1 . A new study published in the Journal of Marriage and Family claims that all that time you spend parenting just doesn’t matter. But it’s a claim that, despite the enthusiastic and widespread coverage by the media, does not hold water.

The research suggests that child outcomes (including behavior problems, emotional problems, and academic performance) are barely connected with the time that parents spend with their children. The researchers examined the time diaries of 1,600 children, looking at parenting time and outcomes when the kids were aged 3 to 11 in 1997, and again in 2002, when they were between 8 and 16. (A time diary is a detailed report of all activities you carry out in a day. )

This research largely reflects the failure of the authors to correctly measure parental input. It just looked at time diaries from two particular days-one a weekday and the other a weekend day.

Trying to get a sense of the time you spend parenting from a single day’s diary is a bit like trying to measure your income from a single day. If yesterday was payday, you looked rich, but if it’s not, you would be reported as poor. You get a clearer picture only by looking at your income — or your parenting time—over a more meaningful period.

What you did yesterday should not be taken as representative of what you did last year, This is why most high-quality studies of parenting time focus instead on how often parents read to their children, play with them or help their with homework over a period of a month or longer — long enough to represent their different approaches to parenting.

As an exhausted parent who doesn’t get enough time to work out, and who hasn’t seen a movie for months, I understand why so many of us might seize on studies suggesting that we should take more time for ourselves. Perhaps we should. But I agree with Ariel Kalil, a developmental psychologist, on the suggestion “that when parents spend high-quality time with their children, their children are more likely to succeed.”

2 . One minute, Peggy Lewis and her husband, Harris Lee, were watching the trees blow in the wind. The next, they were surrounded by flying pieces of glass from the house’s broken windows. The roof was torn off. The walls caved in (塌陷). After the 152-mph tornado (龙卷风) had passed, it took a team of neighbors to pull the couple from the rubble (碎砖) and take them to the hospital.

When the pair returned to their house three days later, it was clear that what remained of the house would need to be torn down, but before Peggy would let that happen, she wanted one thing first—her family Bible.

Peggy had bought the Bible 35 years earlier, at the start of her marriage. Like many people, she’d used it to hold her family’s history — old photos, and a handkerchief from her great-grandmother.

The Bible was the first thing Peggy looked for when she returned to the house. When two volunteers showed up, Peggy had one task for them.

After an hour of searching, one of the volunteers ran up to her. Peggy had tears running down her face. The young woman had found the book while looking through rubble. Surprisingly, while many other books inside the house had been destroyed beyond recognition, the Bible was still complete, even though it had sat in the rain for days. “I completely broke down,” says Peggy. “I thought it was gone forever.” She was extremely grateful.

Peggy and her family were living at a friend’s house until they got back on their feet. But the book already has its well-deserved place of honor, in Peggy’ borrowed dresser. She knows that while every good book tells stories of disastrous (灾难性的) weather and unlikely survival, this one actually lived it.

3 . When Americans think of the lunch menu at their childhood school dining halls, they probably imagine the shapeless, tasteless meat — plus some brown mush (糊状物) to match. But for children in Japan, school lunches are a rich experience where the students learn about culture and nutrition (营养) of foods.

“Japan’s opinion is that school lunches are a part of education, not a break from it,” Masahiro Oji, a government director of school health education in Japan said. The food offered at schools in Japan is affordable, fresh, and made by the students themselves. And Japanese children don’t just eat the food they prepare; they learn about the nutrition and culture of their meals, too. The food is grown locally and includes a balanced menu of rice, vegetables, fish, and soups. Even better, each meal only costs just $2.50.

“Parents hear their kids talking about what they had for lunch,” Tatsuji Shino, the headmaster at Umejima Elementary School in Tokyo said, “and kids ask them to re-create the meals at home.” Japanese students also learn cooperation (合作) and etiquette skills as they serve and clean up after each other.

Considering the fact that Japan has one of the world’s lowest childhood obesity rates (肥胖), the US probably has a lot to learn from this country’s school lunches. A recent study found that American students who regularly ate the school lunch — where choices include pizza, chicken, and French fries — were 29 percent more likely to be obese than those who brought lunch from home.

For American parents who want to be a little more like the Japanese, try sending your children to school with these great school lunches for kids who hate sandwiches.

4 . Online classes began to be popularized just a few decades ago. They are advertised as a way for adults to finish their education and students to learn the material at their own pace—it is far more suitable for people with busy schedules.

But after being enrolled in an online course last fall semester, I came to realize online classes were merely a means to fulfil course requirements.

First of all, students lack the desire to learn, and they simply complete their assignments to receive credit for a passing grade rather than genuinely engage with the course material.

As online courses tend to have more than 100 students, most of the assignments are short and simple. They are not designed for students to interact with the material in depth but designed to be graded casily to accommodate such a large number of students.

Perhaps the biggest disadvantage of taking an online class is the absence of face-to-face interaction between the teacher and their students. Live sessions are infrequent and are often scheduled during the middle of the day when students have to attend other classes or work. The office hours of the professor may also be during inconvenient times for many students as well. Most interaction with the professor has to be through email which is often impersonal. It is nearly impossible for students to build a relationship with their professor.

There is also little interaction amongst students. It can be harder for students to create study groups and form relationships with their peers.

Online classes also require either a computer or laptop and a reliable internet connection. Not all students have access to these types of resources, whether it is for financial or other reasons, and some students can be put at a disadvantage.

Offering online classes certainly helps students who would otherwise not be able to attend classroom sessions. However, they fail to provide a genuine education with an emphasis on convenience rather than critical thinking. We need restructured online classes in which students can have a learning experience that will actually provide quality education.

5 . “One of the reasons I find this topic very interesting is because my mom was a smoker when I was younger.” says Lindson-Hawley, who studies tobacco and health at the University of Oxford.

By studying about 700 adult smokers, she found out that her mom quit the right way—by stopping abruptly and completely.

In her study, participants were randomly assigned to two groups. One had to quit abruptly on a given day, going from about a pack a day to zero. The other cut down gradually over the course of two weeks. People in both groups used nicotine(尼古丁) patches before they quit, in addition to a second form of nicotine replacement, like gum or spray. They also had talk therapy with a nurse before and after quit day.

Six months out, more people who had quit abruptly had stuck with it—more than one-fifth of them, compared to about one-seventh in the other group. Although these numbers appear low, it is much higher than if people try without support.

And the quit rates were particularly convincing given that before the study started, most of the people had said they’d rather cut down gradually before quitting. “If you’re training for a marathon, you wouldn’t expect to turn up and just be able to run it. And I think people see that for smoking as well. They think, “Well, if I gradually reduce, it’s like practice.” “says Lindson-Hawley. But that wasn’t the case. Instead of giving people practice, the gradual reduction likely gave them cravings(瘾) and withdrawal symptoms before they even reached quit day, which could be why fewer people in that group actually made it to that point. “Regardless of your stated preference, if you’re ready to quit, quitting abruptly is more effective.” says Dr. Gabriela Ferreira.“When you can quote a specific number like a fifth of the patients were able to quit, that’s convincing. It gives them the encouragement, I think, to really go for it.”Ferreira says.

People rarely manage to quit the first time they try. But at least, she says, they can maximize the odds of success.