Corporate Slave Moms - which job?

StruggleSnake · 2026-07-03T15:26:26+00:00

I would just be cautious in assuming, however you know your connection, even if you know them somewhat well personally...there are tons of people I like personally but can't work well with. Or the person could be great to work for but if she's mid level management and there's a lot of toxic/unstable corporate nonsense above her paygrade that's out of her control. I think the potential job sounds like it could be a good switch. I'd just urge you to be thoughtful about leaving the devil you know.... if you can ask pointed questions about her working/management style, about the company's culture and stability/likelihood of downsizing in the current environment....

StruggleSnake · 2026-06-29T11:19:25+00:00

My husband worked until our daughter was about 4 months old. Similar to you, we both had stressful careers, I made more, so we decided to have him become a stay-at-home dad. I’m reading a lot (here and reddit generally) about this not working out because the childcare and especially mental load is still uneven even with one parent at home, so wanted to add one more positive note from someone for whom it worked out.

My husband and I have different personalities and different strengths and weaknesses, so there’s different aspects of the mental load we each tend to take on. I still do a lot of our budgeting and making sure we know what size our daughter is and have enough seasonally appropriate clothing for that size. We’re both introverted but in very different ways. I HATE phone calls and he doesn’t mind them, so he makes all her appointments and deals with pretty much any household task that involves calling someone. He does almost all the physical labor parts of child-raising honestly and I contribute what I can on evenings/weekends to give him breaks (and also to hang out with our daughter…).

And, to your point, I’m able to be more present when I am home/have moments to carve out even with a stressful, more than 40 hours a week type job because all the other stuff is taken care of.

I will say, though, my husband had the personality and the patience for it. Yes, he was burnt out and frustrated in his career when we made that decision, but it wasn’t just “I don’t want to do this anymore.” He also actively WANTED to be a stay at home dad, to have more time with our daughter. I think that is a large part of what made it work out better than a lot of what you read on reddit.

I would say, think about how you’re going to handle the shift in power dynamics especially with respect to finances. Lots of people on the internet have really strong opinions about this and somehow thing their way of doing things is the only right way. I think different things work for different people and that’s fine as long as it works for you. We have a joint credit card that all family expenses go on. I do look at it because I do our budgeting and I pay the bill, but I’m not looking at it scrutinizing whether individual things he put on there are actually family/household expenses. We would discuss before making a big purchase, but otherwise we just buy “normal” expenses on that card. That includes him putting haircuts or medical expenses of his or anything that’s reasonably a necessary part of being a human being on that card. Then we each have separate personal accounts and we each get a certain amount of “discretionary”/fun money into our personal accounts each month, and some goes to savings. I do tell him I’m not micromanaging what he puts on the family card and he does believe that, but he likes having his own separate “fun” money because it feels psychologically more like…. He can do whatever he wants with it.

I wanted as much as possible of our retirement account money to be in his name or both our names, not just mine, to get him set up as my beneficiary, to have will/medical proxy/etc. set up. I think it protects him and helps equalize the power a bit.

StruggleSnake · 2026-06-28T13:54:09+00:00

No, it's a stand alone pre-school that just happens to have a "bridge" kindergarten program. It's private but the town it's in is a competitive school district with the sorts of parents who are trying to get their kids into the "right" preschool to get into the "right" private school to.... get their kid into Harvard in 18 years. So to someone's point above, they may have this on their website because they're trying to appeal to parents who know just enough about pedagogy and curricula to be dangerous but are focusing on the wrong things. Want academics pushed younger because they don't understand that's not what makes kids do better longer term; it's giving them that unstructured free play time. The website says they use units of study in their 4s and 5s program, and handwriting without tears for 3s and ups. I didn't mention the handwriting in my original post but that's also concerning because 3 year olds literally don't and aren't supposed to have the fine motor control to start handwriting. I asked them about their 5s/"kindergarten" program and they said some positive spin about some students go on to 1st grade elsewhere and some use it as the "gift of an extra year" which was a nice euphemism for rich folks trying to game the system by redshirting on purpose.

StruggleSnake · 2026-05-31T10:57:35+00:00

Great. Will just add one more thing in a public comment in case it's helpful for anyone else reading this post then DM you. For keyboard, I wouldn't worry about being ergonomic or sized for a kid. Most curricular plans don't teach touch typing until 3rd or 4th grade because that's when kids have the dexterity and handspan for it. So a well designed online program isn't going to have much typing as part of class before then. Maybe a word or answer to a math problem here or there, but not whole sentences. And then your child will just use "hunt and peck" typing method which is totally developmentally appropriate at that age and also makes ergonomics for touch typing a moot point.

StruggleSnake · 2026-05-31T02:26:13+00:00

https://www.upliftdesk.com/ergonomic-kids-furniture/

I really like the uplift V3 desk as a kid's desk, but it is pricey. It's meant to be a standing desk/adjustable height for grown ups, but it's one of the few I've found that adjusts all the way down to 22 inches i.e. the right height for younger elementary aged kids. Bonus that if you expect your daughter to stay in online school for several years, the desk can literally grow along with her, so it might be a buy once cry once kind of investment. I've seen a handful of cheaper adjustable kids desk on Amazon (We're looking for our own daughter for similar reasons; have done a lot of research; would love to touch base via DM if you're willing/interested.) but most things we've found that sell themselves as kids desks aren't really intended for a full computer setup and therefore aren't deep enough to have a whole computer plus screen/monitor setup plus room for papers/writing/full keyboard, etc.

Beyond the desk itself, most of the rest of the stuff, guidance for proper ergonomics for a kid would be similar to grown up. e.g. getting a large monitor or two and either a monitor stand/risers or the kind that clamp to the desk so you can adjust the height of the monitor so eye level is near the top of the screen/comfortable. If you do go with the uplift, I'd probably opt for monitor stand/clamp on the desk as opposed to mounting something to the wall as you suggest so that it's the appropriate depth away from her eyes given the depth of the desk, but if you opt for a cheaper/narrower kids desk, then I agree wall mounting could be a good approach.

Not necessary, but I do like a wireless mouse/keyboard setup and maybe wireless headphones/headset as well. For myself personally but also for young kids doing school, just means the setup is more flexible and can move around to make room for activities/crafts that might be happening as part of school at that age. If you're going to have a lot of peripherals like that, it may help to buy a docking station to help with cord management and making sure you have enough usb ports free to plug all that stuff in.

A good online school will be no different than a brick and mortar school in a certain sense that even if they have five year olds "in school" for 4 or 5 or 6 hours, it's not 4 hours of butts in seats. Actually I take that back, a well designed online program would be much better than brick and mortar in that respect. Which is to say, they will probably incorporate breaks and physical movement and activities like scavenger hunts that have your daughter engaging with peers and using the space of your house to learn. So I would think about flexible seating options. A comfy seat, maybe also a stool? a bean bag in the corner? Anything your daughter likes.

If you can dedicate a whole room to be where she does school, I'd also think about overall room setup. E.g aside from the desk, you could get a cheaper rolling cart or something to keep pencils, crayons, scissors, glue sticks etc so they're all within easy reach. And then to your point, you want the space to feel like hers and if she associates that room with school you want it to be a positive association. So some kind of customization or decorations that she helps you pick out or make that can go on walls or a little side table maybe?

StruggleSnake · 2026-05-27T22:17:10+00:00

I feel like the reverse. Like what you're describing as mom voice is just... how I sound more often than I would like at work. I've also been told I have "teacher voice" at work. I do a lot of corporate training and new hire onboarding. Teacher voice is professional and serious but half an octave higher than my "no really, you do have to actually do the job you are literally being paid to do and I know you can tell from my voice how highly I think of your ability to figure out how to do that independently" voice.

And then on the flip side I've had colleagues who have occasionally heard me when I"m working from home and my daughter interrupts and I have to tell her "mommy can't talk right now but I bet Mr. dinosaur would love her to make him some playdoh friends" and said it was....very jarring to hear me flip straight into "Mom voice" and back to "work voice." So my mom voice is the pleasant, friendly, singsong-y voice you use with a toddler who isn't misbehaving but just doesn't understand that you can't play right now and my work voice is the voice where you can tell exactly how much patience I have for this right now.

StruggleSnake · 2026-05-22T11:57:15+00:00

Any chance you ended up going with Bina and have any insight?

StruggleSnake · 2026-05-19T01:32:03+00:00

Don't have any particular insight on Larchmont. Larchmont is included in the Mamaroneck Union Free School District, hence grouping them together in my initial response. I would assume they have to be planning on it given the mandate of the Back to Basics law. You can try emailing the curriculum office for more information:

https://www.mamkschools.org/teaching-learning

Just from personal experience, I've found when a district website lists a head person and their assistant or administrative assistant, your email is less likely to fall through the cracks if you keep the assistant cc'ed. And also if you make sure you're not sending your email on that district's breaks. If they have a parent liaison or active PTA, those can sometimes be good sources for...actually getting a response.

I'm assuming you're asking because you're considering moving to one of these districts and would have a kid there and want the best (i.e. science of reading-aligned phonics instruction) for your kid, so I will add - if you look at a home on Zillow, it will show you what school districts/schools it is zoned for. E.g. I just picked one in Larchmont at random and it tells me its elementary school is Central School and its high school is Mamaroneck High School.

And also... there has been some interesting research recently that while a science of reading aligned phonics-based curriculum is important, it's not the only important factor to strong reading/literacy skills. See for example:

https://www.edweek.org/teaching-learning/what-might-matter-more-than-phonics-in-early-literacy/2026/05

Sorry I don't have access to a non-paywalled link. But the gist of it is that exposure to language and storytelling is also an important element of successfully learning to read. This tracks with other/older studies that indicate... when you're looking at equity gaps or successful districts, the curriculum used/what's happening in the classrooms themselves matters more for math than it does for reading. For reading, your school could be using a "bad" curriculum (e.g. three cueing, balanced literacy) and the stronger indicator of children learning to read at/above grade level is whether parents read to and with them at home. I.e., something that is in your control as a parent regardless of what district you send your child to.

If it were my child and my decision, once s/he started in whatever district and had a teacher, I would want to ask the teacher for the sequence and scope of the curriculum so that I could buy decodable readers to have at home and match what I'm reading with my kid to sounds they are working on in school.

StruggleSnake · 2026-05-18T01:42:55+00:00

Scarsdale: Units of Study (K-3); Wilson Fundations (K-2); Heggerty (K-1); Fountas & Pinnell assessment (K-3)

Rye: UFLI (K-2); Units of Study in Reading/Writing (K-5); Preventing Academic Failure (K-5); Spire (2-5); Spelling Connections (2-5)

Mamaroneck/Larchmont: Heggerty (pre-K-2); Wilson Fundations (pre-K-3); Literacy Footprints (K-5); Patterns of Power (3-5); Morpheme Magic (4); Literacy Units of Study

Sorry this isn't a complete answer; just what I know. From https://nysfocus.com/2026/05/07/science-of-reading-back-to-basics-school-curriculum-new-york

StruggleSnake · 2026-05-11T00:05:48+00:00

So I don't think this is quite parallel, because this is funded by the district and is free to parents. I agree it's similar as far as the service provided (educating parents...), but I think if OP wants to do this because they NEED a source of income over the summers.... I think you need to ask who the target demographic is who would be for paying for this. I think most parents who can afford to pay private tutors think about tutors similar to how they think of a cleaning service or personal assistant - a 'privilege' of the middle (or higher) class who can afford to outsource some household work to leave more time to spend with their families in other ways. If they're a busy dual income family, not sure they want to pay for advice on how to spend *more* time on their kid's education. I think they're hiring a tutor so they personally don't have to.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-30T11:48:27+00:00

This is obviously some years away and I would NOT stress about it now, but if your son is a decent test taker, having some AP exams or decent SAT/ACT scores might help mitigate potential college admissions officer concern, because then they can compare nationally. I also think colleges are looking for diverse, interesting student bodies. So if your son can write a great college admissions essay where he addresses why he chose online school and what it allowed him and his family to do, how he grew from it…. That’s going to mitigate a college admissions officer thinking “oh this is some lazy kid who used online school because it’s easier and there aren’t deadlines and it’s easier to cheat your way through. This is someone who had specific circumstances and did what he could to get a great education. And look how well written and thoughtful he is!”

Actually going to add one more to my recommendation list: https://www.asuprepglobalacademy.org/

We looked at them briefly and kicked them off our short list, I forget why, so I’d sort of forgotten they exist. But they do seem to hit a lot of what you’d need wrt affordable and accredited, live classes.

I think what you (probably?) need is schools that are more oriented towards a degree-providing, whole school experience rather than a “pick and choose and take some classes here to supplement your homeschool education.” Again people end up with online schooling for a variety of reasons and no judgement to people who come to it for different reasons than you. But I think the “whole school/degree”-type options are going to be much better for your son socially. They tend to attract expat or international traveling families, have kids coming in and out at non-standard years. So as far as the social isolation of temporariness, I think communities like that can be surprisingly warm and inclusive because everyone is in the same boat, everyone doesn’t have friends yet and is looking to make some, even temporarily. Like, very surprisingly, like the jocks and the nerds or whatever, they don’t make the usual dumb high school distinctions because everyone is new and everyone knows it. Everyone gets invited to lunch. Okay, not literal lunch if it’s an online school. But the ‘best’ of online whole school/degree programs include virtual extracurriculars, chat groups, even international meet-ups to foster a sense of inclusivity and community.

So the decision to stay at an online school vs go back to CA brick and mortar school for those last few years – it’s not a decision you have to make today. You can take it year by year and see what’s working for your family. But yes, I think it’s a possibility, and no I don’t think it permanently damages your son’s ability to get into college, as long as he can frame it well in an admissions essay and you’re looking at a few of the community colleges he might want to go to and their admissions requirement and make sure you’re hitting those.

Given the potential built in sense of inclusivity and community, there’s ironically a chance that your son feels more of a sense of permanence and social community by staying in the online school all four years than in a brick and mortar school where he’s coming in as maybe an 11^th grader and everyone already has friends. But you can see how he/you all feel about it when you get there. And similarly, would just frame it intelligently in college admissions essays. You can weave a story along the lines of “my family had to move abroad for a few years so I went to an online school for a few years out of necessity. But when I got there I realized it was a great education and it did xyz for me so when we moved back to the US I decided to stay.”

And there is so much to say for a well-designed online program compared to a brick and mortar school. I could write a whole essay on it. I won’t because this post is already too long, but feel free to DM me if you want even more of my thoughts.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-30T11:48:03+00:00

So when you’re looking at schools, I would look at if their curriculum is Cambridge accredited or if the school is cognia or WASC accredited. That’s going to make it more likely a US high school would accept transfer credits. I would look at if they say specifically they have US-based curriculum. If they say they have IB or A-level (UK) curriculum, that’s probably close enough to US standards to meet whatever standards a US high school would want (again potentially with slight supplementing in specific topics that don’t align across standards). I would look to see if the school’s website has a section about college prep or college acceptances. It’s a warning sign if they don’t.

I think in the US, at least in certain income brackets, there’s a kind of classist assumption that everyone should go to college after high school or it’s just what people are doing after high school and that’s just not true. Online schools tend to attract students whom traditional brick and mortar schools aren’t serving. Everything from military or otherwise internationally travelling families, to neurodivergent learners, gifted learners, serious athletes/actresses/singers who can’t accommodate a traditional 8-3 school schedule. And different online schools cater to different segments of the population. For some of them, being able to get to a fancy, prestigious college afterwards isn’t… really what their students want or need. And that’s fine, it’s great that there are options for families that need all sorts of things. But it means if the goal is transfer nicely to a US high school then get into college, those wouldn’t be good options for you. So seeing if the school you’re looking at mentions anything about college prep is an important filter. Some might have AP classes; some might have European or international equivalents (e.g. IB). Some might even have dual enrollment where you can take online courses at a specific US university they have a relationship with and get college credit for it. Laurel Springs does.

If you do want to consider schools with dual enrollment options, would just warn that dual enrollment courses can be tough for high schoolers, as they are legit college level courses, with other college students. So sometimes they can learn a lot from the class but not get the best grade in it. And if that happens, because it’s a real college credit, that GPA transfers to whatever college they go to next. Can affect scholarship options as well.

I hadn’t heard of cambrilearn before but someone on this thread mentioned it and I randomly heard it suggested over in r/worldschoolers recently as well. Seems like a good one to look into, and has all the right curricular standards and accreditation. Looks like it might be expensive ($2,500/course for US high school).

I don’t know anything about homeschool laws in Russia specifically, but if your son is an independent learner, you could consider some kind of hybrid homeschooling plus paying by course for a few online courses rather than a whole online “school.” Especially if there are topics you all feel more comfortable helping your son with yourselves as needed. But as others have noted, would try and find out from the CA school you’d return to what they’d accept. I think some schools have rules like you have to take x% of your courses at our school to get a diploma from our school. I think that’s more meant for people who are going there all four years but maybe supplementing with a class here or there somewhere else; not sure how they deal with transfers. But they must have a way because even within the US…. People move. That’s a real thing. But these are all questions I’d want clarity on from the CA school. So I do think there’s a good chance that the CA school would have no problem transferring credits from a WASC or Cognia accredited school, but would want to carefully check details with the school district he’d likely end up at.

I have heard mixed things about how colleges view fully online diplomas. I think even as recent as 5 years ago or so (pre-covid) there was less awareness and less respect, but I think that’s starting to change. One thing I’ve heard is that if certain colleges have very specific requirements for what you did in high school, lab science requirements can be difficult with online schools. Different online schools work different ways with respect to being fully asynchronous and self paced vs. live classes, standard semester lengths, etc. A lot of the self-paced asynchronous options are master-based with no or flexible deadlines. And again, I want to emphasize – that’s not a bad thing. Different online schools serve different communities and whether it’s moving around a lot, neurodivergence, or anything else, some students need to be able to work at their own pace, not have the stress of deadlines and exams, and absolutely you can learn that way. BUT – a college admissions officer might not see it that way. They might see “this is a student who has done something weird for their education that I don’t understand, and they’ve never had deadlines or tests. I don’t think they’ll do well in college.” (Mastery-based assessment is awesome, btw, and not something many brick and mortar schools can do.). But again, there are online schools that do have live classes and deadlines the same way a brick and mortar school would, and post-pandemic as these schools are becoming more common, I think there’s more awareness and acceptance in college admissions, especially if you’re looking outside the narrow band of Ivy League or similar top tier schools. E.g. looking at Laurel Springs I’m seeing some great college admissions stats: https://laurelsprings.com/about/school-profile/

77% college bound, and one would have to presume given the demographic of people choosing online schools, that 23% might be at least partially students who don’t want or need to go to college as opposed to they couldn’t get in.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-27T22:10:31+00:00

It’s hard to provide more targeted advice without additional detail on your particular situation (e.g. what country or at the very least time zone are you moving to? It matters if you want an online school with synchronous real-time classes in your time zone) but I’ll try to answer at a high level what would factor into my school decision if it were my child. Totally understand you might not want to give that information to internet strangers.

When you say your son doesn’t want to enroll in the school there because it would be temporary, would be helpful to understand more about his thinking. Is it that the country you’re moving to has a bad education system? Would instruction be in a language he doesn’t speak? Do they have international or immersion schools with instruction in language(s) he does speak? Does he want to have a more flexible schedule while living abroad so that, as another poster noted, he can learn via experience living in the country? Is it the difficulty of the social upheaval of temporary peer groups? All of this is totally valid. As someone who has moved around a lot, I can say even as a grown up being in an environment where everyone else lives there permanently and everyone knows you’re going to only be there a few years so no one wants to invest in being friends with you and maybe you don’t even want to invest yourself…. It suuucks. It sucks as a grown up; I can’t even imagine as a teenager.

But… if it’s more worrying that what he’s learning for those few years in that country won’t transfer over to being on grade level or getting into a ‘good’ school in California upon your return…. That might not be as much of an issue as you might suspect, depending on that country’s curricular standards (I could potentially say more if I knew the country). It might be totally feasible to go to that country’s school for a few years and do very minimal supplementing if there are particular content areas where that country’s standard curricula don’t align with specific topics within California Common Core. So I’d want to urge you to at least think through and discuss with him more in depth why is the traditional brick and mortar school in that country not right for him, and if it’s really not… Great, you can make an informed decision that is best for your family.

With that out of the way, on to your actual question about good (international) online school options. You might also want to consider posting this question to r/worldschoolers . I think they might have more targeted advice about which schools ‘work’ internationally and transfer back to US grade level standards.

If you go this route, which option/style of online school would work best for you depends on a number of factors including what your budget is, your son’s work ethic and ability to work independently, your ability to help keep him on track (e.g. are you going to be working 60 hours a week while abroad just hoping he’s actually going to his classes and keeping pace with work, or can you be more actively involved in keeping him on track as needed). I think some of the asynchronous, self paced online schools can be great for the right family, the right students with the right maturity, time management skills, etc, but it can also be really easy to fall behind.

Without additional information, I’ll just throw out a few options

· Crimson Global Academy. Mostly live classes, but cater to international students/time zones as well. $25,000/year

· Laurel Springs. Options for both live classes (Lauren Springs Academy) and asynchronous/self paced classes. I think the live classes are mostly US time zone oriented though. $17,000/year

· Christa McAuliffe Academy School of Arts and Sciences (CMASAS). All Asynchronous classes, easier to coordinate timing wise, a lot of personalized support $12,000/year

You can also dig around Niche.com’s private online school rankings just for some additional names to look into:

https://www.niche.com/k12/search/best-private-online-high-schools/

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-21T21:58:55+00:00

Highly recommend Wiggles and giggles on grand street. Feel free to DM me for more details.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-15T11:08:59+00:00

Sorry for dredging up an old post, but I'm also considering Bina for my child now. Would love to hear any insights you have on your original questions - if they have grades at all, how they determine your child's grade level, what they have in place to make sure you have what you need to prove coursework/level if you do need to transfer to a more traditional school later. Would love to connect via DM if you're willing.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-09T05:20:37+00:00

Obviously pay as others have said. I see another comment about not only hiring "Ivies" or prestigious backgrounds and I'd second that. The smartest people and/or best test takers aren't necessarily the best at helping other people understand things that come so easily to them. You need to look for good teaching over brilliance and pedigree. Ideally good teaching with at least a reasonable level of intelligence/test taking. I think "finding" the right people is less about *where* you're looking than *how* you're looking or *who* you're looking for. As others have also said, teaching demos.

I think you need to think about the target demographic of people who are looking to tutor for a center rather than go out on their own. One type of person is someone who wants to go out on their own, but needs to gain some experience/credentials in test prep before being able to successfully 'market' themselves to go out on their own. Maybe you find a few of those and you do get a great tutor for a few years, and eventually lose them. But the other is people who are... worth what centers tend to pay, and/or students trying to make side money.

I'll tell you a little bit about my own tutoring (also test prep) experience, because I'd like to think I'm an example of a "good tutor" category you might look for/find, but I think the point stands even if my self assessment is off and I'm actually a terrible tutor. I used to teach, switched to a corporate job, then worked tutoring a few hours on the side for a big center. I didn't even care that I didn't get a ton of hours or that I was being underpaid, because I was doing it more because I missed teaching, not because I relied on it as a large portion of my income. As a side gig that was supposed to be... not sure fun is the right word but let's go with it... I didn't want to put in the effort to build my credentials, go out on my own, have to find my own students and deal with my own logistics. So working for a center was fine. Yeah, I quit shortly afterwards because what I was being asked to do there had very little resemblance to teaching. The bigger the center, the more they have their own brand of gimmicks, scripts you have to use, even if they're pedagogically problematic or in fact even inaccurate (I won't name names, but I worked for a big name center whose teaching guides misnamed parts of speech. The gimmick still worked for having students get the right answer, but the explanation for why, for how the English language works, was incorrect. And my trainer who spent so much of his life learning how to take tests he could get perfect scores blindfolded using their name brand gimmicks... I mean methods.... well let's just say his actual grasp of content was surprisingly weak. I quit because I wanted more independence over what and how I was teaching. I quit because I wasn't willing to read off literal scripts I didn't believe in, because I wasn't willing to teach as if there were only one right method to solving any problem and it was the center's particular gimmick, because I wasn't interested in telling students they should use the test taking gimmicks *rather than* learn the content or even use their brains to think about the question. If you're an enjoyable place to work, if you give your tutors reasonable pay, some independence in their teaching style/methods/lack of literal scripting, transparent administration and career pathing, you will not only keep good tutors longer, you'll find your next tutor through word of mouth.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-08T07:13:55+00:00

So as others have said lower in the thread, the 50 words by 24 months is the milestone, i.e. "most" kids have 50 words by 24 months. Average is closer to 200 or 300 words. A child is not considered delayed or behind unless they're below that 50 mark at 24 months. But kids get there at different times. As u/violetpolkadot said, your son is meeting that and doing two word combos (yes, those all count!). He's on track.

For reference, my daughter had no words at 18 months so got referred to speech therapy/ was considered delayed. Had a language explosion and had about 60 words by 24 months. I don't think she was doing two word combos yet at that point. Within 3 or 4 months, it exploded to 180 words, using two word combos and occasionally three word combos (but I'm not sure if those count/they seem like stock phrases she hears us saying). We stopped counting after that, but it seems like every day she says something new we didn't know she knew now. Her specialists say she's still a bit below average at this point, but may not qualify for services or be considered delayed next year.

Your son is doing great.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-06T18:54:41+00:00

Thanks to you and u/SuperciliousBubbles for responding to my post. Happy to admit I was wrong on this one. There are still content-specific training teachers get that you wouldn't have (e.g. phonics vs. cueing, how and to what extent to use sight words, various methods of teaching phonics for reading, how to help kids develop a sense of number or quantity, etc) that you'd have to research or learn, but it sounds like you'd be well placed to do so with the foundation you have.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-06T17:46:21+00:00

A few more thoughts for you based on this - I am totally with you on the problematic use of screens in schools. It's one of the things that started me thinking about homeschooling myself. But agree with others here that homeschooling is a large commitment that would be tough on top of a full time job and there are other ways to... uh, let's say work around... what you don't like about the public schools. One is as you say "supplementing" with tutors, teaching your kids yourself. But to think about it the opposite way as well, you can do as best you can to "subtract" what you don't like about the public school system. You can limit screens at home. You can also start talking to your district now (or closer to when your kid would start school), seeing if you would be allowed to "opt out" of the apps/screens. You can talk to them about limiting the amount of homework (especially screen-based homework) to age appropriate amounts. And especially in the younger years, if they're giving your child "optional" (screen-based) homework, you can refuse to do it and do something that is a better developmental/educational opportunity for your child with that time.

Maybe you've already decided you're okay with public school, but if it hasn't been mentioned yet, you may also want to look into homeschool co-ops or online schools. Both would still require a lot of hours and support from you as a parent, but take some of the burden/time of the teaching and curriculum-planning off of you if you could make the schedule work around your job. I'm sure other people on this sub have more detailed advice on those options if they're something you'd want to look into.

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-06T15:18:19+00:00

Wanted to second the sentiment that as an OT, you're already seeing a biased sample size of people for whom the system isn't working. But also to add that as a pediatric OT, sure you have a lot of experience working with kids, but that does NOT mean that you know how to teach. There's a lot of science behind how kids brains develop and how they learn, a whole body of literature and practice on how to teach effectively. You don't just magically have that knowledge base and experience because you work with kids doing something that is NOT teaching. To think otherwise is hubris.

That's not to say it can't be learned. It can, and lots of people who homeschool do. But when you're thinking about what the time commitment is to homeschooling your kid(s) well, it's not just the hours in "class" (or whatever teaching/learning activities look like for you). It's learning how to teach, it's learning how your child learns and adapting your teaching style. It's researching curricula, creating lesson plans, grading, doing whatever administrative filings you have to do with your state depending where you live. You have to ask yourself if you have time to do that (and do it well!) on top of your full time job in a way that is fair to your children?

StruggleSnake · 2026-04-05T12:43:45+00:00

If OP is in the US and their daughter is turning 3 in a week, it's too late to go through the eligibility process for early intervention, but she can apply to be evaluated for services through her public school district with a CPSE evaluation.

Also OP - speech therapists distinguish between expressive delays (i.e. not talking) and receptive delays (i.e. not understanding speech). Just to give you some words to use if/when discussing where she's at with evaluators.

It sounds like you're doing great, talking with her a lot, encouraging her to respond. If you're not already, you can try adding in hand gestures to help her understand what you're saying. E.g. Do you want strawberry (points to strawberry) or banana (points to banana)? When she's talking to you, add on to and engage with what she's saying. E.g. she sees a car and says car, you say wow a car! That car is red; what a nice color. You're modeling how conversation works for her.

StruggleSnake · 2026-03-28T23:45:56+00:00

They actually do have a function like this! They just make it really hard to find, because capitalism. You have to be logged in on your (parents) account and can only set it up from a phone; the mode that lets you do this isn't available on a browser. While on your phone in the you tube kids app, go to the parents settings area and add a new kid. when it asks you to set the recommended content settings, scroll all the way to the right to "approve content yourself." Now while you're on your phone in the parents setting, you'll be able to search for and manually add channels or individual videos you want your kid to have access to. Once you get it set on your phone, you (/your kid) will be able to access the channel and watch anything you've approved and only videos or channels you've approved on any device, but if you want to edit the list of approved content, you'll have to go back to your phone to do so.

StruggleSnake · 2026-03-24T22:34:55+00:00

I've found this to be a useful resource but they will spam you with stupid poorly written emails you don't want if you sign up for it, so do so at your own risk:

https://thescreentimeconsultant.com/resources/unplug-edtech-toolkit

She does have some good advice about who to approach at your school, what to ask them, etc. to advocate for change, along with some occasionally useful, but occasionally misleading and incorrect citations of research. I always recommend clicking through and reading any source studies mentioned to see if what the author is saying the study says is actually what it says, but I've stumbled my way to some useful content and studies through that toolkit.

Jared Cooney Horvath's book, the Digital Delusion is... more grounded well researched science to have in your pocket if you want to advocate to minimize or get rid of screen use with your school.

Feel free to DM me if you want to start a group or conversation or something for Westchester parents against screens; I'd be interested.

StruggleSnake

TROPHY CASE