【推荐2】Amy, a day old, was abandoned at a police station in Seoul. Her birth parents couldn’t afford to give Amy the appropriate healthcare then. She spent her first three months in an orphanage before she was adopted. “I always thought, why should I be more thankful to my adoptive parents than the next person?” she says.

In 2011, Amy reconnected with her birth mother in South Korea, her adoptive mum by her side. “My Korean mother took my American mother’s hands in hers and said with tears, ‘Thank you.’ After that, my whole world changed,” Amy says. At the time, she was working in the e-commerce sector and struggling with anxiety, depression and an eating disorder. Reconnecting with her birth family, however made her feel like the luckiest person in the world and she wanted to actively share her good fortune. That year, she quit her job and co-founded the Global Gratitude Alliance, which partners with grassroots organizations to create community-led solutions or social and economic change.

Since then, a reflexive sense of thankfulness has become Amy’s frame of reference for work, relationships and daily life in general. She tried to rethink her world view, appreciate the little things and make connections with others. For Amy, the attitude shift helped her overcome health issues—she didn’t need the drugs any more after she returned from Korea.

Those positive effects inspired Amy to share the experience with others. Through a partnership with a home for orphaned children in Nepal, the Global Gratitude Alliance provided teachers with workshops that concluded with a ceremony of giving thanks. The participants used those techniques to help their students and community after the destructive earthquake of 2015. Children from the school recently visited a local seniors’ home to build relationships with the residents there. “Gratitude creates a cycle of giving and receiving,” Amy says.

【推荐3】Everyone would agree that it is parents’ job to teach their kids right from wrong. The rise in teen crime suggests that some parents are failing at these tasks. To correct the problem, lawmakers in some states require parents to serve jail time when their children get into serious trouble again and again. The lawmakers hope that this punishment will motivate parents to take their responsibilities seriously.

Supporters of these laws believe that the threat of jail will scare parents into paying more attention to their teens’ behavior than before. They think that these parents would be happy to let the state try to straighten out their kids at juvenile detention centers (少管所), because the centers took the responsibility off the parents’ shoulders. With the new laws, the responsibility is put back on the parents. “The hope is,” a supporter said, “that if parents are held legally responsible, they’ll work harder to keep their youngsters in line.”

However, many people think the laws are unfair. They argue that parents should not be punished for the criminal acts of their children, unless it can be shown there is a contributory fault on the parents’ part.

People who oppose parental responsibility laws also believe that punishing parents won’t create a change in the kids’ behavior. These people argue that parents may not be at fault. The children of good parents can fall in with the wrong kids and get into trouble, they say. Worse yet, if mom is in jail, there may be no one at all to control her kid. …

The unfortunate fact is that jailing a parent punishes the rest of the family. The jailed parent cannot work to help support the family and may also be fired from a job for missing too much work. Furthermore, little evidence exists to support the idea that the threat of punishment improves a parent’s ability to control a teenager. Opponents of parental responsibility laws say that parents who are in this situation need help, not a jail sentence.

【推荐2】Norah Wimer, a volunteer at Adoption First Animal Rescue in Jacksonville, North Carolina, was trying to brainstorm ways to help some of the dogs find their forever homes a little faster. She saw an article about a project where a class of kids helped shelter dogs find homes, and immediately she was inspired.

Wimer asked her son’s teacher if the second-grade class would want to write bios (小传记) for some of the dogs at the rescue to help them find homes. As soon as the kids heard about the project, they were so excited that their words and pictures might actually make a difference for a dog in need. The kids were each allowed to pick which dog they wanted to write about, and a lot of them were attracted to the dogs with disabilities because they wanted to show people how wonderful they are despite their differences. Each bio consisted of a short write-up (评述) and a drawing, and the kids worked so hard to show each dog’s unique personality.

Once the bios were all completed, the teacher sent them to Wimer, who was pretty floored — the whole project had worked out even better than she could have imagined.

“I was deeply impressed when I read the bios,” Wimer said. “They were so cute, and you could tell that the kids put a lot of work into them.”

Some of the bios were sweet, some were funny, and all of them were unique and really gave some personality to the dogs, who were eagerly waiting to be adopted. The bios are currently being displayed online —and have already made a difference in the lives of the dogs they feature.

When Wimer first came up with the idea, she had no idea how it would turn out. In the end, it brought joy to a whole class of kids and helped dogs in need find homes, which definitely all adds up to a huge success.

【推荐2】It was the day of the big cross-country run. Students from seven different elementary schools in and around the small town of 100-Mile House, British Columbia, were warming up and walking the route through thick evergreen forest.

I looked around and finally saw David standing by himself off to the side by a fence. He was small for ten years old, with messy red hair. But his usual big toothy grin was absent today. I walked over and asked him why he wasn’t with the other children. The only response he gave me was he had decided not to run. What was wrong? He had worked so hard for this event! David’s cerebral palsy (脑瘫) prevented him from walking or running like other children, but at school his peers thought of him as a regular kid. He always participated to the best of his ability in whatever they were doing. It just took him longer. He had stubbornly run a total of twenty three kilometres in practice runs to prepare for that day’s two-and-a-half-kilometre run, and he had asked me to come and watch. We sat down together on some steps, but David wouldn’t look at me.

I quietly said, “David, if you don’t want to run today, no one is going to make you. But if you’re not running because you’re afraid someone is going to laugh, that’s not a good enough reason. There will always be someone who will laugh and say mean things. Are you going to let them get in your way? If you really want to run, David, then you run!” I held my breath as David took this in. Then he looked at the field and said, “I’m gonna run.”

The starter’s gun sounded. But he had only gone a few metres before he tripped and fell flat on the ground. My heart sank. As I started to shout encouragement, David picked himself up and started again. All the other runners had disappeared over the hill. But it didn’t matter. He had worked for it, and he wouldn’t give up!

I waited anxiously by the finish line as the most runners completed and another race had begun. Still no David! I started to feel sick. Had I done the wrong thing? Could he have become lost? Finally, a small figure emerged from the forest. David raised his arms in triumph as he crossed the finish line to wild cheers and applause. He caught my eye, flashed me a toothy grin and said, “That was easy!”