Lego, the world-beating Danish toymaker, reported an unexpected drop in profit today, down 3% in the first half of 2017, to 3.4 billion Danish kroner ($543 million). The decline comes after full-year sales growth last year was the slowest in nearly 10 years, ending an outstanding run of double-digit increases. Revenue fell 5% in the first half.
Paris
Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan just welcomed their second daughter, August, to the world. To mark the occasion, they posted a sweet note to her on Facebook.
Between 1982 and 2017, Congress spent over $2 billion on programs which teach teens that the best way to address their desire to have sex is to wait until they get married, according to a new study published in the September issue of the Journal of Adolescent Health.
Parents often think teenagers are overly obsessed with their best friends. They should let them be.
It’s no secret that rich parents go to great lengths to get their kids into the best colleges. New US research may quantify just how far.
Mary Lawlor has taught sixth-grade English for more than 20 years. For almost all of that time, she hated giving grades.
An Indian man recently asked a question on Quora that got to the heart of a perpetual source of conflict among many married couples the world over. His fiancee makes less than a quarter of his salary, he said, but she doesn’t intend to quit her job when they get married.
The relationship between parents and their kids’ tech is complicated. While they loathe the idea of their kids being glued to screens, they also appreciate the moments of relief screens bring.
Paris
Like most things in life, popularity is more complicated than it looks. Some people are popular because they are likable—their peers like them, trust them, and want to be with them. Others are popular because they somehow gain a certain status, and use that power to wield influence over others (ie, high school).
Research, and common sense, show that kids learn more by being actively engaged in what they’re doing. When they engage in discussion, teach others, and grapple with a math problem, they boost their ability to absorb and retain information.
Graduation speeches are usually brimming with optimism and idealism. Be your best self. Lean in. Make your dream work.
Teaching kids coding is all the rage, with coding clubs and coding camps cropping up like Silicon Valley startups. Countries like the UK have made it part of the national curriculum, recognizing that computational thinking will be as important as literacy and numeracy for the jobs kids will have 20 years from now (or, now).
It may be hard to believe, but for young kids, lying is hard. It requires that they know what is truthful and what is false and be able to cast a different story and then sell it as reality. They have to understand that another person thinks differently than they do, and that they can trick that person into believing something other than the truth.
In 2013, suicide surpassed homicide as the third leading cause of death for kids in the US, a ranking it has retained ever since.
Fifteen years ago, the US, the UK and Germany sent roughly the same share of kids into early childhood education or care.
Senior House, a dorm beloved by many underrepresented minority groups at MIT, has been described many ways: free-wheeling, experimental, diverse, inclusive—and, in the words of one former student, in constant violation of ”campus policy on smoking, pets, drugs, alcohol, public sex, (insert flavor-of-the-month form of rebellion here).”
For parents with means, selecting a preschool can feel nearly as onerous as choosing a college. Elite and competitive preschools abound, especially in the US, with parents picking apart their pedagogies—Reggio Emilia or Montessori? Waldorf or YMCA?—to figure out which might later clinch their child’s academic success (and make them happy, well-rounded human beings).
In mid-April, in the aftermath of the vote for Brexit that pushed her into power, British prime minister Theresa May and her Conservative Party enjoyed a 20-point lead over the Labour Party. Confident of her party’s unassailability, May called a snap election. She bet that the Conservatives would secure more seats in Parliament to add to its seven-seat majority, silencing critics both inside and outside her party, and allowing May to emerge with a stronger hand to negotiate Brexit.
In mid-April, in the aftermath of the vote for Brexit that pushed her into power, British prime minister Theresa May and her Conservative Party enjoyed a 20-point lead over the Labour Party. Confident of her party’s unassailability, May called a snap election.
Few parents relish the idea of talking to their kids about sex. It’s awkward, it’s highly likely that kids will tune out in shock and horror, and chances are they’ve learned it all online anyways. Or so parents tell themselves.
Georgina Callander was one of the 22 people killed at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Monday night. According to the Evening Standard, she died in the hospital, with her mother by her side.
Note: This post was updated on June 4 with details about the latest terror attack in London.
