American parents today are also quick to protect their kids from disappointment and failure. We give participation trophies when kids don’t win first place; we fly into the school to deliver kids’ forgotten homework. But these well-meaning interventions backfire because a child with healthy self-esteem is a child who has learned, through experience, that he can overcome obstacles and disappointment. He’s had the opportunity to fail and has discovered that failing doesn’t preclude him from being loved.

Wearing a mask is important. For you and those around you. For elected officials? Not so much.

Actually, all the COVID rules are for us, not them. COVID-19, and the accompanying lockdowns, have made it painfully clear: We plebes have to follow the rules; the elites do not.

Start with California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who last week groveled for forgiveness after being caught attending a large birthday dinner at The French Laundry restaurant in Napa Valley. When pictures from the event surfaced, the hypocrisy was glaring: The governor was seen with his wife at a large table full of maskless lobbyists, all sitting in close proximity.

But, hey: You’re not the governor — so if you want to celebrate Thanksgiving in his state, remember: “No more than three households, including your own,” at the gathering, and keep your distance.

Newsom isn’t the only one to live it up while everyone suffers. Gov. Cuomo, for example, is rarely seen in a mask, yet his Twitter feed never stops harassing you to “mask up.” (And, by the way, he’s just thrilled with himself over his handling of the COVID-19 crisis, even though it resulted in more deaths than any other state and, according to The New York Times, seeded the virus throughout the country.)

Parents should consider whether the child has stolen out of a need for more attention. In these cases, the child may be expressing anger or trying to "get even" with his or her parents; the stolen object may become a substitute for love or affection. The parents should make an effort to give more recognition to the child as an important family member.

- tell the child that stealing is wrong

- help the youngster to pay for or return the stolen object

- make sure that the child does not benefit from the theft in any way

In a letter released Tuesday, the groups say that rates of childhood mental health concerns were already steadily rising over the past decade. But the coronavirus pandemic, as well as the issue of racial inequality, they write, has exacerbated the challenges.

"This worsening crisis in child and adolescent mental health is inextricably tied to the stress brought on by COVID-19 and the ongoing struggle for racial justice and represents an acceleration of trends observed prior to 2020," the declaration from the pediatric groups says.

“The repression industrial complex is strong,” Lil Government added. “Many of us grow up being told that discussing sex openly is inappropriate, all porn is bad, dressing a certain way invites harassment, etc. Views like this shut off healthy communication about sexuality, in society and in our own bedrooms, allowing puritanical shame to flourish. With your partners, the fear may be rejection or being seen as weird or fucked up. These fears are valid, and we all must weigh the risks of derision or judgment to find a deeper sense of ourselves and our community.”

A renowned epidemiologist says the coronavirus pandemic is far from over due to not enough vaccines being available for every country.

Dr Larry Brilliant, who was a medical officer in the World Health Organization's (WHO) smallpox eradication program, says not enough people around the globe have been vaccinated against COVID-19.

He told CNBC's Street Signs that only 15 percent of people in the world have been immunized with some countries not even inoculating five percent of residents.

Brilliant also addressed the spread of the Indian 'Delta' variant and sad it was the most infectious he had ever seen in his career.

“If your brain isn’t cognitively ready to imagine someone else’s experience, it’s harder to have empathy,” said Pressman.

Yet it is important that as kids move from toddler-dom into the school-age years, parents actively teach them that they will not always get their way. Parents also should explain to children that not getting their way may feel bad, which is expected.

For example, when your child is shopping for a friend’s birthday present and they ask for a toy of their own, don’t give in, Pressman urged. Instead, maybe say something like: “We’re going into the store to buy a present for Billy. I know sometimes that can feel hard, and it’s hard to focus,” Pressman said. That’s it.

You’re giving them space to grapple with what it feels like to not get their way, and you’re showing them that you expect them to get through it. It can be a pretty powerful lesson, particularly when it’s repeated often as a natural part of growing up.

I know this is going to sound like a nonproblem at first, but there is a deeper issue that troubles me. Our 16-year-old son is an amazing kid: intelligent, hardworking, and athletic. He is a straight-A student who juggles multiple AP classes with a demanding sports schedule. He is one of the top three students in his class and is also being recruited by college coaches for his sport. But ever since he was in elementary school, we’ve had the same experience at the end-of-year awards ceremonies: He’ll occasionally get recognized for the “objective” awards, like honor roll or scoring the highest on foreign-language tests, but he has never won a single “subjective” award, the ones selected by teachers/coaches or voted on by his peers. When he was little, we would console him by saying “Don’t worry, just keep working hard and maybe you’ll get one next year!”

But after several years of that, we changed our message, instead emphasizing that hard work is its own reward, and that we are proud of him for his diligence and work ethic. I suspect one of the reasons he gets so little recognition is his personality: He is extremely quiet, introverted, and serious. He has a handful of close friends but gets along with everybody; his school tends to be a bit “clique-ish,” but he is one of the few students who has good friends among both the “smart kids” and the athletes.

I’m not concerned about the awards themselves or about him impressing anyone else. Now that he’s older, he tends to brush it off as no big deal. But I just watched him sit through yet another awards ceremony with a forced smile on his face and tears in his eyes as every one of his friends at the table got a special award from one of the teachers or coaches. He sometimes comments about feeling “invisible” because he doesn’t have the charm and charisma of some of his peers. We’ve tried telling him that sometimes teachers like to reward students for their effort since the students who excel in class already get the reward of good grades. But this doesn’t feel right either, especially after seeing him come home exhausted from a three-hour sports practice and then stay up till 1 a.m. studying.

After 10-plus years of this, I can’t help worrying that maybe we should be giving him different advice—instead of preaching self-acceptance, perhaps we should be telling him to adjust his personality, so he is a bit more likable? He is headed to college soon, so maybe I should do nothing and let him figure it out himself?

—Mom of the Invisible Man

A family in Spokane, Washington, is demanding that a school administrator be removed after he suggested he could segregate two Black middle school students who were directed to clean freshly picked cotton as part of a classroom assignment, according to lawyers for the family.

Q. Baby, not grandchild: Our oldest daughter is nearing 40 and frustrated by her lack of prospects in having a husband, a home, and a child. Her standards are profoundly high: must make six figures, be 6 feet tall, and no previous marriages or children. She is divorced herself. She is a very driven career woman and works 60 hour weeks regularly.

She announced to her father and me that she will be proceeding forward as a single mother and getting a sperm donation. We were happy but hesitant. That quickly turned to horror when our daughter told us she was looking to move back home with us. Her expectations were that I would be taking care of the baby while she continued her career normally. I love my children and I love my grandchildren, but I am done raising babies. My husband and I are nearing retirement and have plans that do not include diapers and midnight feedings.

We told our daughter this would not be possible and she became upset. She accused us of being “selfish” and denying her the chance of being a mother. My husband lost his temper and told her the only one who was being selfish here was her. She is the one making the choice to have a child and demanding everyone rearrange their lives over it. At this point, our daughter is no longer talking to us but is speaking to her siblings. She is proceeding with her plan and has an appointment at a clinic. If this works, this will be our first biological grandchildren (our son married a woman with older children). It breaks my heart that we might miss this. We tried reaching out to our daughter but no response. She can carry a grudge to the grave. What can we do here?

NPR journalist Michaeleen Doucleff suggests that parents consider throwing out most of the toys they’ve bought for their kids. It’s an extreme piece of advice, but the way Doucleff frames it, it seems entirely sensible: “Kids spent two hundred thousand years without these items,” she writes.

American child-rearing strategy comes away looking at best bizarre and at worst counterproductive. “Our culture often has things backward when it comes to kids,” she writes.

Doucleff arrives at this conclusion while traveling, with her then-3-year-old daughter. During her outings, she witnesses well-adjusted, drama-free kids share generously with their siblings and do chores without being asked.

Early in the coronavirus pandemic, California was celebrated as a beacon of common sense in a country on the brink.

By early summer, however, the pressure to open back up rose. Officials discovered the state wasn’t immune to the national fatigue with social distancing and mask-wearing. Amid a patchwork of haphazard rules and guidelines, cases crept up.

Los Angeles county last week passed the disturbing milestone of 10,000 new Covid-19 cases a day, and officials there fear a spike in infections resulting from the Thanksgiving holiday could send hospitalizations surging further. LA officials said that one person is now dying of Covid every 20 minutes, and the county’s public health director, Barbara Ferrer, broke down crying at a briefing while talking about the “incalculable loss” of more than 8,000 deaths.

My parents are currently trying to “help” my 29-year-old brother by allowing him to move out to their new beach house and subsidizing his rent so he can get a fresh start in life.

My parents have always seemed to favor my brother, and I was finally able to heal and move on from the hurt a few years ago. I am two years younger and my husband and I have our own house, own two new cars, and have two stable incomes.

I have worked for everything that I have in life, and I am grateful for how I was raised because being forced to earn everything, including my parents affection, has allowed me to have the life I do now

My parents have always supported my brother emotionally and financially. They currently pay for his phone plan, his cell phone, his car loan — after he totalled his last car two weeks ago — and now his rent.

He depends on them for almost everything in life. They are encouraging him to move to get a fresh start on their dime instead of taking a leap and getting an apartment. They are doing this because they didn’t want him to have a mortgage.

Meanwhile, I am finishing my accounting degree before sitting for the CPA (my husband and I are paying 100%), and my parents are encouraging me to NOT get my master’s degree because it’s useless and would make my brother feel worse. They say that we are already married and have a house so why do we need more.

Q. Catfishing: My daughters have been phone banking, calling Arizona and Michigan and so on to get out the vote. I didn’t want to do that but I felt guilty. Then I read an article in Slate about using the dating app Hinge to get out the vote. That sounded like fun to me, so I set up an account. I figured that there were few people my age (about 70) on Hinge, so I used a pic that was 40(!) years old and pretended to be young, single, and child-free. My state was also in the bag as far as electoral votes were concerned, so I decided to “live” in another state. Anyway, you could say I was catfishing, but I figured it was for a good cause—no one would get hurt, thus, no harm, no foul.

However. I found a match. Of course he is much younger than I am and lives in a different state. But we are politically similar. And we have the same (very niche!) hobby. (I can’t name the hobby, because all my friends who read this column would immediately identify me! But, as a false example, it is not that we both like to read biographies—it is more like we both like to make art with old encyclopedias. So we share this unusual passion.)

Now I want to tell him the truth and be friends. But I know that no one wants to be fooled. Is there any way to break the news—that I am decades older than he is and not interested in dating—that would not destroy this budding relationship?

A new study indicates a majority of teens have increased their social media use during the coronavirus pandemic.

Experts say you can reduce social media use for teens by not allowing them to use devices in the bedroom or sleep by devices.