From hockey and dance to chess club, families can be pulled in many extracurricular directions. It’s easy for parents to be overwhelmed by the choices of activities for their child — or also, how accessible these are, for reasons like financial barriers or transportation challenges. In the midst of this, parents receive advice to ensure their kids move […] … learn more→

As the holidays progress, parents will no doubt be hearing a classic line from their kids: “I’m boooooored”. We all get bored from time to time and there is nothing particularly wrong with feeling bored. In fact, it is a useful emotion because it is helps us reflect and make changes to what we’re doing […] … learn more→

Measuring the number of steps you take every day; tracking your heart rate, your pace or average ascent while jogging; memorizing the total distance you cycle over the course of a year and sharing it with an online community. These practices have become commonplace in the world of sport, even for amateurs. This digitization of […] … learn more→

In our house we have a favourite story about the time our toddler was dragged from the National Portrait Gallery kicking and screaming “I want to see more paintings!!!” She needed lunch, we had to go, but she really loved the “Nick Cave Gallery”, as she called it, with his luminous portrait by Howard Arkley on display. […] … learn more→

Mark Twain apocryphally said, “I’m in favor of progress; it’s change I don’t like.” This quote pithily underscores the human tendency to desire growth while also harboring strong resistance to the hard work that comes with it. I can certainly resonate with this sentiment. I was raised in a conservative evangelical home. Like many who […] … learn more→

Surely we have all heard an audio message sent by a messaging service like WhatsApp at a higher speed than normal. Maybe we were in a hurry, the message was long or the person sending it spoke slowly. It is also possible that we have advanced a fragment of a movie or series at a higher speed to be […] … learn more→

Sleep, along with diet and physical activity, is one of the three pillars of good health. Good sleep makes it easier to grow, learn, perform, be happy, stay in our best weight range and generally be in the best mental and physical health. This is true for all humans but is particularly important with children. […] … learn more→

Want a more enjoyable lifestyle? Most people do, but they tend to get caught up in the work-eat-sleep cycle of daily life. They neglect to put their own well-being and happiness first. With all the talk about work-life balance, it seems as if the vast majority of working adults emphasize the first half of the […] … learn more→

As a linguist who specialises in tracking slang and language change, there’s one holiday tradition I always look forward to: the annual selection of the word of the year. Dictionary publishers and linguistics associations choose a word or expression – usually a new term or one that has taken on new meaning in the past […] … learn more→

The penetration of technology into our lives is undeniable, and perhaps this is especially noticeable in adolescents. According to the National Institute of Statistics (2022), 94.9% of minors between 10 and 15 years old have used the internet in the last 3 months and 69.5% of them have a mobile phone. Furthermore, according to a recent UNICEF report (2021) , 98.5% […] … learn more→