Parents who help their children with homework may actually be bringing down their school grades. Other forms of prenatal involvement, including volunteering at school and observing a child's class, also fail to help, according to the most recent study on the topic.
The findings challenge a key principle of modern parenting(养育子女) where schools except them to act as partners in their children's education. Previous generations concentrated on getting children to 
school on time, fed, dressed and ready to learn.
       Kaith Robinson, the author of the study, said, "I really don't know if the public is ready for this but there are some ways parents can be 
involved in their kids' education that leads to declines in their academic performance. One of the things that was consistently negative was
 parents' help with homework." Robinson suggested that may be because parents themselves struggle to understand the task." They may 
either not remember the material their kids are studying now, or in some cases never learnt it themselves, but they're still offering advice."
       Robinson assessed parental involvement performance and found one of the most damaging things a parent could do was to punish their children for poor marks. In general, about 20% of parental involvement was positive, about 45% negative and the rest statistically
 insignificant.
      Common sense suggests it was a good thing for parents to get involved because "children with good academic success do have involved
 parents ", admitted Robinson. But he argued that this did not prove parental involvement was the root cause of that success." A big 
surprise was that Asian-American parents whose kids are doing so well in school hardly involved. They took a more reasonable approach, conveying to their children how success at school could improve their lives."

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    Parents

    The most trusted magazine for parents who want to raise smart, loving and self-confident children. Each issue has age-specific child-development guidance, advice on your child's health and safety, and the best ways to encourage your child's learning.

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    At the end of last summer my parents' house in Tunstall went up in flames. Several months on, we're still trying to find out exactly what happened, but my parents John and Carole were out when more than half the house was burned to the ground. What was left behind needed to be pulled down and most of the things that were not actually destroyed were so smoke-damaged that they would have to be thrown away.

My parents were both teachers and not the kind of people to fill their house with expensive furniture, so most of their belongings were memories—--including photos and the tracksuit(运动服) that Dad was given when he carried the Olympic torch (火炬). But what really upset me was not the loss of these things.

    Dad had an album(唱片) for every occasion. Once his car got broken into and he was more upset that his cassettes had been nicked(划伤) than about all the rest of the damage. So when I was considering doing something to help after the fire, I immediately thought about his music. We couldn't get the old photos back, but we could replace his CDs and records. Then I started a little page about my dad on the blogging site Tumblr.

    Within a few days, news of what had happened spread by word of mouth, and I was getting messages from friends I hadn't spoken to for years. I also heard from Dad's mates and even from people neither of us had ever met. Soon packages arrived from all over the country. I expected 100CDs if we were lucky, but his new collection would now run into the thousands!

    On Christmas Day, all the records, tapes and CDs were packed into a beautiful box, which of course, was for my dad. A lot of them came from his previous students and he was touched to realize what an effect he had had on their lives. Eventually , he told me, “What could have been a bad Christmas has been a very good one.”

    As we know, earthquakes can bring people much fear. There are some places that have few or no earthquakes. Most places in the world, however, have them regularly. Countries that have a lot of earthquakes are usually quite mountainous.

    The most talked about earthquake in the United States was in San Francisco in 1906. Over 700 people died in it. The strongest one in North America was in 1964. It happened in Alaska.

    Strong earthquakes are not always the ones that kill the most people. In 1755, one of the strongest earthquakes ever recorded was felt in Portugal. Around 2,000 people died.

    In 1923, a very strong earthquake hit Tokyo, Yokohama area of Japan. A hundred and forty thousand people died. Most of them died in fires which followed the earthquake.

    One of the worst earthquakes ever was in China in 2008. It killed a large number of people. The worst earthquake ever reported was also in China, in which 400,000 people were killed or injured. This earthquake happened in 1556.

    Earthquakes worry people a lot. The reason is that we often do not know when they are coming. People cannot prepare for earthquakes.

    Boomerang children who return to live with their parents after university can be good for families, leading to closer, more supportive relationships and increased contact between the generations, a study has found.

    The findings contradict research published earlier this year showing that returning adult children trigger a significant decline in their parents' quality of life and wellbeing.

    The young adults taking part in the study were “more positive than might have been expected” about moving back home – the shame is reduced as so many of their peers are in the same position, and they acknowledged the benefits of their parents' financial and emotional support. Daughters were happier than sons, often slipping back easily into teenage patterns of behaviour, the study found.

    Parents on the whole were more uncertain, expressing concern about the likely duration of the arrangement and how to manage it. But they acknowledged that things were different for graduates today, who leave university with huge debts and fewer job opportunities.

    The families featured in the study were middle-class and tended to view the achievement of adult independence for their children as a “family project”. Parents accepted that their children required support as university students and then as graduates returning home, as they tried to find jobs paying enough to enable them to move out and get on the housing ladder.

    “However,” the study says, “day-to-day tensions about the prospects of achieving different dimensions of independence, which in a few extreme cases came close to conflict, characterised the experience of a majority of parents and a little over half the graduates”.

    Areas of disagreement included chores, money and social life. While parents were keen to help, they also wanted different relationships from those they had with their own parents, and continuing to support their adult children allowed them to remain close.

    Food Parts You Should Never Throw Away in the Garbage

    Pineapple Core (果心)

    When you carve out the core of t pineapple, don't throw it in the garbage. You can use the pineapple core for all kinds of recipes, and there are tons of vitamins and  minerals hiding within.To use the pineapple core: cut it and add it to fruit salad, put it into smoothies (水果雪泥), cut it into cubes and freeze for law use, or simply add it to water or even tea to improve flavor.

    Kiwi Skln

    If you never thought you could eat kiwi in the way you eat a peach, think again. That skin really is good for you and contains a lot of vitamin C, and in fact, it's also higher hi fiber than the rest of the fruit. Of course, that rough, ugly skin isn't for everyone, so if you don't like it, try adding a whole kiwi to a smoothie to hide the taste of the skin.

    Banana Peel

    Most of us eat the banana without giving the soft peel a second thought. Here's why that's a mistake: banana peel contains tryptophan (色氨酸), which increases "the happiness hormone" to help with mood regulation and nerve system. There are a few creative ways to use the peel. Cook or boil for at least 10 minutes to soften. You can add it to smoothies, stir-fries, or soups. And, for a treat, simply slice and bake a banana with the skin on.

    Water melon Skin and Seeds

    The delicious, red inside makes for a refreshing snack or juice, but you're able to get some powerful nutrients in the skin and seeds as well. Cut out the white part under the green outside and use it in your cooking. It has vitamin C and B6, to keep you healthy. As for the seeds, you can roast them in the oven. Then add them to salads or to nut snacks.