I went online to check if my pay was in my bank account. To my amazement, I discovered that not only had I been paid, a company I'd never worked for had also paid me! I knew I'd have been beside myself if my own salary was not in my account, so I tried to get the money back to the right person. It is easier said than done.

    The bank couldn't help as it wasn't a bank problem. The human-resource department as the company that paid me was unable to help as I didn't have enough details. I rang the bank again. Thankfully I had sympathetic call operator who gave me a name, so I again rang the company “Daniel” worked for.

    I expected the bank would contact me to arrange to take the money from my account and repay Daniel. I heard nothing for a month and the money remained in my account when Daniel called, explaining he'd tried to get back his money but had been unsuccessful as neither the bank nor his company felt it was their error. He had rung to ask if I could speak to the bank, but after chatting for a few minutes we realized we could probably fix this problem ourselves.

    We decided I would take the money from my account and he would pick it up from me. Due to my busy job I was unable to meet Daniel personally but he left me a lovely bottle of wine in exchange for what was rightfully his. I never had any intention of keeping Daniel's pay, but red tape（繁琐手续）made it difficult to do the right thing. It all came down to two people being able to do what a huge bank and a large company couldn't do — admit a mistake has occurred and fix it.

    As countless unmade beds and unfinished homework assignments prove, kids need rules. Yet how parents make demands can powerfully influence a child's social skills, psychologists at the University of Virginia recently found after the conclusion of a study investigating the transition from adolescence to adulthood.

    Initially 184 13-year-olds filled out multiple surveys, including one to assess how often their parents employed psychologically controlling strategies, such as inducing guilt or threatening to withdraw affection. The kids rated, for example, how typical it would be for Dad to suggest that “if I really cared for him, I would not do things that caused him to worry”or for Mom to become “less friendly when I did not see things her way.”

    The researchers followed up with the subjects at ages 18 and 21, asking the young adults to bring along a close friend and, later, a romantic partner if they had one. These pairs were asked to answer hypothetical (假设的) questions that were purposefully written to inspire a difference of opinion. “We wanted to see whether they could navigate a disagreement in a healthy way, ”says study leader Barbara Oudekerk, now at the U. S. Department of Justice's bureau of statistics.

    In the October issue of Child Development, Oudekerk and her colleagues report that the 13-year-olds who had highly controlling parents struggled in friendly disagreements at age 18. They had difficulty stating their opinions in a confident, reasoned manner in comparison to the kids without controlling parents. And when they did speak up, they often failed to express themselves in warm and productive ways.

    The researchers suspect that pushy parents ruin their child's ability to learn how to argue his or her own viewpoint in other relationships. Although parents do need to set boundaries, domineering strategies imply that any disagreement will damage the bond itself. Separate findings suggest that parents who explain the reasons behind their rules and turn disagreements into conversations leave youngsters better prepared for future arguments.

    The consequences of tense or domineering relationships appear to get worse with time. This study also found that social difficulties at 18 predicted even poorer communication abilities at age 21. Psychologist Shmuel Shulman of Bar-Ilan University in Israel, who did not participate in the work, thinks these conclusions convincingly reveal how relationship patterns “carry forward” into new friendships.

    A man came home from work late, tired, to find his 5-year-old son waiting for him at the door.

    “Daddy, how much money do you make each hour?”

    “If you must know, I make ＄20 each hour.”

    “Oh,” the little boy answered, with his head down. He thought for a moment, looked up and said, “Daddy, could you lend me ＄10?”

    The father was furious, “If you asked for the money to buy a toy or some other rubbish, go straight to your room and think about why you are so selfish (自私)！”

    The little boy went to his room with no words and shut the door. After a short while, the father calmed (平静) down, and started to think, “Maybe he really needs to buy something and he didn't really ask for money very often.” So he went to the little boy's room.

    “Sorry！Maybe I was too hard on your just now.” said the man, “Here's ＄10.”

    “Oh, thank you Daddy！” he said happily. Then the boy took out some coins. When the father found that the boy already had money, he got angry again.

    “Why do you want more money since you already have some?” the father shouted angrily.

    “Because I didn't have enough, but now I do.” The little boy replied, “Daddy, I have ＄20 now. Can I buy one hour of your time? Please come home early tomorrow. I would like to have dinner with you. ”

    At first glance Esther Okade seems like a normal 10-year-old. She loves dressing up, playing with Barbie dolls and going to the park or shopping. But what makes the British-Nigerian youngster stand out is the fact that she's also a university undergraduate.

    Esther, from Walsall, an industrial town in the UK's West Midlands region, is one of the country's youngest college freshmen. The talented 10-year-old enrolled at the Open University, a UK-based distance learning college, in January and is already top of the class, having recently scored 100% in a recent exam.

    "It's so interesting. It has the type of maths I love. It's real maths-theories, complex numbers, all that type of stuff," she smiles. "I want to finish the course in two years. Then I'm going to do my PhD in financial maths when I'm 13. I want to have my own bank by the time I'm 15 because I like numbers and I like people and banking is a great way to help people." she adds.

    Esther has always jumped ahead of her peers. She sat her first Math GSCE exam, a British high school qualification, at Ounsdale High School in Wolverhampton at just six, where she received a C-grade. A year later, she got the A-grade she wanted. Then last year she scored a B-grade when she sat the Math A-level exam.

    Not content with breaking barriers to attend college at just 10 years old, Esther is also writing a series of math workbooks for children called "Yummy Yummy Algebra."

    "It starts at a beginner level-that's volume one. But then there will be volume two, and volume three, and then volume four. As long as you can add or subtract, you'll be able to do it. I want to show other children they are special." she says.

    Researchers found that compared with young people who spent much of their free time in front of TV sets, those who were physically active often had higher self-respect, better grades and were less likely to have risky behavior like taking drugs, smoking, or drinking. The findings, based on a national survey of nearly 12, 000 middle and high school students, were published in a journal（期刊）.

    “Across the board, children who engaged in any kind of activity were better off than kids who watched a lot of TV,” said study co-author(合著者) professor Penny Gordon Larsen of the University of North Carolina.

    Other studies have linked certain content of television programs, such as violence and sex, to children's behavior. But beyond this issue, Gordon Larsen said that kids who spend hours watching TV” miss opportunities” to develop skills, learn teamwork and have other experiences that their more active peers(同辈) benefit(受益) from

    That doesn't mean, however, that kids have to be on the football team. The study found that some activities like skating and skateboard(滑板)——which adults sometimes frown upon——were also related to better self-respect and less risk-taking.

    That skaters were better behaved than TV-watchers might come as a surprise to some adults who consider these teens to be bad, according to Gordon Larsen. Skateboarding is forbidden in many public areas, and some communities(社区) disagree to build skating parks. But if kids who like to skate have nowhere to do it, “ it's a shame,” said Gordon Larsen.

    Not only should parents encourage their kids to engage（参与） in the physical activities they enjoy, she said, but schools and communities should also do more to create opportunities for children to be active.

    March 21 has been declared World Sleep Day, a time to recognize and celebrate the value of sleep. Many sleep experts hope it will be a wake-up call.

    According to a 2016 poll（民意调查）by the National Sleep Foundation, nearly 4 in 5 Americans don't get as much sleep as they should during the workweek. On average, adults are thought to need at least eight hours of sleep a night, although some can manage with less and some won't do well without more. But the survey found that, on workdays, only 21% of Americans actually get a full eight hours of sleep, and another 21% get less than six.

    To many of us, the thought of spending more time sleeping is, well, a big yawn. On the other hand, the thought of being smarter, thinner, healthier and more cheerful has a certain appeal. And those are just a few of the advantages that can be ours if we consistently get enough sleep,  researchers say. Also on the plus side： We're likely to have better skin, better memories, better judgment, and, oh, yes, longer lives.

    "When you lose even one hour of sleep for any reason, it influences your performance the next day, " says Dr. Alon Avidan, director of the UCLA Sleep Disorders Center.

    A study published last year found the same to be true even of children.  When kids aged 8 to 12 slept for just one hour less for four nights, they didn't function as well during the day.

    But sleeping has an image problem. "We see napping or sleeping as lazy, " says Jennifer Vriend, a clinical psychologist in Ottawa, Canada, and the leading author of the study with children. "We put so much emphasis on diet, nutrition and exercise. Sleep is in the back seat. " In fact, she adds, no matter how much we work out, no matter how well we eat, we can't be in top physical shape unless we also get plenty of sleep.