Earlier this month, blogger Lisa Henderson announced that she and her husband John had decided not to have Christmas. The family, who lives in Utah, will still put up decorations, but presents from Santa are a no-go this year.

    “John and I feel like we are fighting a very hard uphill battle with our kids when it comes to their rights,” Henderson wrote on her blog. “It is one of the biggest struggles as a parent these days in middle class America. Our kids have been acting so ungrateful lately. ... John said, “We shouldn't just celebrate Christmas. And, so that's what we did.”

    Instead, the Hendersons are putting the money they would have spent on gifts toward service projects in order to teach their three sons the “pleasure of giving.” The children will still receive gifts from grandparents and other family members, but this year, she said, their letters to Santa will be asking him to find someone who needs presents more than they do.

    In an interview with ABC News, 11-year-old Caleb Henderson admitted that he and his brothers had been behaving badly. “We would hit each other. We were fighting and crying,” he admitted, and Lisa said that when she broke the news to her sons, they cried pretty hard.

    But so far, Henderson told Fox News last week, the family is having a sudden turning this into a different kind of gift. They have already held a clothing drive and sent boxes of clothes and candy to a village in the Philippines that was hit hard last year by Typhoon Haiyan.

    “The children were excited and kept wanting to give more and more,” she reported on her blog.

    Many readers responded positively to Henderson's post. Some sharing their own stories of limiting Christmas in order to teach their children to be charitable(仁慈的) or grateful. “As parents you're giving your kids something so much more special than a bunch of gifts on Christmas,” one wrote.

    But Henderson received negative follow-ups as well on her blog. Responding to critics, she updated her blog with a statement that reads, in part:

I just wanted to explain a couple of things. First, my kids are in no way hurt for things.... They have reacted by making gifts for each other and packing them into each other's stockings stealthily(偷偷地). They are learning exactly what we wanted them to learn, because they are not moving around feeling sorry for themselves. They are thinking of others.

    The second thing I wanted to explain is why I wrote this post. Some people seem to think I wrote this for attention. Ummm, the attention you get from posts like this is not good and actually extremely difficult to deal with.... The reason I wrote this post is I want to empower parents to feel like it's okay to take a stand. ... I wanted to share what we are doing, so any parents that feel they are struggling with the same issues in their home can see what others are doing and get ideas for their family. My intention is to help support other parents and to raise amazing kids.

    Prinker: Color Your Way

    Tattoos always look so cool, but actually getting one is quite a commitment. After all, apart from using expensive laser removal therapy, they stay on your skin forever.

    The Prinker is here to change the game. It is a device (设备) that lets you create or print any image or temporary tattoos within a matter of seconds. It is connected to your smartphone and you can select a bunch of preloaded tattoos available in the app.

    This device was exhibited at The International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas this year. It is manufactured by a Korean startup company called “SketchOn”.

    You can sketch your ideas out on your skin with this portable device that is almost twice the size of a computer mouse. This is a nice way to support your team in the match by printing its logo or design onto your skin. You can also share your tattoo designs with others through the app. It is also a fun and creative toy for kids to play with.

    In order to print the design, all you need to do is select or draw a design on your mobile and then press and rub the base of the device against your skin and you are done. These designs and images are water resistant but can be washed off with soap water. The ink of the Prinker is non-toxic and is made only from certified cosmetic ingredients. Each cartridge (墨盒) contains enough ink for about 1,500 tattoos, or as J₊ R. Smith would call it, “a good start.”

    The Prinker is developed by a small team of five members. The company is planning to launch the device in China and then in the United States. The device is currently commercializing in Korea as a rental device. The agencies and organizations pay $150 for a day to use it in their events or marketing.

    The current version of Prinker is aimed towards business users (think festivals, carnivals, sports events, promotion campaigns). But the company is working on a home version, and hopes to have it available to buy before the end of 2018. SketchOn estimates the personal model will retail at $200. The company is currently seeking to partner with international agencies for distribution opportunities.

    Although Prinker is currently aimed towards novelty and creative purposes, its technologies could eventually be adapted for use by professional tattoo artists or medical professionals who provide tattoos for patients, such as after a breast cancer operation or skin graft.

    A new library in Tianjin—Tianjin Binhai Public Library—recently became an online hit. The Daily Mail described it as the “world's ultimate (终极的) library”, while the word “breathtaking” was the choice of Newsweek magazine. One look at the library and you'll see why. With its futuristic (未来主义) design and walls loaded with books, it's the dream library of every book lover.

    But as the surprise continues, there's a burning question lying in the back of our minds: When physical bookstores are closing down one by one, what makes libraries safe from the wave of digitalization (数码化)? And do we really still need libraries now that we've got the Internet in our hands?

    Reporter Ian Clark has the answer. “Libraries are not declining in importance—people are simply changing the way they use them,” he wrote on the Guardian website.

    What Clark means is that libraries have shifted from simply being storehouses of books to a medium to help “bridge the gap between the haves and the have-nots” according to website Libraries Are Essential. Since not everyone can afford a smartphone, a tablet or an Internet connection, and not everyone has the know-how to search the Internet correctly and efficiently, it's public libraries that make sure that these resources and technologies are available to a larger group of people.

    "Nobody is trying to sell you anything in the library. There is no pressure to buy and there is no judgment of your choices/' Anne Goulding, a professor at Victoria University in New Zealand, wrote on the Newsroom website. “There are few other spaces that you can just 'be' without somebody questioning your presence or your motivation."

D

    Give yourself a test. Which way is the wind blowing? How many kinds of wildflowers can be seen from your front door? If your awareness is as sharp as it could be, you'll have no trouble answering these questions.

    Most of us observed much more as children than we do as adults. A child's day is filled with fascination, newness and wonder. Curiosity gave us all a natural awareness. But distinctions that were sharp to us as children become unclear; we are numb(麻木的）to new stimulation(刺激), new ideas. Relearning the art of seeing the world around us is quite simple, although it takes practice and requires breaking some bad habits.

    The first step in awakening senses is to stop predicting what we are going to see and feel before it occurs. This blocks awareness. One chilly night when I was hiking in the Rocky Mountains with some students, I mentioned that we were going to cross a mountain stream. The students began complaining about how cold it would be. We reached the stream, and they unwillingly walked ahead. They were almost knee-deep when they realized it was a hot spring. Later they all admitted they'd felt cold water at first.

    Another block to awareness is the obsession(痴迷) many of us have with naming things. I saw bird watchers who spotted a bird, immediately looked it up in field guides, and said, a "ruby-crowned kinglet" and checked it off. They no longer paid attention to the bird and never learned what it was doing.

    The pressures of "time" and "destination" are further blocks to awareness. I encountered many hikers who were headed to a distant camp-ground with just enough time to get there before dark. It seldom occurred to them to wander a bit, to take a moment to see what's around them. I asked them what they'd seen. "Oh, a few birds," they said. They seemed bent on their destinations.

    Nature seems to unfold to people who watch and wait. Next time you take a walk, no matter where it is, take in all the sights, sounds and sensations. Wander in this frame of mind and you will open a new dimension to your life.

    Psychology has a new application in the field of medicine. Many doctors, together with their patients, are looking for alternative methods of treatment of physical problems. In large hospitals, modern therapy(疗法)seems to focus on the physical disease. Patients may feel they are treated like broken machines. Some doctors have recognized this as a problem. They are now using psychological therapy, in which the patient is working with the doctors against the disease with the help of medicine. The patient does not wait for the medicine and treatment to cure him or her, but instead the patient joins in the fight.

    The doctor knows that a disease affects a patient's body physically. The body of the patient changes because of the disease. He is not only physically affected, but also has an emotional response to the disease. Because his mind is affected, and his attitude and behavior change. The medical treatment might cure the patient's physical problems, but the patient's mind must fight the emotional ones. For example, the studies of one doctor, Carl Simonton, M.D., have shown that a typical cancer patient has predictable attitudes. She typically feels depressed, upset, and angry. Her constant depression makes her acts unfriendly toward her family, friends, doctors, and nurses. Such attitudes and behaviors prevent recovery. Therefore, a doctor's treatment must help the patient change that. Simonton's method emphasizes treatment of the "whole" patient.

    The attitude of a cancer patient receiving radiation therapy, an X-ray treatment, can become more positive. The physician who is following Simonton's psychological treatment plan suggests that the patient imagine that he or she can see the tumor(肿瘤)in the body. In the mental picture, the patient "sees" a powerful beam of radiation like a million bullets of energy. The patient imagines the beam hitting the tumor cells and causing them to shrink. For another cancer patient, Dr. Simonton asks him to imagine the medicine going from the stomach into the bloodstream and to the cancer cells. The patient imagines that the medicine is like an army fighting the diseased cells and sees the cancer cells gradually dying and his blood carrying away the dead cells. Both the medical therapy and the patient's positive attitude fight the disease.

    Doctors are not certain why this mental therapy works. However, this use of psychology does help some patients because their attitudes about themselves change. They become more confident because they use the power within their own minds to help stop the disease.

    Another application of using the mind to help cure disease is the use of suggestion therapy. At first, the doctor helps the patient to concentrate deeply. The patient thinks only about one thing. He becomes so unaware of other things around him that he is asleep, or rather in a trance(催眠状态). Then the physician makes "a suggestion" to the patient about the medical problem. The patient's mind responds to the suggestion even after the patient is no longer in the trance. In this way, the patient uses his mind to help his body respond to treatment.

    Doctors have learned that this use of psychology is helpful for both adults and children. For example, physicians have used suggestion to help adults deal with the strong pain of some disease. Furthermore, such treatment may help the patient with a chronic diseases. Suggestion has been used to change children's habits like nail­biting, thumb­sucking, and sleep­related problems.

    Many professional medical groups have accepted the medical use of psychology and that psychology has important applications in medicine.

    Reality TV show has been charged with making the nation silly, but a study suggests part of the show could be good for children.

    Massey University PhD student Jacinta Hawkins looked at the influence of TV programs on kids' health knowledge, attitudes and behavior. She said programs which showed overweight people on TV is making children say "I don't want to grow up like that'."

    The research was part of Ms Hawkins' paper on how schools improve health. She spoke to 92 children, ages from 7 to 13, from six Auckland primary schools to find out how they received information on nutrition and physical activity. Some said they learnt from TV news programs, but most of them mentioned reality shows such as Fat Chance, Honey We're Killing the Kids and Downsize Me.

    "Earlier studies had looked at the effect junk-food advertising had on children," Ms Hawkins said, "but messages within TV programs had not been explored. Children from the six schools largely recognized program content, rather than advertising, as a source of food and physical activity messages. They are learning habits of eating and exercise from TV programs. "

    The children also recognized that their parents had a role to play in shaping health behavior. Talking about Honey We're Killing the Kids, which shows how people will look if they continue with good habits, children said they developed attitudes from their family's habits. MMs Hawkins said children remembered what they had seen and thought it was the parents' duty to lead by example.