What she needs is a little discipline

I earned $35 tonight. I spent a couple hours helping another home schooling family figure out why their daughter is behind in her work. There were a couple of things I discovered about the family. This 9-year-old girl is essentially the baby sitter of the family and the long term parental goals for this girl aren't that high; get her through high school, maybe a year or two of college and then get her married. This was very disappointing to me, but this Russian immigrant family is still very Soviet in their thinking.

In the end, essentially I suggested that a new school schedule be make, and after talking about the word discipline (training) I mentioned to this young girl that education is all about training oneself to be responsible.

I will be going back to their house twice a month for the next two months to see how they are doing with what I suggested they do, and to check her work. They hope she will be caught up by June.

She desperately wants to come to my place for school next year, but the parents, while they would like that, too, have to consider the financial cost of it. After tuition, my fees, co-op, standardized testing and incidentals, they would be paying just over $5,000 for the year. Incredibly, that is still cheaper than the local parochial school.

I told the parents of my current students that my rates are going up next year by $50/child.
Imagine, $35 just to tell the family, "get some discipline and order into your life." If only earning money is that easy all the time.