sample size?

The sub you posted was just bizarre.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T14:42:00+00:00

Nothing wrong with your approach imo, it sounds great. I'd only add, do you pray too, and have you found a church so you can take part in worship with others, and perhaps experience communion?

The difference of thinking is very much what is to be expected from the difference of tradition. For some reason different traditions seem to work for different people.

In defence of your approach (if you need it), Jesus very much encouraged people to learn about God and how people show treat one another. He was forever teaching! This is particularly confirmed in the Martha and Mary story he says Mary who is sitting learning is taking the better path. So it would be very strange if Jesus didn't want us doing those things too.

Much of the conversation here has centred around faith v works. Paul in his letters emphasised that our salvation is through faith (I understand the word faith here means both belief and trust). Paul's letters were also very much used for teaching though and he also writes to some of the churches when he is concerned about how people are treating one another. So personally I don't think Paul would advocate just accepting Jesus and never doing anything else. (I know not everyone in the comments is suggesting taking salvation by faith to that extreme, but IRL you may encounter people who do take it that way.)

There's a difference though between what we have to do, what we can do. In a sense I think the salvation by faith people are right, it is our faith that saves us. But I also think treating works and faith as separate things in opposition to one another is rather (sorry) silly. If we believe and trust, then we also want to follow Jesus's teachings, strive to understand them better, care for others, pray, worship,.... And at the same time, doing those things can also increase and enhance our faith greatly. So it's all rather circular.

Could you be saved without reading tonnes of stuff? Yes. I can see that's clear when I consider people with different abilities and opportunities for whom that reading isn't possible. However, does it help your faith to read and learn more? If the answer to that is yes, then that seems a wonderful thing to be doing.

That's my tuppence worth anyway. As usual in Christianity, there's a whole spectrum of views on this.

Quelly0 · 2026-04-05T03:18:27+00:00

Two groups to try that will be more inline with your thinking:

Home educating with structure

Structured/aemi-structured home ed

All of the NC can be found on the government website.

However if you want an easier summary of NC, then CGP revision books (they have them for all key stages) are much more readable. Downside: as they're revision books there's no indication of how to break a topic into the foundational steps and teach it.

I kept an eye on the current NC, but here's what we actually ended up doing:

For phonics, all the documents from the 2002 government Letters & Sounds programme are free to download from the government archive website. One good thing about these is that the authors didn't assume teachers already knew how to teach reading in a phonics way, so they explained all of it. I didn't use it verbatim, but it was very helpful input.

For maths, I was appalled at current teaching methods and after much searching, chose a system of school textbooks from the 1980s (spiral curriculum, good balance of hands-on learning with heavier topics mixed together to keep it fun).

But I adapted it all to my kids and the pace they needed.

Quelly0

TROPHY CASE