One of the hardest parts of parenting is discerning when to push and when to pull back, when to stand firm and when to back off, when to make kids do things and when to let them make their own decisions. You want your children to build the virtues of perseverance and resilience, but you also want to encourage independence and decision-making. Depending on the personalities of your kids, those lessons can be really tricky to balance.

Some things are non-negotiable, of course, such as household chores, pet care and seatbelts. But a sport or activity a child has chosen to do is a different story. It’s almost inevitable that a child will want to quit something at some point, which is sometimes the right thing to do and sometimes isn’t. How do we as parents determine—or help our kids determine—whether to have them stick with piano, karate, soccer, Scouts… or let them quit?

Former Olympic gymnast Nastia Liukin has shared her thoughts about quitting or wanting to quit when the going gets tough, which inspired some viral parental advice.

Perkins Music Studio shared a series of infographics from Big Life Journal outlining Liukin’s advice, which has been shared more than 11,000 times on Facebook. The beauty of it is in its logic and simplicity (in addition to the fact that it came from someone who understands persevering through difficulties).

The advice reads:

“Imagine your child comes back from a practice and says: ‘I hate karate! It’s too hard. I don’t want to do this anymore!’ Just tell them this: ‘Okay, you can quit. But not today.’ Then explain: ‘We all have bad days when we want to quit. When something feels hard, our brain and body resist because they want us to be comfortable. But if we quit on a bad day, we will never become great at something and we might regret this later.’

‘So here’s the deal. You can quit on a good day. When you have had a successful day and still want to quit, let’s talk.’

“This approach normalizes struggle (which builds resilience) and honors your child’s choice if they want to try something else.

“We all have these days when it’s just too hard. To build resilience, adopt this mantra: Never quit on a bad day.”

As a mom of three, I’ve been through the kid-wanting-to-quit dilemma too many times to count. Sometimes it’s clear that an activity just isn’t a good fit for a kid and the choice is simple. Sometimes others are relying on a kid not quitting, such as in a lot of team sports, so it’s wise to at least push through to the end of a season or at least through a predetermined date. Oftentimes, it really is just a rough day or a rough patch they’re going through, and in that case the “only quit on a good day” advice is so helpful.

If a kid isn’t having any good days, only bad ones, that’s hard. Some things just aren’t right from the get-go, and if a kid is consistently hating what they’re doing, pushing them to continue seems a bit cruel. However, it could be that the kid is having trouble getting adjusted to something new and just needs time. It can also be tricky to determine how much of the issue is incompatibility with the activity versus incompatibility with the people involved (or leading) the activity.

From my own experience, if a kid wants to quit, those feelings are real in the moment whether quitting is really the right thing or not. We’ve always been understanding and sympathetic, but usually had our kids stick it out for a bit to see if things got better. If it didn’t get better, then they could move on to something else. There’s no shame in stopping something that isn’t right for you, whether you’re young or old, in a sport or in a job. In fact, that’s just as important a life lesson as learning to persevere through difficulties.

But I do wish I’d had this advice to never quit on a bad day/only quit on a good day when my kids were younger. That would have made discussing and making these decisions a whole lot simpler for all of us.

Four-day work weeks have become increasingly more mainstream in corporate business settings. With productivity levels remaining the same—at times, even increasing—and with employees less subject to burnout, the appeal is palpable.

However, many restaurant workers do not have 9-to-5 schedules. “They’re literally working 70 hours a week, week in and week out,” reflected Chick-fil-A operator Justin Lindsey in an interview with QSR Magazine. His store in Miami had achieved top sales, but usually at the expense of the staff, who would even joke about going home to collapse after a shift.

In an effort to “do better,” Lindsey came up with an unconventional solution: a three-day work week.

Rather than cutting hours, Chick-fil-A employees would have a week’s worth of hours condensed into a set of three 13- to 14-hour shifts (keeping in mind that Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays). While Chick-fil-A is not without its questionable business practices, the fast-food restaurant chain’s experimental approach to work schedules that might make an overall positive impact. This could potentially help workers arrange consistent childcare, work on other projects and have more time to simply do what needs to be done in their life outside of a job.

Though those might seem like extremely long shifts, they are actually not all that different from a normal day. “It’s rare, especially for a leader, even in a five-day week, to work less than 10 hours a day,” Lindsey told QSR. “So if you gave [employees] the option, I think a lot of them would say, ‘oh yeah, I can suck it up a few more hours if you really only let me work three days.’”

This Chick-fil-A is implementing a “3 Day Work Week” where employees work three, 12 hour shifts.

They make $17/hr, while remaining full time and rotate weekends. pic.twitter.com/BAx4Tx10Ke

— 𝓔𝓵 𝓟𝓪𝓽𝓻ó𝓷 (@ZBankEnt) October 29, 2021

Aware that the long-term logistics might not be feasible—the aforementioned long hours, plus challenges in time-off requests—Lindsey was candid with his team from the get-go that this was “uncharted territory,” and that things would be figured out as they go.

So far, the transparency and people-first attitude has paid off. Not only has the Miami store achieved top-earning status and received a flood of 400 applicants, there’s been a 100% retention rate at the management level. But for Lindsey, it was never really about that. “Truly, from the bottom of my heart, I’m doing this because I think it’s the right thing to do,” he said.

Even more so than reducing work days, it’s giving people the power of choice that has made a positive difference. Workplace burnout is caused in part by the feeling of having little-to-no control while trying to balance adhering to a company’s bottom line and spending time with family and loved ones, maintaining physical and emotional wellness, or working on fulfilling projects. The result is emotional exhaustion, which unsurprisingly doesn’t lead to much productivity.

The impressive results that Lindsey and his Chick-fil-A team have accomplished, along with that of other companies exploring shorter work weeks, offer a bit of uplifting news against headlines of “quiet-quitting/firing” and “The Great Resignation,” and hopefully pave the way forward to a healthier relationship with work on a global level. For an industry that is particularly notorious for providing low wages, poor working conditions and little respect to even the most loyal of employees, it’s nice to see that some restaurant managers are attempting to move in a more compassionate direction.

Good things happen when employees are treated as human beings, plain and simple.

Disney is known for making big statements with small films, and one of the newest shorts from Disney Animation Studios says a whole lot in just 2 1/2 minutes.

The latest episode in Disney’s Short Circuit Experimental Films series, “Reflect,” takes on the topic of body image and body positivity through the eyes of a plus-size ballerina named Bianca. The journey she takes in the film is familiar to many, and different people may see themselves in each stage of it. (Spoiler alerts incoming.)

The short opens with Bianca dancing alone in a ballet studio, joyfully practicing her moves with her head held high and her face beaming. But as soon as the other students and the instructor enter the room, Bianca wilts, becoming self-conscious and unsure of herself. She approaches the mirror with the other girls, but she keeps her head down and avoids looking at her reflection.

Bianca doesn’t say a word throughout the entire film. In fact, the only words spoken in the entire short are the ballet instructor naming the dance moves for the girls to practice and her saying to Bianca, “Tight tummy, long neck,” as she walks by her.

When Bianca finally looks at her reflection, she places her hand on her stomach and suddenly everything goes dark. The mirror, now black before her, starts to crack and break into shards, then morph into a multilegged creature hovering ominously over her. She tries to escape by turning away and covering her eyes.

When she opens her eyes, all she can see is darkness and her own reflection in hundreds of mirrors that surround her. Those, too, start to crack and break apart. Everywhere she turns, she sees more and more of her own reflection in the broken pieces of glass.

Finally, she closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. She points her toe and the music shifts. As she starts to dance, twirling in a beautiful pirouette, the mirror shards in front of her light up and then shatter into nothingness. She continues to dance with greater and greater confidence, realizing she has control of the mirrors and can shatter them at will.

Once that realization dawns on her, she leaps through the broken shards and lands back in the ballet studio with the other students. Practicing a plié at the barre, she smiles at her own reflection, no longer afraid to look in the mirror.

The beauty in the message of this film is that Bianca finds body positivity in using her body for what she loves. In the end, it’s not what her body looks like, but what it can do that shapes how she feels about it.

u201c16 year old me needed this Disney short before I quit ballet because I didnu2019t want to be the fat girl in class anymore. Iu2019m glad little ones will have this. 10/10 for Reflect!u201d

— Meg Potter (@Meg Potter)
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Director Hillary Bradfield, who also worked on Disney’s “Encanto” and “Frozen II,” shared commentary at the beginning of the episode.

“I feel like I’m a very body-positive person in principle,” she said. “But when it’s on a personal level, it’s a lot harder to be body positive…When people watch the short, I hope they can feel more positively about themselves and how they look and feel OK about the tough parts of the journey.”

People’s reactions to the film have been largely positive, with some people sharing their own struggles with societal reactions to the size of their bodies.

u201cREFLECT on Disney+ (Series: Short Circuit). Do recommend for anyone that struggles with the image they see in the mirror. So, everyone. But this is especially for those of us that society shuns for having a body that doesnu2019t match the alleged u201cperfectu201d image. #bodypositivityu201d

— Katie. (@Katie.)
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Others have shared that, while having a plus-size lead character is needed representation, they wished it could be in a story that’s not focused on her body.

But body image is something many people struggle with, even if they don’t live in a larger body, so the appeal of the story is more universal than it may first appear. It’s also inspiring, no matter who you are, to see a character go through a transformative experience and come out triumphant on the other side.

As Bradfield said, “Maybe sometimes you go to the dark place to get to the good place, and that just makes the good place that much more beautiful.”

Indeed it does. Watch “Reflect” on Disney+ (Episode 6 in Season 2 of Short Circuit Experimental Films).

Normally, as temperatures cool during winter, thousands—and before 1990, millions—of amber-colored wings can be seen fluttering across the sky as the insects travel thousands of miles across North America to California and Mexico. Along the way, they’ll lay their eggs in milkweed plants, which is the only thing that monarch caterpillars will eat (yes, even babies of the animal kingdom are picky eaters). The relationship between milkweeds and monarchs is so integral that another name for a monarch is the “milkweed butterfly.”

However, milkweed has been rapidly disappearing since the 1990s, namely due to the use of herbicides. This, coupled with climate change leading to overwintering—meaning that the butterflies delay reproduction to survive winter—results in the abysmal amount of sightings in 2020. Yet still, this year saw a 35% increase.

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The reason behind such a big population boom almost seems like divine intervention. So many things had to line up that, in an interview with PBS, Louie Yang, insect ecologist at University of California, Davis, attributed the surge to a “series of fortunate events.” One of those events was that temperatures and rainfall levels were at just the rights levels at the right time, leading to more milkweed blooms just as surviving monarchs reemerged from overwintering.

Some experts even speculate that the miracle might have been born out of catastrophe. Pacific Grove park docent and retired entomologist Paul Meredith suggested to PBS that 2019’s wildfires prepared the ground for an “extraordinary wildflower season,” thus giving a boost to migrating adult monarchs this season.

While the reason behind the recent butterfly increase has yet to be thoroughly researched, there are definitive ways to help. As KSBW reports, this includes planting native milkweeds about 5-10 miles from an overwintering site, planting native nectar plants (which adult monarchs eat) and refraining from pesticide use. In addition, it’s crucial to support legislation that protects habitats for monarch butterflies and other pollinators.

Monarchs aren’t the only butterflies to make a resurgence thanks to conservation efforts. In the U.K., 750 large blue butterflies were discovered in August 2020 after being declared extinct in Britain in 1979. Again, it took recovering a natural habitat and food source—these British butterflies appropriately required thyme and marjoram, rather than milkweed. They also prefer tea to coffee, so I’m told.

This bit of good news is certainly worth sharing, and hopefully with awareness we can all help these gorgeous creatures spread their wings.

Taylor Swift’s “Mastermind,” the tenth song on her new (and also, tenth) studio album, Midnights, has been making serious waves on TikTok. Lyrically, Swift details how she meticulously planned parts of a relationship, presumably to land her current partner, Joe Alwyn.

From “ending up in the same room at the same time” and noting that “none of it was accidental,” she reveals at the song’s end that he wound up knowing the entire time about everything and who she was.

Following the song’s release, listeners are coming forward on social media to share the personal lengths they went to “Mastermind” their relationships. Quite a few worked out in their favor.

“as a result of new taylor swift song ‘mastermind’ girls have been posting their boyfriend acquisition stories on tiktok,” one viral tweet reads. The post includes a handful of screenshotted TikTok stories.

“I found this band on Spotify that I loved so much that I listened to their songs 50 times a day for a month, and then I thought ‘Hey the singers voice sounds raspy and hot’ and I looked him up and he was my dream man,” one video’s caption reads. “I shamelessly played one of his songs on the background of my stories and tagged them and he messaged me about it… I told him I didn’t really know anything about his music and we’ve been dating for two years.”

Other stories include girls requesting information for programs they weren’t in just to land a tour guide hottie, watching/reading things to have conversations with their crushes, and even lending a man a book to land a second date. Still, as most things go, it has sparked a debate online. Is it manipulative to “Mastermind” someone or not?

As one TikTok user pointed out, many of the couples presented in the viral stories are now in long-term relationships and seemingly happy. Only time will tell if it lasts after this trend. For now, others are simply lightening the mood with cat videos.

Continue scrolling for some additional viral TikTok tales set to Taylor Swift’s “Mastermind.”

Coming into the season, Anthony Davis made a public declaration that his personal goal was to play all 82 games this season for the Lakers, understanding that his absences for various injuries played a big role in the team missing the playoffs last year.

Davis bulked up some this offseason in hopes of being able to handle the wear and tear of the full season, particularly as he took on the challenge of playing center more regularly for the Lakers, but it took just over a week for Davis to suffer his first injury of the 2022-23 season and see his season-long goal of starting every game come to an end. On Friday night, Davis will sit out against the Minnesota Timberwolves with lower back tightness, after he grabbed at his lower back in L.A.’s most recent loss to the Nuggets after a dunk.

Davis has dealt with a variety of injuries in his career and has not played in more than 62 games in a season since 2016-17 while a member of the Pelicans (where he played 75 in back-to-back years). For the immediate, it’s a significant loss for the Lakers particularly when considering their opponent boasts a pair of All-NBA centers in Karl-Anthony Towns and Rudy Gobert, so there aren’t too many teams you’d rather face less without your star big man. On top of that, it likely means Russell Westbrook stays in the starting lineup after the Lakers had initially planned on having him come off the bench if Davis could start, further delaying their attempt at kickstarting Westbrook and their bench unit together.

From a long-term perspective, Davis’ goal of 82 games always felt a bit too ambitious, as very few players reach that number, but there’s no doubt his presence is needed for L.A. to have any chance at turning things around after an 0-4 start. Cresting 70 games would be a considerable achievement, but after Friday that would mean just 11 more absences from the lineup all season.

Kaash Paige may have returned home to Dallas after a stint in LA, but she is claiming her status as a hometown hero. On her latest single, “Doubted Me,” she proves her haters wrong, as she highlights what she’s accomplished over the past few years.

“They doubted me / I’ma be the biggest thing they ever seen / See my name in flashin’ lights and cover magazines / Do it for the real ones and I do this for my team,” she sings on the song’s chorus.

The song’s accompanying music video is a compilation of homemade clips set to the song. In the montage, we see Kaash at various stages of her life — from her childhood in Dallas, playing basketball and singing as a kid, and performing at tour stops and festivals across the country.

Kaash’s new project The Fall Off is set to arrive later this year. In a recent interview with Billboard, she revealed that the cover art will see Kaash sitting on a ledge and looking over her hometown.

“We all go through challenges every single day and I feel like a lot of people don’t know how to take risks or jump off,” she said. “It means a lot to me, because I feel like risks are the biggest things of success. Moving out to L.A. was a big success for me. Moving back to Dallas, I feel like that’s going to be a huge success for me as well. So I think right now, my whole life is about doing the unthinkable.”

Check out the video for “Doubted Me” above.

The best new hip-hop this week includes albums, videos, and songs from Ice Spice, Smino, Westside Gunn and more.

Happy Halloween! As spooky season comes to a close, rap fans got a few treats this week in the form of new releases from Ice Spice, whose new song “Bikini Bottom” may well keep the attention from her viral hit “Munch” coming, Trippie Redd and Don Toliver’s rebellious single”Ain’t Safe,” IDK’s MF DOOM homage “Monsieur Dior,” as well as deluxe versions of Baby Keem’s The Melodic Blue and Freddie Gibbs’ Soul Sold Separately.

Here is the best of hip-hop this week ending October 28, 2022.

Albums/EPs/Mixtapes

BabyTron — Bin Reaper 3: Old Testament

Michiganers have been rejoicing in the resurgence of the state’s underground rap scene, propelled by off-kilter cadences and over-the-top punchlines. BabyTron is perhaps one of the most unusual of the current crop, with a rapidly growing and increasingly vocal fan base singing his praises.

BlueBucksClan — Clan Way 3

West Coast duo BlueBucks has amassed a fervent following behind their nonstop flow of clever sports references and party-ready beat selection. Clan Way 3 was delayed a bit but proves to be worth the wait.

Che Noir — The Last Remnants

While much of the attention on Buffalo’s indie rap scene has centered on Griselda, fans hankering for gritty, bar-forward raps should not sleep on Che Noir, who proves that the upstate New York city has plenty of talent worth checking out.

Duke Deuce — Memphis Massacre III

In the fervor surrounding Quality Control’s marquee acts, it’d be easy to overlook the rest of their roster — and a mistake to do so. Duke Deuce is one of those; he’s an exuberant performer in his own right who raps like the titles of his songs: ALL CAPS.

Smino — Luv 4 Rent

The highlight of the week’s releases for my money, Luv 4 Rent is Smi’s long-awaited follow-up to 2018’s Noir. With a newfound sense of freedom and assists from the likes of J. Cole, Lil Uzi Vert, and more, he pays off fans’ patience in spades.

Westside Gunn — 10

Wisely cutting down the full title of his long-running mixtape series for its final installment in light of recent comments by a sometime collaborator, Griselda’s head honcho delivers more of what the Buffalo-bred producer’s fans have come to expect.

Yung Gravy — Marvelous

If nothing else, Gravy’s album is a perfect example of how to strike when the iron is hot. With his single “Betty” burning down TikTok and RickRolling us all in the process, he picked the perfect time to drop his fourth(!) studio album, ensuring maximum exposure.

Singles/Videos

Babyface Ray — “Nice Guy”

As the Detroiter joins his fellow Michigan rap compatriots in experiencing a boost in acclaim, he kicks off the rollout to the follow-up for his 2022 album Face with a cinematic video and more haunting reflections on the street life he’s working so hard to leave behind.

Busta Rhymes — “Slap” Feat. Big Daddy Kane & Conway The Machine

Goodness gracious. Two of rap’s most decorated vets turn in a performance that proves the best only get better with time. Conway’s contribution is also pretty cool but all the spotlight is deservedly stolen by Mr. Dark Gable himself, Big Daddy Kane.

Erick The Architect — “No Ice” Feat. Akthesavior

When Flatbush Zombies started working on solo projects, I’ll admit I was disappointed and a little skeptical. I needn’t have been; their solo output as a whole has been every bit as solid and their expanded perspectives make up for the missing group chemistry.

Ray Vaughn — “Tradeline”

Top Dawg Entertainment’s new hitter continues to put his fascinating approach to the label’s formula on display. Many of the hallmarks are there, but his rhymes are ginsu sharp and even more street-focused than those of TDE’s more established names. The end result fills an interesting lane, somewhere between the sharp insights and slick punchlines of Ab-Soul and Kendrick Lamar, and the casual gangsterism of Jay Rock and Schoolboy Q.

Stalley — “Red Light”

Ohio native Stalley is in the midst of a fruitful second life as a Curren$y/Larry June-esque indie who makes up for a lack of flash with cool consistency and low-key luxury. “Red Light” is the first single from his upcoming album Somebody Up There Loves Me, due December 6 on Mello Music.

Some artists covered here are Warner Music artists. Uproxx is an independent subsidiary of Warner Music Group.

Epic fantasy fans are currently living their best life, given the wealth of TV adaptations for said epic fantasy works. That includes Neil Gaiman’s dazzling The Sandman series on Netflix. He did not write Lord of the Rings, although some trolls did come for him over Amazon’s “woke” adaptation, but Neil is a fan, and he also digs deep when it comes to the Game of Thrones universe. That includes scrutiny of bodily functions.

Of course, House of the Dragon recently rolled out the first season finale, and the timing was right for George R.R. Martin to promote The Rise of the Dragon: An Illustrated History of the Targaryen Dynasty, Volume One while enjoying a conversation with Gaiman in New York City. Well, the American Gods author had a hard-hitting question about the source of Tyrion Lannister’s daddy issues. Via Variety, this went down with a question about which digestion-related affliction applied to Tywin Lannister:

Gaiman: “Did Tywin have chronic diarrhea or chronic constipation?”

Martin: “I think he was possibly a little constipated.”

This speaks for itself, does it not? Variety also details their wide-ranging discussion that included the dynamic duo dissecting the horrors that can happen with adaptations. Martin elaborated with his observations about which “legitimate” changes should happen while adapting for a new medium and which ones can stuff it:

He recalled adapting Roger Zelazny’s “The Last Defender of Camelot” for an episode of “The Twilight Zone” and, due to budget constraints, being forced to choose between having horses or an elaborate Stonehenge-esque set for a battle scene. (He didn’t want to make the decision, so he called up Zelazny, who chose to scrap the horses.) “That, to my mind, is the kind of stuff you are called upon to do in Hollywood that is legitimate.” An example of an “illegitimate” change, Martin said, was CBS making him include an “ordinary person” who just “tags along” in the episode in order to appeal to a “high concept.”

“I was new to Hollywood,” Martin said. “I didn’t say, ‘You’re f*cking morons.’”

There’s nothing else like observing an author who, on one hand, infuses intricate webs of characters with a dizzying array of names that seem geared to f*ck with us, and on the other, drops f-bombs and doesn’t mind discussing constipation. Thank god that this discussion didn’t involve King Viserys I. He had suffered enough already.

(Via Variety)

Taylor Swift’s Midnight has officially been out for a week and it’s expectedely already been smashing streaming records. Swift said that even though her tenth studio album is “dark,” she had, “more fun making it than any album I’ve ever made.” Adele has praised her as, “One of the greatest songwriters of our generation,” and Bon Iver’s Justin Vernon called Swift, “the most talented person in the world.” So what is the method to her mastery?

On an appearance on The Graham Norton Show, Swift got deep. Sometimes it’s hard to verbalize what exactly goes into making a concept album, but Swift was very clear in the inspiration behind her songwriting.

“It’s a concept album. And the main question is: ‘What keeps you up at night,” Swift began. “So it’s you know, you could be up at night because you’re reeling from just having met someone and you’re falling for them. Or you could be plotting revenge,” she joked. She then references a moment of vulnerability in a “nightmare” screen test she did with actor Eddie Redmayne for a role in the 2012 Les Miserables feature film, saying “You could be thinking about that time that they painted your teeth brown. You could be thinking about what could have been.”

Swift then takes a breath and summarizes how the concept guided her through the entire songwriting process: “You know, there’s just so many possibilities. If you give that like — if you think of that as a creative writing prompt, which is what I did. That’s where the album came from.”