Living and dealing with kids can be a tough job these days, but living and dealing with parents can be even tougher.

If I have learned anything in my 16 years, it is that communication is very important, both when you disagree and when you get along. With any relationship, you need to let the other person know how you are feeling. If you are not able to communicate, you will drift apart. When you are mad at your parents, or anyone else, not talking to them doesn't solve anything.

Communication begins with the intention of caring about others. It means that you can't just come home from school, go up to your room and ignore everyone. Even if you just say "Hi", and see how their day was for five minutes, it is effective.

If you looked up the word "communication" in a dictionary, it would say "the imparting(传达) or exchanging of information by speaking, writing, or by using some other medium". To keep a good relationship, you must keep communication strong. Let people know how you feel, even if it's just by writing a note.

When handling parents, you always have to make them feel good about how they are doing as a parent. If you are trying to make them see something as you see it, tell them that you'll listen to what they have to say, but ask them politely to listen to you. Yelling or walking away only makes the situation worse.

This is an example: one night, Sophie went to a street party with her friends. She knew she had to be home by midnight after the fireworks, but she didn't feel she could just ask to go home. That would be rude. After all, they had been nice enough to take her along with them. Needless to say, she got home late. Her parents were mad at first, but when Sophie explained why she was late, they weren't so mad and let the incident go. Communication is the key factor here. If Sophie's parents had not been willing to listen, Sophie would have been in a lot of trouble.

Communication isn't a one-way deal: it goes both ways. Just remember: if you get into a situation like Sophie's, tell the other person how you feel—listening is the key factor to communication.

The world becomes a better place when we not only recognize that everyone has bad days, but also care enough to act accordingly. No matter what kind of bad experience we have, we should treat it actively. Fourth-grade teacher Rachel Harder recognized this, and she found an amazing way to help out both her students and their families.

A few years ago, the Kansas teacher attended a trauma(心理创伤) conference. She learned that some police stations partner schools so they can let teachers know when one of their students has a police encounter, something that could cause them to need extra care or attention. A year after the conference, Rachel had a student with autism(自闭症) who frequently had tough days. To support the student, Rachel told his mom to simply text her "handle with care" to let her know when it was going to be one of those days.

The simple method was such a success that Rachel decided to send all her students' home a note for their parents. It explained what the "Handle with Care" system was and how they could take advantage of it. In no time, parents began to show their appreciation for Rachel's incredible act of kindness. Rachel's sympathy didn't end with her class. Word spread about the amazing system, and teachers across the country began giving it a shot in their own classrooms. Printouts can be found on the Smart School House website, and the feedback has been extremely positive!

Even though teachers can sometimes tell when a student is having a tough day just by the way they're acting, Rachel said these simple texts allowed educators to make minor adjustments in advance that, in turn, made the whole day better for everyone. "It's important for me to give kids a few minutes of extra time or space, " she said, "and it's easy to give. "

Your circle of friends may help you get a better reading of your overall health and wellness rather than just using wearable devices such as a Fitbit, according to researchers.

The study, published in the journal PLOS ONE, analyzed what the structure of social networks says about the state of health, happiness and stress.

"We were interested in the topology(拓扑学) of the social network—what my position within my social network predicts about my health and well-being," said Nitesh V. Chawla, an educationalist at the University of Notre Dame in the US.

"What we found was that the social network structure provides a significant improvement in predictability of wellness states of an individual over just using the data obtained from wearables, like the number of steps or heart rates," Chawla said.

For the study, participants wore a Fitbit to capture health behaviour data about walking, sleeping, heart rates and overall activity level. They also completed surveys and self-assessments of their stress, happiness and positivity.

Chawla and his team then analyzed the data with a machine learning model, alongside the association and characteristics of an individual's social network.

The study showed a strong correlation(关联) between social network structures, heart rates, the number of steps and level of activity.

Social network structure provided extraordinary improvement in predicting one's health and well-being in contrast to just looking at health behaviour data from the Fitbit alone.

For example, when social network structure was combined with the data from wearables, the machine learning model achieved a 65 percent improvement in predicting happiness.

The model also achieved a 54 percent improvement in predicting one's self-assessed health prediction, a 55 percent improvement in predicting the positive attitude and a 38 percent improvement in predicting success.

This study asserts(断言) that without social network information, we only have an incomplete view of an individual's wellness state. "To be fully predictive or to be able to obtain intervention(干预), it is critical to be aware of the social network," Chawla said.