Devi

I'm not in the US but what makes you feel this is run down?

This is a really patronising take.

Imagine if your country was 'donated' to a whole other group of people, they took over, murdered people, took your home, tortured your grandparents, you're going to be mad. It's not 'childish', it's reality.

Not all, but most don't seem to have adventures. When I was a kid I'd go off into the woods and build a den or climb a tree, we once spent a whole week trying to dam a stream, god knows why. None of my friends kids go anywhere by themselves, a lot of them do 'forest school' where they'll be taken by adults to a sanitised woodland and taught how to build a teepee with pre cut wood, and it's just not the same thing.

Lot's of comments about dominance. This is an old erronous theory about dog behaviour based on a botched study. Dogs hump for many reasons, sexual is the obvious one, but also being nervous or poorly socialised.

What you should do is stop the behaviour, move your dog or theirs away and tell the owner to come get their dog.

If it happens in certain scenarios you can also stop it before the behaviour, so a common scenario is two dogs are playing, one dog gets overstimulated and then jumps on to hump, in that scenario you'd want to watch for earlier signs of overstimulation, wanting to stop, panting heavily, whale eyes, and stopping the play at that point.

Upvotes don't do anything for personal points. Boost gives plus points, downvotes give negative points. If I like a post I upvote and boost it.

I'm going to say something different from most, this guy might be genuine, he might just be some kid thats a bit lost. He might be a scammer but we haven't heard proof of that yet.

HOWEVER, you can not move a stranger, however lovely, in with your teenage son. That's just not a thing. If he wants to come live with you, AND he can get there by himself, then why can't he live on the sofa? You also mention your siblings being supportive, why can't he share with them? Are they younger than you?

Could he even move there legally? Would there be immigration issues if he tried?

See if you can read the messages yourself between the two of them, try to work out who's suggesting these things. Is he talking about lack of money a lot? Is he constantly having 'situations' that your mom needs to fix?

I'm a fosterer with quite a bit of dog training education. I second the advice that you need a good qualified behaviourist, this means degree level study or above.

However, for the meantime, nobody should be taking anything from him by force. This will worsen the behaviour. The things he's taking don't sound like they pose danger to him so take all the urgency out of the response. It's anxiety driven so you want to make everything really chill.

Firstly, clear everything away, as much as possible get things in drawers or too high to reach. The less he can get that he shouldn't the better.

Work on swapping with a low value item like a toy he doesn't play with much, so say an old ball, give him the ball, get a treat and offer the treat while holding your hand for the ball. What should happen is he drops the ball, give him the treat, then hand the ball back. He's learned that nothing bad happens here. He gets the treat AND the ball. Do this 5 times in a row, then leave the ball with him. He's learned here that it's all very chill and you've reduced his anxiety.

As he gets better at this, increase the challenge slowly, maybe a toy he likes a bit better, then better again. At this point you can also start swapping items, so you take a teddy, give him a treat, then give him a ball. If this makes him anxious then slow down, you want it to be really chill for him.

Eventually he'll start giving you stuff just to see what he can get. It's a fun game.

Another exercise you can try if he does get something you don't want him to have is to throw treats away. If he has something you can throw a treat in one place, then another, then another, while he's having a great time, quietly remove whatever he had, he'll probably have forgotten he had it, but make sure it's quickly hidden to help, give him loads of fuss when it's gone for extra memory wiping!

Also make sure he is getting enough exercise and attention, and he's not in pain, these kinds of problems usually start if a dog is feeling crappy for whatever reason.

The American government was still paying out a civil war pension in 2020.

Fashion clothes, if you're getting something that you'll wear for one summer and then never again then Primark is fine.

Salt, sugar, most herbs and spices, it's all the same stuff regardless of brands

Some snacks, often crisps are the same Aldi own brand as Walkers or whatever, or they're perfectly good. Yes we all want some kettle chips sometimes but it's all good, same for jelly sweets, a lot of chocolate, etc.

Hobbies for beginners, if you want to take up knitting then start with a cheap kit and upgrade as you get more serious.

My dad never spent time with me because we didn't share hobbies, I tried desperately as a kid to get into what he liked, but he never tried to get into what I liked. My mom knew the names of the kids on Barney, what snacks cheered me up, or what friends I had in school, my dad also lived in the house.

As adults we've found common ground in politics and TV, and we have a relationship now, but we'd have a much better relationship if he'd tried to hang out with me back then.

So I guess my advice is just hang out with her, whatever form that takes. Time is so important.

Smokers getting better chances at promotion because they smoked with the bosses was standard when I started working.

There are apparently some industries where there's less production at home, I work in an industry where this isn't the case though and it seems to be extrovert admin people pushing it, I think they think we're all sad and lonely at home?

"It's nice to come in and have people to talk to!"

Is it? Or are we all just being dragged in because you want chats?

Mine is Rosie, the maid in the jetsons, cause it's the future and I have a cleaning robot.

I need a photo of what you mean. Someone snuggling into your chest wouldn't hurt, but as Rhynoplaz says, if you plopped on a table then any weight on it would really hurt.

If he can't/won't travel to her and she can't travel to him then does it matter? It's going nowhere and they can be online friends or disconnect but the relationship won't progress.

As a former teacher, I'd never consider something a student bought me as a romantic gift, that's just not a thing. Chocolates are nice, but echoing what someone else said, a nice card with a message is really special. I still have every thank you card my students ever gave me, and I once printed out an email a student sent me when they got their first job to keep. It just gives you fuzzy feelings to think you may have been helpful.

It's too busy hunting for ad blockers to do things like actually work properly.

Haha, I'm a woman, if I want to see some then I have easy access

But we can say that with any suicide, if a guy stands on a bridge holding a rock tied to his leg then we will still try to save them because we understand they're going through something.

Not what I said in the slightest. Current residents were and still are being displaced.

Take my own house as an example, who lived here originally? Probably some celts. Who lived here before me? Fuck knows, but they left and it tranferred to me.

If someone decided to donate my house to someone else would I be mad? Fuck yes.

That is allowed. Kids are allowed to do small jobs outside school hours, paper rounds, dog walking, babysitting, all fine jobs for teens.

A full time job that denies them an education is exploitative.

You don't need to do anything fancy, just make them pay taxes. No loopholes, no moving your money to tax havens, accurate income calculations taxed correctly, gangs of auditors making sure it happens.

Bleach and ammonia makes chloramine which is a poisonous gas, so that's 3 times you'd be dead.

I remember when I was a kid they'd discuss teens as the "MTV generation", kids who didn't really watch TV, they just watched music videos, and even then there was scrolling news down the bottom and boxes would pop up on the side showing different things. They said kids had attention spans of 12 seconds and it would cause massive issues with finding work and being productive as adults.

I'm in my 30's now and I've heard the same thing about every generation since.

It seems that the real issue is that teenagers have short attention spans and adults have amnesia.

That sucks. I hope they sort some more regulation on this kind of thing, I'm all for freedom to do stupid shit, but I feel like the CEO here took advantage of people who trusted him. People do need protecting from themselves.

I'm wondering if there's a medical condition here. What is happening to need showers between tampons?

A 3 year old needs structured play so you have two choices here, firstly find a seperate adult to do the things the younger child needs, or secondly you can do the same activity but tier it. So say you want to teach the older child to paint with watercolours, that's cool, get the younger one some paints too but they aren't learning techniques but maybe being given a colouring page and working on painting between the lines.

Maybe the older one wants to play pokemon, get the little one an age appropriate game or interactive story on the ipad and help them both.

I would definitely isolate, it's still dangerous. My friends mom died about 2 weeks ago from Covid. It's not super difficult, you can order your shopping in and Amazon brings everything else.

Nonce term?? Does that mean something different where you are?

I do not celebrate treason day you ungrateful colonials

Knowing what a conker is makes you super British.

Sounds like in this scenario they don't want to waste something that they've purchased

I think in the current climate, public community/leisure spaces would be good. Nobody has any money, a lot of people don't have heat (or cooling) at home, spaces where people can just exist comfortably need to be made. What if a former office could be converted into tennis courts, chess rooms, libraries, computer rooms, just a room with sofas or tables where you can sit and not buy anything?

I know everyone wants to make a profit but loads of these spaces are just empty, surely something could be done?

Parents used to teach, if you read in the dark (on paper, not on a screen, I must add), you’re ruining your eyes. But if you think about it: wtf does low light do to your eyes? By that logic, you’re constantly ruining your eyes while sleeping.

The theory is that frequently straining your eyes is an issue, so reading in conditions that are difficult to see in will weaken them, not that dark itself hurts your eyes.

Are you suggesting being able to buy alcohol is an American thing?

I'm british, so you can see my confusion!

It's definitely a fetish.

I don't know why, but I really want to see the magical teapot. Can we see?

Sandwiches? I did sandwiches and snacks.

The Tim Traveller is very similar, they're actually friends too which is nice.