1 . Children under the age of 18 will be allowed up to three hours per week to play video games, according to a notice issued by China's National Press and Publication Administration. Online game companies are required to provide services to minors — from 8 to 9 p. m. on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays and legal holidays — as a way to safeguard their physical and mental health. Children are playing more and more online games these days. Is it time to limit their online gaming time? What role do parents have? Readers share their opinions.

Rizlared

Online games are addictive, but if children are taught how to manage in a sensible and responsible manner then it is no longer a threat(威胁).To achieve this, parents need to set examples for not being glued to their phones. Teaching is and always will be the best solution to such problems.

Andrew

Good policy. By limiting time spent on online games, kids can spend time doing more useful things to develop their potential. They can go outside and run, jump and swim instead of sitting on a couch at home and playing with a smart phone.

Adam

It is often seen that parents argue with children over cellphones. Most parents can hardly set and enforce the time limit for its daily usage. Some forcibly take away their cellphones, but it will ruin trust and relationship. Even worse, it will make their kids hate them.

Pink

Excessive(过度的）gaming is purely a waste of time and energy for minors and has a negative effect on both physical and mental health. The gaming industry should not put profit- flaking interests as its priority ( 优先事项) . They should act in a socially responsible way to provide an environment for children to ensure their well-being and development.

Lauren

There would be a loophole(漏洞). Children could use their parents’ or other adults’ IDs to avoid real-name registration, thus making it impossible to put this policy in effect. Parents absolutely need to strengthen guidance and supervision to keep their children from gaming addiction.

2 . How To Teach Your Children Proper Manners

Do you think that proper manners are going the way of the dinosaur?    1    It’s not! Follow the steps below and you will have polite little citizens soon!

    2    As soon as your children are able to talk, they can be taught proper manners. “Please” and “thank you” are the beginning steps, and the basics, and your child can learn them starting on day one. When your son hands you a toy, say, “thank you.” If you are asking your daughter to stop screeching, say “please”. You will soon find them repeating your example.

Model good manners. If you yawn or cough or sneeze without covering your mouth, how can you expect your child to do it? If you don’t say, “Excuse me” when you are interrupting a conversation, they will never learn to.    3    

Teach phone manners.    4    “Hello, this is Suzie Q speaking.” When you are otherwise unwilling, teach them to say, “Mom is unavailable right now. May I take a message?” When you are available, teach them to say, “Yes, she is right here. Would you hold a moment please?” You will be so pleased when your friend or business associate calls and compliments you on the way your children answer the phone.

Teach eye contact. When your child is speaking to an adult, teach him to look the adult in the eye and speak clearly.    5    When an adult asks a question, the child should give a polite answer. Ignoring an adult, or anyone who speaks to a you, is rude and grounds for punishment.

These are just a few small ways to start your child down the path to good manners. Before you know it, they will be polite little ladies and gentlemen, and will have you to thank for a great start!

4 . Ask a classroom of children to draw a scientist, and you’ll see plenty of colored lab coats and glasses. The image ( 画像) hasn't changed much since the 1960s, but the person wearing the lab coat is changing.

A new analysis finds that more female scientists have appeared in kids? drawings in recent decades — going from nearly nonexistent in the 1960s to about a third in 2016.

The first of many “ draw-a-scientist ’’ studies asked nearly 5,000 children to draw a scientist between 1966 and 1977. Of those 5,000 drawings, only 28 drew female scientists. That was just 0.56 percent. Today, female scientists are being presented more in the media. For example, in a content analysis, 13 percent of people pictured in science feature stories of the 1960s were women or girls, compared with 44 percent in the 2000s. “That might really affect children’s idea on what a scientist should be like, ” says Miller, a Ph. D. candidate in psychology.

To look for changes in children's perception over time, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis ,combining data from 78 studies that included a total of more than 20,000 children from kindergarten to the 12th grade. On average, 28 percent of children drew female scientists in studies conducted from 1965 to 2016.

What hasn’t changed much: kids pick up stereotypes (模式化观念）by gender (性别） as they grow up. At age 6, about 70 percent of the girls in the more recent studies drew female scientists. By age 16, 75 percent drew male scientists. This is an important period in which kids are learning stereotypes. It’s important that teachers and parents present diverse examples of both male and female scientists.

5 . From skateboarding to Fleetwood Mac, TikTok users got creative in a pandemic (流行病) year with new songs, dances and shows in 60 seconds or less.

The social media video app on Wednesday shared its list of top 100 videos, creators and trends in America during 2020. “These videos brought joy and inspiration to millions of Americans in the rough year,” said Kudzi Chikumbu, director of creator community at TikTok.

The platform has been widely associated with Generation Z (people born after 1996), millennials (people born in the 1980s or 1990s) and influencers who have started careers based on the shared videos.

The Weeknd's Blinding Lights and Jason Derulo's Savage Love inspired TikTok dance challenges that made them among the top songs used on the app.

For some TikTok creators, the pandemic itself became inspiration to create a connection with other users. Comedian Caitlin Reilly used the app during quarantine (隔离) to make fun of those annoying coworkers for one of the top liked videos. And singer Curtis Roach made an song for the endless days at home with his song Bored in the House.

The second most popular video was an Idaho man named Nathan Apodaca who shot to fame after coolly singing Dreams by Fleetwood Mac, while skateboarding on a highway.

But the most liked TikTok video was awarded to Bella Poarch with 45 million followers, who created a simple but interesting video with a few seconds of well-timed head nods and eye rolls.

While the app might be designed for youth, Chikumbu said that the growth of TikTok this year has pushed it more into mainstream culture. “You're seeing everyone from the teenager to the college students with their parents and then their grandparents all making videos,” said Chikumbu. “And now TikTok truly transcends generations, particularly in this year when people had a lot of time to dig in and not only watch, but try.”

10 . A tiger park in Phuket, Thailand is preparing to welcome back foreign visitors this week. The reopening is part of a plan to bring back foreign visitors with COVID-19 vaccination to the island. The visitors do not have to follow lockdown rules. After 14 days, as long as they have no coronavirus infection, they can travel elsewhere in Thailand.

Chadarat Taodaeng is the general manager of Tiger Kingdom in Phuket. He said the park had put safety measures in place before Thursday’s reopening to help foreign visitors feel comfortable.

“We have vaccinated more than 90 percent of our workers and also trained them about the ‘new normal’ tourism,” the manager said. The park has more than 50 tigers and a cheetah. And visitors can get close to them. Since the pandemic lockdowns, visitor numbers have dropped from nearly 1,000 a day to fewer than 20.

Thailand lost about $50 billion in tourism when foreign arrivals fell to 6. 7 million last year. In 2019, the country had nearly 40 million visitors. And Phuket suffered from a large number of job losses and business closings.

“I’m happy that finally there will be people visiting the tigers, and Phuket city will be bustling again,” said the park’s assistant manager, Phonphawit Ton-od. She added that the reopening would “help with both tigers’ and the workers’ mental health.”

Even though there has been an increase in the popularity of parks like the Tiger Kingdom, experts are against the opening. Clearly, there are worries over safety after some attacks by the animals. Bringing back visitors is important to Thailand’s economy. But government officials also have to deal with a recent increase in coronavirus infections.