Shauna introduces herself saying: “If you were to look at me, you would think I’m just a normal little girl, doing normal little girl things with my fun, crazy family.”

Adding: “But the truth is I’m not a little girl. I’m a woman, a 22-year-old woman stuck in the body of an eight-year-old.”

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.)

Of course, it’s the people-have-lost-their-everloving-minds incidents that make the news, but they are also a reflection of a deeper trend; Americans appear to have forgotten their manners, especially with those whose job it is to assist them. Lawyers are reporting ruder clients. Restaurants are reporting ruder clients. Flight attendants, for whom rude clients are no novelty, are reporting mayhem. (FAA fines for unruly behavior have already exceeded a million dollars this year.) So legion are the reports of discourtesy that some customer-facing businesses have been forced to play Miss Manners.

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

School is only just starting and already kids are being quarantined in mind-boggling numbers: 20,000 across the state of Mississippi, 10,000 in a single district in Tampa, Florida. They’re getting sick too, with hospitalizations of kids under 17 across the country up at least 22 percent in the past month, by the CDC’s count, and each new week sets pediatric hospitalization records for the entire pandemic. The rapid increase of COVID-19 cases among kids has shattered last year’s oft-repeated falsehood that kids don’t get COVID-19, and if they do, it’s not that bad. It was a convenient lie that was easy to believe in part because we kept most of our kids home. With remote learning not an option now, this year we’ll find out how dangerous this virus is for children in the worst way possible.

It’s enough to bring a parent to tears, except that every parent I know ran out a long time ago—I know I did. Ran out of tears, ran out of energy, ran out of patience. Through these grinding 18 months, we’ve managed our kids’ lives as best we could while abandoning our own. It was unsustainable then, it’s unsustainable now, and no matter what fresh hell this school year brings, it’ll still be unsustainable.

Even if human-caused greenhouse gas emissions can be reduced to zero, global temperatures may continue to rise for centuries afterward, according to a scientific study published Thursday.

"The world is already past a point of no return for global warming," the study authors report in the British journal Scientific Reports. The only way to stop the warming, they say, is that "enormous amounts of carbon dioxide have to be extracted from the atmosphere."

The burning of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas release greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane into the atmosphere, causing global temperatures to increase and sea levels to rise.

The scientists modeled the effect of greenhouse gas emission reductions on changes in the Earth's climate from 1850 to 2500 and created projections of global temperature and sea level rises.

This Massachusetts restaurant has a tip for rude diners – be nice, or don’t eat.

The owners of Brewster-based Apt Cape Cod decided to shut down for a "day of kindness" after a slew of customers apparently mistreated its staff, cursed and demanded take orders before the restaurant even opened for business.

"There were a few incidents that were so horrendous – the cursing and not being understanding of our short staff and limited menu – we had someone call in at 6:30 a.m. before we even open demand take out saying, ‘I’m going to come in, and you're going to serve me," Emilia Povero, a manager at Apt Cade Cod told FOX News. "That was the straw that broke the camel's back. Our staff doesn't need to deal with this."

A study published last week in the peer-reviewed journal Advances In Nutrition concluded that 'fast carbs' are no more likely than 'slow carbs' to lead to weight gain.

Fast carbs such as white bread are also known as high-GI foods because of their high glycemic index.

'High-glycemic index foods have been hypothesized to promote fat storage and increase risk of obesity,' the study said.

For example, the study noted a database from the University of Sydney that lists 27 values for brown rice ranging from 48 to 87. The GI values for white rice ranged from 17 to 94.

The science is clear: without drastic action to limit temperature rise below 1.5C, the Earth, and all life on it, including all human beings, will suffer devastating consequences.

I need some help gaining perspective on my 15-year-old child’s whiplash approach to gender and sexuality. For the last three years, they have been on a journey with regard to their sexuality, declaring and changing identities one every few weeks or months, even when those identities have been both contradictory (how can one be both asexual and polyamorous?) and hypothetical (my kid isn’t dating and hasn’t dated). They are committed to being anything but cisgender and hetero, and that identity—whatever it turns out to be—appears from their actions and words to be the central part of their sense of self. They spent a lot of time on queer wikis, looking up new possible identities. They avidly “ship” fictional characters into same-sex couples, express anger/disappointment when shows/books have hetero couples, and talk constantly about LGBTQIA issues, representation, etc.

I have been, and want to be, supportive. My kid deserves to be loved and celebrated for who they are, and however their identity settles out is fine with me. But I am also struggling with these rapid changes. In the last two weeks, my kid has changed their name once and pronouns twice, colored their hair, worn exaggeratedly feminine eye makeup, pinned their hair up to look masculine, purchased a bikini and a dress and then asked me to buy them a binder (because they think it would be “fun” to look like a boy sometimes). At this point, it feels like they’re trying on identities like costumes, and that makes me very uncomfortable. None of it feels authentic—it seems more like a bid to stand out in a crowd or perhaps to find the limits of my acceptance.

I have worked so hard to make sure my kids know they are loved unconditionally, but if this kid is looking for a boundary, maybe I should set one? I literally squirmed when I wrote that sentence; setting a random limit on acceptance goes against everything I believe. But at the same time, I am so, so tired of hearing about their identity day after day after day and of trying to keep up with the changes. They’re a great, smart, interesting kid for a dozen different reasons; their gender/sexuality is just one aspect of their personality. Would it be wrong of me to say, in essence, “I love you, and will never not love you. When you figure out your identity let me know, and in the meantime can we maybe stop talking about it all the time?” Also, as the world opens up and my kid spends more time outside of our home, can I/should I ask them to be more thoughtful in how they present themselves? It seems to me that trans and nonbinary people cannot simply change their identities and expression for “fun,” so my kid’s behavior feels a little bit like cosplaying in a way that could be hurtful. Or do I just keep keeping my mouth shut, do my best to remember this week’s identity, and pray that this phase ends soon?

A New Jersey school board has scrapped the names of all holidays from its calender to avoid 'hurt feelings' after backlash over renaming Columbus Day as Indigenous Peoples Day.

Randolph Board of Education members unanimously voted to remove all holiday names off of the school calendar, including religious holidays such as Yom Kippur and Christmas, at a meeting that drew over 100 people on Thursday.

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

I hate my son’s girlfriend of 13 years. They are high school sweethearts who are now 30 and talking about buying property and eventually starting a family together. He currently lives at home and helps pay my mortgage, among other things. If he leaves, I will be forced to sell the house and adjust to a new lifestyle. I feel she will keep me away from my son when they move out. I have tried everything to split them apart and often make her feel unwelcome in my home and talk about her negatively to almost anyone who will listen. I even make her bring her own food when she stays here. Why can’t she just get the point that no one wants her here and move on!? What else can I do to get rid of her?

A white mother is accused of faking her six-year-old black daughter's illness and forcing the child to undergo more than 500 appointments and unnecessary surgery.

Sophie Hartman, 31, claimed that the little girl suffered from a rare neurological disease, Alternating Hemiplegia of Childhood, but doctors now say the child is perfectly healthy.

According to court documents, Hartman has taken her adopted daughter to appointments since she was around two years old, and subjected her to what doctors called an 'unnecessary medical procedure' with a surgically implanted feeding tube.