super granny game

( MENAFN - The Conversation) A recent advisory from the United States Surgeon General has made it clear - parents and caregivers are burned out. In a 2023 poll of more than 3,100 American parents, nearly 50 per cent reported experiencing debilitating levels of stress most days. Other recent surveys from Canada and the U.S. also found between 20 to 30 per cent of parents are experiencing moderate to severe levels of anxiety that could warrant a clinical diagnosis. When the tasks of the holidays are piled onto this baseline stress, it's easy to see how the“season of joy” may feel more like the“season of overwhelm.” How can both our society as a whole and parents as individuals dial back the pressure? Structural changes are essential. But scientific insights about child development can also help parents prioritize what matters most and shift how they respond to things that may otherwise trigger anxiety. Much of what is making parents stressed these days is structural in nature: things are more expensive, it's hard to find affordable child care, parents are more isolated, work is taking up more of parents' time and children's engagement with ever-evolving technology brings a range of serious health and safety concerns . These factors disproportionately affect parents who experience poverty, racism, violence or trauma. Addressing them will require substantial political and cultural shifts . But there are smaller factors to tackle as well. Parents today have more access to information than ever before. It's not just a pediatrician or family member they can turn to for advice, but endless blogs, forums and social media platforms. While online sources can build community and confidence, they can also contribute to information overload as panic headlines and contradictory advice often compound parents' feelings of anxiety and being overwhelmed. These platforms also tend to showcase idyllic situations that lead parents to create unhelpful comparisons and unrealistic expectations, contributing to feelings of shame and guilt . To counteract these feelings, it's helpful to remember a few things: children's development is influenced by many things parents can't control, there are many benefits to imperfect parenting and independent play and parent wellness matters more than most else. It's common for people who haven't experienced discrimination or unexpected challenges to attribute children's behaviours and outcomes to parents' choices and efforts. This is an example of “attribution bias,” a bias towards a particular kind of explanation . Developmental science helps dispel this bias by highlighting that children's development is influenced by many factors other than parenting and beyond parents' control. First among these is genetics. For example, twin studies have found that genetic factors explain 57-76 per cent of child/adolescent mental illness, 60-84 per cent of picky eating and 60-85 per cent of school achievement. Another is exposure to adverse or positive experiences , such as witnessing violence or being supported by friends and non-parental adults. These types of experiences have substantial effects on children's physical and mental health. But they are inequitably distributed, based on factors such as income and race . There are big differences in children's temperaments and how they respond to their environments . The same parenting strategy applied to two different children can lead to two very different outcomes, as you may have observed in siblings. This is why the next time you catch yourself feeling shame or judgment about a child's behaviour, it's important to remember parenting choices might not be to blame. Psychologists and pediatricians often recommend certain parenting strategies to support children's development. But rarely do these providers suggest parents must follow their advice 100 per cent of the time to achieve the desired effects. It's what happens most of the time that matters. Even when parenting“imperfections” happen, like breaking routines or uncharacteristically snapping at children, they can be seen as opportunities. When“rupture” is followed up by“repair” in the form of acknowledgement, apologies, explanations and/or moments for restoring connection, it can benefit the parent-child attachment relationship and help children build their emotion-regulation skills. By using repair after the overwhelming moments that often happen during the holidays, parents can transform these moments from sources of shame to reasons for pride. Over the past few decades, parents' worries about children's physical safety have grown , while children's unsupervised play time has declined . Many parents are spending more time with their children , hovering or helicoptering over them rather than promoting independent play. No doubt, playing with the support of a responsive adult has many benefits for children's learning and development . But when it comes to parent involvement in play, sometimes less is more. Research shows that unstructured play - play that isn't organized by adults and doesn't have defined goals - is a“fundamental necessity” for children's well-being. Outdoor risky play has enormous benefits for children's physical and mental health that outweigh many of the perceived safety risks. There are also many unique benefits of playing with peers for both academic and social skill development. Read more: Keeping kids active despite the weather: Promoting outdoor activity all year round With this in mind, if you are a parent who is regularly your child's main playmate, it may be time to seek more opportunities to take a step back. The holidays can be a great time to start. News and social media feeds are full of panic headlines that can make it seem that certain foods, toys or parenting habits are what make or break children's life outcomes. It's easy for parents consuming this media to feel anxious or even want to change their purchases or behaviours in response to every new study. But most headlines overstate the findings of weak studies or small effects. And if following the headlines comes at the cost of parental well-being, it could be doing more harm than good. This is because one of the most consistent and strongest predictors of children's well-being is having safe, stable and nurturing relationships with caregivers - as both the Canadian and American Pediatric Societies have stated. Children need present and responsive caregivers more than they need any specific foods, presents or new parenting fads. This is why it may be worth considering what you can do to support yourself or other parents' well-being this year. This could mean providing practical or social support to the parents around you or just making them feel heard and understood . With high parental stress , it's more important than ever for everyone to replace judgment with empathy and advice with real support. And for parents, let's try to distinguish what we can and can't control, practise self-forgiveness in tough times, allow ourselves moments to do less and focus in on what matters most. It might help us experience more moments of joy in this holiday season and through all the seasons of parenthood. MENAFN17122024000199003603ID1109004710 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. 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Black Friday is here, more or less, with early Black Friday deals being highly abundant at this time. One pair of such deals is for Sony’s quite legendary XM5 line, with both the headphones and earbuds being on sale. In fact, a Best Buy early Black Friday deal got me to buy the earbuds and complete my collection. As a self-described “audiophobe” (I crave silence the way others crave deep bass beats), I’ve been tempted by Sony’s WF-1000XM5 after experiencing the peace and quiet of the WH-1000XM5 headphones. And at their current price of $230, which is $70 down from the usual $300, they were an easy pickup for me. But, with the WH-1000XM5 — the headphones that consistently sit at the top or our best headphones list — down to $300 from a usual price of $400, are the WF-1000XM5 really the best deal for you to pick up at the moment? As someone who owns them both, I’m going to give you the case for picking out each pair. Why you should buy the WH-1000XM5 The WH-1000XM5 are a mainstay in the headphones world. For someone like me who wants to have peace and quiet on a regular basis, they’re pretty much effortless. I just slide them over my ears, tap a button, and all is peaceful again. From the crowded Best Buy where I first tried them on I was able to tune out the vast majority of the store’s chatter within seconds. Their ease of use and convenience has spilled over into my entertainment regimen too, however. With an easy pair of taps you can start and stop media. This means that I can go grab a drink or some food while a YouTube video plays and — if something interesting happens that I want to see as well as hear — pause it remotely via my headphones. These are easy, convenient, comfy headphones and (as mentioned in our WH-1000XM5 review ) they sound great when playing music and have very robust EQ controls to get you the precise sound you want. The one thing they don’t do well, however, is active work. Sweating, drizzles outdoors, and wet hands from doing dishes are all no-nos around your WH-1000XM5s, but its still all good so long as you know their limitations. At their current price of just $300 I would be a bit envious of anyone just buying these now, as I paid closer to $350 during a Prime Day sale last year. Why you should buy the WF-1000XM5 For anyone wondering why I highlighted how instant the WH-1000XM5’s utility came to me, the WF are the answer. With the earbuds, you’ll need to work to get a solid fit. Trying all of the eartips on, twisting in and out of ears, using the app to test how good your fit is, and so on can take some time, especially if you’re picky about the silence levels. I’ll also use this point to mention that the tap controls on the WF-1000XM5 will feel quite familiar to WH-1000XM5 users, but they have a tendency to go off when you’re inserting and removing the earbuds from your ears. Turn them off briefly when doing your initial setup. However, when all is said and done and you do get the right fit, the noise cancelation is quite good and, of course, the sound is right. On my second day of owning them, I wore my WF-1000XM5s while building the wooden shelf you can see them displayed on in the image above while playing very light music. It wasn’t until after I was done that I noticed there was some fairly loud YouTube watching going on in the next room. And, with the buds (but not the case) being IPX4 water resistant, I know there will be other new things I’ll do with my WF-1000XM5. I got mine for $230 and I’m pretty happy that I did. You can find yours by tapping the button below. Conclusion: Should you buy the WH-1000XM5 or WF-1000XM5 for Black Friday? Having worn both of Sony’s XM5 styles, I feel pretty confident that most people will feel most satisfied with the WH-1000XM5 headphones. Both my own experience and customer review ratings point to them being the better experience, even if it isn’t by a lot. That being said, the WF-1000XM5 are $70 cheaper at this time and you can still get an excellent noise isolation experience, especially if you boost it by playing some music (which you probably were going to do anyhow). The WF-1000XM5 are for sure the value play, and if you’re a bargain hunter there’s no way you won’t feel pleased with yourself getting them for $230, at least until next sales cycle when they might get closer to $200. With some water-resistance, they can go many places the WH-1000XM5 cannot, too, adding to the value. The WH-1000XM5 headphones are fantastic but the WF-1000XM5 earbuds sure have their place. Of course, this all brings us to one question: Why not both? While I wouldn’t necessarily recommend buying both until you’ve at least tried one out, if you have the WH-1000XM5 now is a great time to pick up the WF-1000XM5. And, likewise, if you have the WF-1000XM5 now is similarly a great time to pick up the WH-1000XM5. Though they have similar aims, they’re different enough tools and owning both doesn’t feel like complete overkill. It’s kind of like having a wedge and a driver in your golf club bag, to use a horrible sports metaphor. Finally, be sure to check and compare these to our listings of Black Friday Bose headphones deals , Black Friday Beats headphones deals , and Black Friday AirPods deals to get more perspective on price and availability this deals season.Jeffrey Fleishman | (TNS) Los Angeles Times The national furor in recent years around banning books on race and gender in public schools is intensifying as President-elect Donald Trump threatens to shut down the Department of Education, emboldening conservatives to end “wokeness” in classrooms. Battles over books in school libraries have become emblematic of the country’s larger culture wars over race, historical revisionism and gender identity. A new report by PEN America found book bans increased by nearly 200% during the 2023-24 school year, including titles on sexuality, substance abuse, depression and other issues students face in an age of accelerating technologies, climate change, toxic politics and fears about the future. Book censorship has shaken and divided school boards, pitted parents against parents, and led to threats against teachers and librarians . It is part of an agenda driven by conservative parental rights groups and politicians who promote charter schools and voucher systems that could weaken public education. The issue goes to the heart not only of what students are taught but how federal and state education policies will affect the nation’s politics after one of the most consequential elections in its history. “It’s not just about taking a book off a shelf,” said Tasslyn Magnusson, an author and teacher from Wisconsin who tracks book censorship across the U.S. “It’s about power and who controls public education. It’s about what kind of America we were and are. We’re trying to define what family is and what America means. That comes down to the stories we tell.” She said she feared Trump’s return to the White House would further incite those calling for book bans: “I don’t have lots of hope. It could get a lot worse.” Over the last year, PEN counted more than 10,000 book bans nationwide that targeted 4,231 unique titles. Most were books dealing with gender, sexuality, race and LGBTQ+ storylines. The most banned title was Jodi Picoult’s “Nineteen Minutes,” about a school shooting that included a short description of date rape. Florida and Iowa — both of which have strict regulations on what students can read — accounted for more than 8,200 bans in the 2023-24 school year. “This crisis is tragic for young people hungry to understand the world they live in and see their identities and experiences reflected in books,” Kasey Meehan, director of PEN’s Freedom to Read Program, said in a statement. “What students can read in schools provides the foundation for their lives.” Trump’s calls to close the Department of Education would need congressional approval, which appears unlikely. Although public schools are largely funded and governed by state and local institutions, the department helps pay to educate students with disabilities, provides about $18 billion in grants for K-12 schools in poor communities and oversees a civil rights branch to protect students from discrimination. But Trump’s election has inspired conservative parental groups, including Moms For Liberty and Parents Defending Education, to strengthen efforts to limit what they see as a liberal conspiracy to indoctrinate children with books and teachings that are perverse, amoral and pornographic. Tiffany Justice, co-founder of Moms for Liberty, has criticized schools that she says spend too much time on diversity and inclusion when only about one-third of U.S. children are reading at grade level: “We’re talking about public school libraries and content for kids,” Justice told NewsNation after Trump’s victory. “I think it’s very clear that there are certain things that are appropriate for kids, certain things that are appropriate for adults. We’re just getting back to commonsense America.” Trump’s threat to deny federal funding to schools that acknowledge transgender identities could affect curricula and the kinds of books school libraries stock. During his rally at Madison Square Garden in October, Trump — who has has accused schools of promoting sex change operations — said his administration would get “transgender insanity the hell out of our schools.” Vice President-elect JD Vance has accused Democrats of wanting to “put sexually explicit books in toddlers’ libraries.” Nicole Neily, president of Parents Defending Education, told Newsmax that she was excited about Trump’s calls to remake education and “clean up a lot of the mess” he has inherited from the Biden administration. Trump “has centered parental rights back in his platform, which is incredible. He has prioritized knowledge and skill, not identity politics,” she said. “American children deserve better, and it is time for change.” In nominating Linda McMahon to be his secretary of Education, Trump appears to be pushing for more conservative parental control over what is taught and read in classrooms. A former professional wrestling executive, McMahon chairs the America First Policy Institute, a Trump-connected organization that has criticized schools for teaching “racially divisive” theories, notably about slavery and a perspective about the nation’s founding it views as anti-American. “Today’s contentious debates over using classrooms for political activism rather than teaching a complete and accurate account of American history have reinvigorated calls for greater parental and citizen involvement in the curriculum approval process,” the institute’s website says. Culturally divisive issues, including race and LGBTQ+ themes, cost school districts an estimated $3.2 billion during the 2023-24 school year, according to a recent study called “The Costs of Conflict.” The survey — published by the Institute for Democracy, Education and Access at UCLA — found that battles over books and teaching about sexuality and other topics led to increased expenses for legal fees, replacing administrators and teachers who quit, and security, including off-duty plainclothes police officers. “Are we really going to spend our tax dollars on these kinds of things?” asked Magnusson. “After Trump was elected, I saw a bunch of middle-class white ladies like me who were saying, ‘This isn’t America.’ But maybe it is America.” One school superintendent in a Western state told the study’s researchers that his staff was often consumed with correcting misinformation and fulfilling public record requests mainly from hard-line parental rights activists attempting to exploit cultural war issues to discredit the district. “Our staff are spending enormous amounts of time just doing stupid stuff,” the superintendent said. “The fiscal costs to the district are enormous, but [so are] the cultural costs of not standing up to the extremists. If someone doesn’t, then the students and employees lose. ... It’s the worst it’s ever been.” The survey found that 29% of 467 school superintendents interviewed reported that teachers and other staff quit their profession or left their districts “due to culturally divisive conflict.” Censoring books in school libraries grew out of opposition to COVID-19 restrictions. A number of conservative parental groups, including Moms for Liberty, which invited Trump to speak at its national convention in August, turned their attention to lobbying against “liberal indoctrination.” Their protests against what they criticized as progressive teaching on sexuality and race were focused on increasing conservative parental control over a public education system that was struggling at teaching children reading and math. That strategy has led to a national, right-wing effort that is “redefining government power to restrict access to information in our schools,” said Stephana Ferrell, co-founder of the Florida Freedom to Read Project. “This movement to protect the innocence of our children believes if children never read it in a book they won’t have to know about it and can go on to lead harmonious lives. But books teach us cautionary tales. They instruct us. You can’t protect innocence through ignorance.” School districts across the country have removed “Gender Queer” by Maia Kobabe and “All Boys Aren’t Blue” by George Johnson, which are about gender identity and include graphic depictions of sex, along with titles by renowned writers such as Toni Morrison, Kurt Vonnegut, George Orwell, Maya Angelou and Flannery O’Connor. Related Articles National Politics | Trump transition says Cabinet picks, appointees were targeted by bomb threats, swatting attacks National Politics | Southwest states certify election results after the process led to controversy in previous years National Politics | Political stress: Can you stay engaged without sacrificing your mental health? National Politics | Trump fills out his economic team with two veterans of his first administration National Politics | Trump chooses controversial Stanford professor Dr. Jay Bhattacharya to lead NIH Surveys show that most Americans do not favor censorship. The Florida Freedom to Read Project and similar organizations around the country have called for thorough public reviews of challenged books to prevent one scene or passage from being taken out of context. Moderate and liberal parents groups over the last two years have also become more active in school board politics. They have supported school board candidates who have defeated those backed by Moms for Liberty in Texas, Florida and other states. “People say the pendulum will swing back,” said Ferrell. But, she said, conservatives want to “stop the pendulum from swinging back.” Picoult is accustomed to conservatives attempting to censor her. Her books have been banned in schools in more than 30 states. Published in 2007, “Nineteen Minutes” explores the lives of characters, including a girl who was raped, in a town leading up to a school shooting and its aftermath. “Having the most banned book in the country is not a badge of honor. It’s a call for alarm,” said Picoult, whose books have sold more than 40 million copies. “My book, and the 10,000 others that have been pulled off school library shelves this year, give kids a tool to deal with an increasingly divided and difficult world. These book banners aren’t helping children. They are harming them.” ©2024 Los Angeles Times. Visit at latimes.com. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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( MENAFN - The Conversation) The recent spate of unidentified drone sightings in the U.S., including some near sensitive locations such as airports and military installations , has caused significant public concern. Some of this recent increase in activity may be related to a September 2023 change in U.S. federal Aviation Administration regulations that now allow drone operators to fly at night . But most of the sightings are likely airplanes or helicopters rather than drones. The inability of the U.S. government to definitively identify the aircraft in the recent incidents, however, has some people wondering, why can't they ? I am an engineer who studies defense systems . I see radio frequency sensors as a promising approach to detecting, tracking and identifying drones, not least because drone detectors based on the technology are already available . But I also see challenges to using the detectors to comprehensively spot drones flying over American communities. Operators communicate with drones from a distance using radio frequency signals. Radio frequency signals are widely used in everyday life such as in garage door openers, car key fobs and, of course, radios. Because the radio spectrum is used for so many different purposes, it is carefully regulated by the Federal Communications Commission . Drone communications are only allowed in narrow bands around specific frequencies such as at 5 gigahertz. Each make and model of a drone uses unique communication protocols coded within the radio frequency signals to interpret instructions from an operator and to send data back to them. In this way, a drone pilot can instruct the drone to execute a flight maneuver, and the drone can inform the pilot where it is and how fast it is flying. Radio frequency sensors can listen in to the well-known drone frequencies to detect communication protocols that are specific to each particular drone model. In a sense, these radio frequency signals represent a unique fingerprint of each type of drone. In the best-case scenario, authorities can use the radio frequency signals to determine the drone's location, range, speed and flight direction. These radio frequency devices are called passive sensors because they simply listen out for and receive signals without taking any active steps. The typical range limit for detecting signals is about 3 miles (4.8 kilometers) from the source. These sensors do not represent advanced technology, and they are readily available. So, why haven't authorities made wider use of them? While the monitoring of radio frequency signals is a promising approach to detecting and identifying drones, there are several challenges to doing so. First, it's only possible for a sensor to obtain detailed information on drones that the sensor knows the communication protocols for. Getting sensors that can detect a wide range of drones will require coordination between all drone manufacturers and some central registration entity. In the absence of information that makes it possible to decode the radio frequency signals, all that can be inferred about a drone is a rough idea of its location and direction. This situation can be improved by deploying multiple sensors and coordinating their information. Second, the detection approach works best in“quiet” radio frequency environments where there are no buildings, machinery or people. It's not easy to confidently attribute the unique source of a radio frequency signal in urban settings and other cluttered environments. Radio frequency signals bounce off all solid surfaces, making it difficult to be sure where the original signal came from. Again, the use of multiple sensors around a particular location, and careful placement of those sensors, can help to alleviate this issue. Third, a major part of the concern over the inability to detect and identify drones is that they may be operated by criminals or terrorists. If drone operators with malicious intent know that an area targeted for a drone operation is being monitored by radio frequency sensors, they may develop effective countermeasures. For example, they may use signal frequencies that lie outside the FCC-regulated parameters, and communication protocols that have not been registered. An even more effective countermeasure is to preprogram the flight path of a drone to completely avoid the use of any radio frequency communications between the operator and the drone. Finally, widespread deployment of radio frequency sensors for tracking drones would be logistically complicated and financially expensive. There are likely thousands of locations in the U.S. alone that might require protection from hostile drone attacks. The cost of deploying a fully effective drone detection system would be significant. There are other means of detecting drones, including radar systems and networks of acoustic sensors , which listen for the unique sounds drones generate. But radar systems are relatively expensive, and acoustic drone detection is a new technology. It was almost guaranteed that at some point the problem of unidentified drones would arise. People are operating drones more and more in regions of the airspace that have previously been very sparsely populated. Perhaps the recent concerns over drone sightings are a wake-up call. The airspace is only going to become much more congested in the coming years as more consumers buy drones , drones are used for more commercial purposes , and air-taxis come into use. There's only so much that drone detection technologies can do, and it might become necessary for the FAA to tighten regulation of the nation's airspace by, for example, requiring drone operators to submit detailed flight plans. In the meantime, don't be too quick to assume those blinking lights you see in the night sky are drones. MENAFN17122024000199003603ID1109004707 Legal Disclaimer: MENAFN provides the information “as is” without warranty of any kind. We do not accept any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, content, images, videos, licenses, completeness, legality, or reliability of the information contained in this article. If you have any complaints or copyright issues related to this article, kindly contact the provider above.

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Mourinho best summed up how quickly a footballer’s career can come and go – Amorim may now have that chat with Rashford