4 . What’s your baby doing right now? I hope he or she is not rolling on the floor. Such behaviour might seem natural and age-appropriate but this laid-back environment could come back to haunt you at a later date.

Eventually you may be forced to reflect upon those wasted opportunities. In allowing your baby to unproductively behave just like, well, a baby, you may be failing to foster his or her personal growth. Are you denying your child the chance to achieve his or her full potential as a well-rounded baby?

You see, some parents are hot-housing their infants as we speak. While your baby’s programme revolves around the traditional routines of sleeping, eating and playing, other people’s offspring are on the fast-track to certain giftedness. And Baby Einstein DVDs, which were all the rage when I was a new mother, are really the least of your problems.

Ever eager to exploit our perceived inadequacies, smart marketers have found something else for parents to feel guilty about. There’s a manufactured fear that we’re squandering those valuable moments when a baby’s brain is said to be like a sponge, ready and willing to soak up new information at an alarming rate.

I’ve never seen the point of deliberately setting up your little one to be more advanced than his or her peers. I like the idea of babies just being babies and children just being children. Anyway, if they can read at the age of three then what will they learn in their first year of school?

One thing’s for sure: for some people parenting has taken on the proportions of a competitive sport. Some children wrestle with after-school activities every day of the week. Others are enrolled in extra tuition — sometimes simply to reach an acceptable standard and other times in order to be top of the class. There are tennis camps, swim academies and dancing schools. Some households even speak English downstairs and French upstairs. What? That’s not how you run your home? Oh dear. I see bilingualism passing your child by, for sure.

It’s odd — we’re always talking about the healthy work-life balance and know that working long hours can lead to stress, anxiety, and    1     (depress). Yet, we continue to devote more and more time     2     our jobs. In fact, research shows that 80% of workers answer emails and return phone calls after hours.

People believe long hours on the job to be proof of their work ethic (职业道德). And no matter how much we’d like     3     (think) there’s a direct correlation between hours worked and results produced, it might not actually be the case. Quite the contrary — doing overtime     4     (find) to lead to lower productivity.

A study     5     was made by Ford Motor Company in the 1990s already showed that every additional 20 hours of work could only increase productivity     6     (temporary) before it drops. Another research indicates that working more     7     48 hours a week is associated with significant declines in productivity, more     8     (mistake), and more mental health problems.

Clearly, doing overtime     9     (be) not a sustainable way of working, and that’s why it’s time for us to rid     10     (us) of the always-on mentality. The key is not to add more working hours to your day but to increase efficiency during your working hours. But how can we achieve this?

8 . Any parent knows how challenging it can be to separate kids from social media, messaging apps, or online games and videos.     1     Simply taking away the device can often backfire (适得其反), creating anxiety and withdrawal symptoms in your child. Instead, there are plenty of other ways to help your child find a healthier balance:

Be a good role model. Children have a strong impulse (冲动) to imitate, so it’s important you manage your own smartphone and Internet use. Don’t let your own smartphone use distract from parent-child interactions.

    2     There are a number of apps available that can limit your child’s data usage or restrict texting and web browsing to certain times of the day.

Encourage other interests and social activities. Get your child away from screens by exposing them to other hobbies and activities, such as team sports and after-school clubs.     3    

Talk to your child about underlying issues. Compulsive smartphone use can be the sign of deeper problems.     4     Is your child suffering with other issues at school or home?

Get help. Teenagers often rebel against their parents, but if they hear the same information from a different authority figure, they may tend to listen.     5     Don’t be afraid to seek professional consulting service if you are concerned about your child’s smartphone use.

9 . Doctors in the U. K. are warning children born in the age of tablets(平板)and touch screens are missing the fine motor skills needed to operate the simpler tools in life: pens and pencils.

After all, it’s easier to give a child an iPad than encouraging them to do muscle-building play such as building blocks.

Certainly penmanship(书法)has been on the decline since the appearance of keyboard. Some Arizona educators are even considering dropping cursive(草书)writing entirely from classes. They think teaching a kid to use soon-to-be ancient tools like pens and pencils is a waste of time and money.

The thing is, there’s more than one point to penmanship. A pencil is what develops hand strength and dexterity(灵巧)that children will need throughout their lives. It’s a lifelong learning tool that helps the world produce its surgeons and pilots.

And the bad cursive writing opens the door for an all-important lesson on the virtues of practice. A keyboard, on the other hand, ticks off each letter with perfect precision from the very start. But it robs a kid not only of the joys of getting something right, but also developing a written identity.

Consider that if society stops teaching children how to push a pen, how long before we won’t be able to read it? Maybe the pen will someday be history. But we all need to know how to read history.

As blogger Starre Vartan puts it, “As an art lover, I visit as many museums as I can, and a major part of many exhibitions, original written documents are included, all of which requires the reader to be able to decipher(破译)handwriting from times past.”

And, in an age when people turn increasingly to the same old emoji(表情符号)to express themselves, those lines on paper may be one of the few remaining bastions(堡垒)of identity.