1 . How to talk to your child about current events

Nowadays, exposure to worldwide events is easily accessible.     1    . Providing a safe, calming space to open a conversation with your child can help ensure that they are getting accurate information, and allows them to talk about the many fearful and upsetting emotions they may be feeling. The following tips may help you when discussing current events with your child.

Educate yourself before speaking to your child

    2     By understanding what is happening, you will be able to offer simple, clear, and appropriate knowledge to your child in a way that also addresses any misconceptions they may have.

    3    

Give your child a chance to voice what they believe has happened and why. This will allow you to listen for any misinformation, address areas needing clarification, and hear what concerns or fears your child is currently processing.

Ask questions, and encourage your child to ask too

It’s important that you allow your child to absorb the information you’re giving them and give them time to respond. Asking your child questions about how the event made them feel can give your child the opportunity to talk about their emotions without your influence.     4    .This will encourage them to speak freely about their concerns without judgement, while establishing trust for future conversations.

Share your feelings and experiences

It is often helpful to share your own feelings and responses surrounding the events. If you have experienced discrimination, discuss that experience, how it made you feel, and what you did to overcome it.     5    .

2 . Asking for or accepting help can bring up a wide range of complicated emotions, like there’s the fear of being seen as needy or weak. Although accepting help from others is difficult, giving and receiving is a necessary part of life.

    1    . For many people, the difficulty in asking for or receiving help is tied to childhood. As psychologist Lisa Firestone points out, these feelings often develop from having our requests go unnoticed at an earlier age.

Sometimes these unnoticed requests are a result of neglect or because parents are too busy to notice. Maybe they were undertaking some jobs to make ends meet or didn’t have additional family support to spare.     2    . When your needs go unnoticed, it can create feelings of shame about asking for or receiving help, while also forming an extreme sense of independence.

How do you get better at accepting help? One way to get better at accepting help is to start with small requests, such as asking for directions.     3    . Practicing this in good environment can ease some of the emotions that can appear suddenly.

    4    . If you feel very uncomfortable, wait a few moments to let these feelings calm down before accepting or denying the help.

Helping others feels good. Although asking for help is hard, one way to make it a little easier is to focus on how it feels when you help others.     5    .

3 . Several studies suggest there are some very good reasons to think about ways to be kind and friendly plan out that type of behavior.     1     Researchers also say kindness played an important part in how humans developed. In other words, they say scientific evidence suggests that we are designed to be kind.

Oliver Curry is the research director at Kindlab, a non-profit organization.     2     Curry claims that “kindness is much older than religion.” “The basic reason why people are kind is that we are social animals.” he explained.

    3     University of London psychologist Anat Bardi studies value systems in people. In one study, researchers gave people a list of values - such as kindness, creativity, ambition, tradition, security, and seeking social justice. When asked to pick the most important, kindness won.

But research shows that our bodies can also reward us for being kind. University of California Riverside psychology professor Sonja has tested this idea in many experiments over the past 20 years. In one experiment, she asked people to perform three acts of kindness for other individuals each week. She asked a different group to do three acts of self-kindness.     4     The people who were kind toothers reported feeling happier and more connected to the world.

    5     Sonja studied a group of people with the disease multiple sclerosis (多发性硬化). She found that they felt better physically when helping others. Her research also showed that people who performed more acts of kindness had less inflammation (发炎) in their bodies.