When I asked my 12-year-old daughter and her friends whether the world still needs Disney princesses, the answer was a resounding "yes"!—even though they have already outlived their Prince fantasies and couldn't particularly tell me why.

Spend much time with a four-year-old girl in the U.S., and you will likely see some sort of princess play, whether it be dressing up, acting out stories, or playing with princess-themed toys. This particular type of pretend play is very important lo children. According to some scientific studies, children who regularly engage in pretend play have more positive emotions with peers, score higher on emotional understanding, and are better at emotional regulation one year later. Research suggests that princess play specifically can lead to rich experiences for children as they expand on the stories of familiar characters.

Princesses also provide examples of “women who rule”, showing women and girls that they can be accepted as the heroines of their own stones and lead with wisdom and maturity. In other words, princesses inspire potential.

Adults often think of princesses in a negative way: someone who is too proud or crazy about their appearance. But in children's imagination, the word “princess” allows them to become what they want to be. Maybe they won't save the world, but they will defend their values. Maybe they won't have the perfect figure, but they can develop the confidence to move beyond appearance.

Princesses, I must admit, may still be important today. Princess culture is less about a princess lifestyle but more about great depth of character, serving as a beautiful reminder of self—worth which goes beyond appearance or environment and is found deep within. Therefore, no matter how difficult our circumstances are, princesses encourage us to remember our worth.

A study of almost 2,700 children aged between seven and ten in 38 schools in Barceiona, Spain, first researches the impact of traffic noise on child cognitive (认知的) development over time.

The children in the study are in a critical stage for the development of memory and attention skill, which are essential to learning. The research found that children exposed to about three times more traffic in the street than other children had memory development that was 23% slower and attention ability development 5% slower over a year.

Noise is the second most damaging environmental factor to health, after air pollution, and, for example, was already known to increase heart attacks in adults. The UN said that urban noise pollution was growing into a global public health threat, leading to 12,000 early deaths a year in the EU alone and affecting many cities.

But research on the impact of road noise on children was limited until now. “We do not know that noise can actually be toxic (有害的) from a physical point of view,” said Dr. Maria Foraster, from the Barcelona Institute for Global Health, who led the study. “We think that we adapt to it, but research has shown that we don’t completely—we still have a physiological (生理的) response.

The research revealed that peaks of noise heard inside the classroom, such as the passing of loud trucks, had more impact than a higher average level of noise. It also found higher noise levels at school were more damaging than at home.

Prof. Iroise Dumontheil, at Birkbeck, University of London, UK, said, “This carefully designed study provides convincing evidence. Considering that many European children living in large cities are exposed to high road-traffic noise levels, this study has implications for public policy to reduce road-traffic noise near schools.”

The research follows previous work that showed higher levels of aircraft noise at school affected reading comprehension and cognitive development. Next, the authors said, they would like to see their findings replicated (复制) in different cities and towns, where schools may be

I don’t post recognizable pictures of my children on social media. I don’t use their names. I don’t put anything out there that will be really embarrassing for them in later life.

The reason for not posting pictures is that I feel a person’s pictures should be his or her own. It’s not good for me to push my kids out into the wilds of the Web before they’re ready, and understand what it all means.

When the time comes, they’re more than welcome to use social media. But for now, I’m happy to give them a degree of separation until they can make a choice for themselves.

This has meant extra efforts on our part when it comes to making sure that kids don’t get accidentally caught up in the Internet, because the schools where they learn, like so many others up and down the country, post their pictures to social media.

However, my husband thought I was overanxious and asked me a question about its advantages. And having thought about it for while, I’m not 100 percent sure if there are any.

But I could list the disadvantages: the time it takes to manage an account, often by a teacher, meaning extra work; the unavoidable difficulties in safeguarding.

It’s great to see the kids doing their things in schools but my worry is about the use of social media that doesn’t give anything back to the kids, and in many ways, just turns them into another way to gain clicks. I want more than that for them.