Ingrid Although roses are...well..roses, swapping some decorative yet drought-tolerant shrubs and perennials for your not-so-heat-tolerant roses might salve your separation anxiety and enhance the beauty of the roses that are keepers. In the thread "Are Roses your Favorite Flower," I replied that roses reside nearest my gardening heart but then proceeded to list all the other flowering shrubs and perennials that serve to court my queens. My supporting cast of of fragrant and colorful companion plants plays a role similar to that of the white butterfly bush leaves in your 'President Carnot' arrangement. The silken rosy sheen of 'Carnot' is a thousand times richer because it is framed by the silver grey foliage of Buddleia davidii. A rose alone is like a queen without a country. Because my lot is about 75% smaller, I currently have half as many roses as I did at my last residence. Through the process of necessary reduction, I have discovered which roses are like air and water to me, which are those that truly sustain my soul when regularly encountered in the intimacy of my own garden. I have also learned which ones are lovely to visit but equally enjoyable from a greater sensual distance. It's wonderful that they're in the world, but I don't need to be with them every waking hour. I feel confident you will develop strong feelings for those roses which are your own true loves, the ones that display a developed sense of reciprocity and offer as much as you give. These will be the loyal ones, the ones that are steadfast and determined to stand shoulder to shoulder through the thick and thin of passing seasons. If you are like me, you will love a few roses of weaker constitution. You will embrace them flaws and all and tuck them into pots so that you may carefully dote and savor. I predict that rose relationships which are delicious but benign flirtations will cool, and if you are surprised by chance encounters, you will remember these roses as you do high school sweethearts. The pleasant memories will remain but the heartache of separation will be a distant memory. New relationships: if you are seeking more Buddleias, please let me know. In all my previous experiments, butterfly bushes have rooted like rabbits. I can offer B. davidii 'Black Knight,' B. davidii 'Harlequin,' and B. 'Lochinch.' Sharing your challenges: Annie's Annuals has so many plants I'd like to grow, but the poor buggers just croak in my cold, wet clay. They scoff at my amendment attempts. Some examples of hot dry climate perennials/annuals I'd like to grow but can't: Gaura 'Whirling Butterflies,' Eschscholzia californica (any please!), Agastache, Calochortus, Geum, any lavender but L. angustifolia and the odd L. stoechas (can't grow 'Night Wings' or 'Madrid Blue' to save my life), Oenothera (please forgive me all who are trying to eradicate this one), Penstemon, most sages, and Nemophila maculata 'Baby Five Spot.' I'd (almost) kill for the last one! Maybe you and I will have an opportunity to experience vicarious fulfillment as we post photos of our gardens from oh-so-opposite climates. If you successfully grow any of the above as rose companions, please do not hesitate to share. You'll hear my mixed sigh of envy and joy traveling down the I-5 corridor! With gardener's sympathy, Carol This post was edited by PortlandMysteryRose on Tue, Jun 18, 13 at 6:51

Khandi, your news report states that parents must let their children fail and experience the consequences in order to succeed in university. Parents must let their children FALL, not fail. Meaning if their work/grades are not always up to par, it's up to the child to do better through self-discipline not because the parent is pushing/punishing them to do better. It also says that high school students are NOT punished for handing in late assignments and are able to slack off in the beginning of the semester and make up for it later. Please explain to me then, where are the consequences? That's the point! In high school, at least here, there are no consequences for handing in late assignements; therefore, students do the same in university not realizing that things are different in university... there are consequences! None from the parents and none from the school means kids like Lisonwal's son get by on their brains until they hit university. THAT is when they fail. Because there are no consequences in high school for handing in assignments on time, it's upsetting for those students who do make the effort to ensure that they meet the deadline. They have good work habits, organization, self-discipline... yet those who slack off and hand in assignments late get to have the same grade as those who didn't. They don't get penalized for it. In my day, we got marks taken off for every day that the assignement was late. You see... years ago, you needed grade 13 to go on to university, grade 12 for college. The government eliminated grade 13 and expanded the curriculum. Also something about lowering the dropout rates, etc., they changed the grading procedures or something. It's my guess that's why there's no consequences... not a good thing! Help him learn these skills, even if he doesnt "need" them yet to achieve decent grades. He WILL need them later and he wiill thank you for it. Exactly, but what the therapist is saying is that once they are in high school, let them learn it on their own without a parent's constant reminder because you won't be their to remind them all the time when the child is in university. They need to learn time management/organization BEFORE university. Teach them in elementary and then let them exercise it in high school. When my daughter was elementary school, I was there to help her with her homework, making sure she was on top of her work, etc. Did the same for her first 2 years of high school. Now, I don't bother. I have to keep reminding myself NOT to get involved in her homework (if it's being done, etc.) because it's up to her to do it...not me! She'll see the consequences of her actions for herself, knowing it was her own decisions that brought her to this place or that place, not because of me. Our family therapist told us last year when parents are too strict with their teenagers, once those teenagers are in college/university, they go wild! A good number of them get caught up in drinking/drugs/partying, etc., which is why she has several patients who are university students. My daughter was a student who handed in her assignments on time and would get pissed off when students who handed theirs in late would get same grading as her without consequences. She'd often say "why bother then?". I'd explain why, telling her that those students are gonna learn the hard way later on. Just last week in school, my daughter was saying how most of the students in her 12th grade history class (she's in 11th grade) didn't know how to take notes while watching a film/movie. The teacher had the students watch a film/movie and take notes. Daughter said they kids didn't know what to write while she was writing down whole bunch of stuff, so the teacher stopped the film and got the books out instead. My daughter's comment was "how are they going to take notes in university?"

We don't keep those things in the kids rooms. We have a "craft supply" drawer in the kitchen. It's actually a set of rubbermaid storage drawers that fit under the cabinet. That way I know when those things are out. That limits the incidents. When they do happen, coloring of any kind is forbidden for a couple days. To make sure, the box gets put up in a high place. We haven't had too many incidents, but arts and crafts, even coloring, is just something I don't let my kids do undersupervised at age 3. Meanwhile, if you have plans to paint any walls in the near future, I suggest semi-gloss. I know a lot of people prefer the look of flat paint, but you can't wash fingerprints much less marker off of it. Semi-gloss, though, a baby wipe will clean off just about anything. We painted everything in semi-gloss in our old house, now the new house is entirely flat and the fingerprints are showing up already! Semi-gloss paint job is on our to do list!

Students should not be punished by being required to write. Perhaps that's one of many reasons that people tend not to like to write. Additionally, writing 500 sentences as a punishment for 2nd graders seems excessive. I would find out more about what is happening in the class. Does the teacher talk a lot with little opportunity for student interaction? Then she should consider providing opportunities for small group collaboration. Are the students talking because they're bored? Then she needs to experiment with different ways of apporaching instruction to find out what will engage her students. Student talking is the result of an underlying issue. Rather than trying to bully students into submission, she should try to discover and address the underlying issue. I'm not trying to sound judgmental. I am a former teacher who has sucessfully taught in innercity schools. [I am no longer in the classroom because I train teachers now.] When I first started teaching, I used to punish students for inappropriate behavior. I spent a lot of time putting out behavioral fires. Once I realized that student behaviors are the result of classroom, community, and/or home conditions, I focused on addressing the underlying issues. After that, I had few behavioral problems with my students and student achievement soared. I also agree with a previous poster that telling your son that he is an exception to what the teacher has said is counterproductive. He may come to believe that school rules only apply if his mother says that they do and it undermines the teacher's authority.