However, it is important to strike a balance between providing guidance and allowing autonomy. Parental involvement and support are crucial, especially during challenging times such as the pandemic. Finding ways to involve children in decision-making processes, considering their opinions, and gradually granting them age-appropriate responsibilities can help foster their development and resilience.

Children's National Day (https://www.thenewsinsides.com/blog/national-sons-day/) is an occasion dedicated to celebrating and acknowledging the importance of children. It serves as a reminder to grant children the autonomy and freedom to express themselves, make choices, and participate in decision-making within appropriate boundaries. Encouraging children's autonomy can promote their overall development, independence, and self-confidence.

I think everybody has heard of the "Don't Say Gay" law, but I did not realize there were so many other laws being passed in Florida to restrict freedom of thought, expression and even health care. This all starts to feel like the beginning of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia.

I don't block "content",I block ads. Years ago,ad mongers had the chance to play nice on the internet and refused to do so...My blocking them is the end result. The advertising industry wants to remove your freedom to control your own computer & they forget, It's an internet browser, not an internet billboard.

This case makes a complete mockery of the USA and UK's claim to any "freedom of the press". Or any other "moral high ground".

world to watch thei The advertising industry wants to remove your freedom to control your own computer & they forget, It's an internet browser, not an internet billboard. They want to force the world to watch shitty ads.

Sir Ken Robinson had some very good talks about this subject, for instance this one from 2007 or this one from 2013. And looking at the date the article was published, 2017, it can't be ignored nothing has changed since that publication let alone Sir Ken's talks.

I have done several guest-teachings at primary schools, including really awesome workshops, mostly about and with art and also about healthy food (which even made it to tv). What I encountered a lot on all those schools were the straightjackets of regulation and an overkill of administrative work the teachers had to endure. Not to mention very strict teaching rules the teachers had to obey. No room or freedom there. No real ways or experiments to inspire kids there. Just the standard tests, just discipline, well, nothing really sparkling or even close to fun.
My workshops and teachings were somehow distractions from all the indoctrinary those schools had to offer. It is even so bad, that kids still remember me after all those years. So, I agree with the article and more so with Sir Ken. And probably a lot of teachers will agree with me that our two hundred year old school system and ways of government ordered teaching are pretty much out of touch with our current knowledge of psychology, sociology and pediatrics (just to name a few). Not to mention the world.

Most people do not even know the existence of the choices they have. You are right that one of the choices is to use all, which is fine by me. To each its' own. Loyalty is a big word when it is rammed down your throat as "this is the only thing everybody uses", but I get your point. :-) By deleting my Facebook-page, I tripled the amount of visitors to my site, which could be coincidence (which it is not), because people seem to see the idea behind that move: an algorithm didn't decide for them whether they see my work or not.

I do not like half-baked versions of privacy, like saying Whatsapp is encrypted, while it still runs through Facebook-servers, while Facebook still seem to use all data for their own commercial goods. Encrypted maybe, but still used as tool for commercial purposes which are forced onto people.
Loyalty like that comes with a price and I do not like to be part of that, which is a choice I am most liberate to take. Looking at my communications with potential clients, the real visitors to my site and the people that seem to see that choice as what it is: using freedom. My family, friends and clients are just as free to do with that choice what they want. Personally, I prefer that above hypocrisy and half-baked choices, but still see their choice as good, whatever it is, because it is theirs. :-)

I love the internet and the freedom it gives in choice, expression and diversity. But a nasty thing that big companies, like Facebook or Google, bring is that people are not really that motivated to change to a better standard and/or do not want to "learn all that new stuff". That's more of a real world problem: laziness. I have Signal installed a pretty decent while ago and although I advertise it with articles like this one, people are like "but what about my friends, they don't change. I stay with [fill in behemoth]". The only way to dothat is by brute force, as in: advertise it with the message "I quit everything from [fill in behemoth] and if you want to get in contact with me, [fill in free/private standard/application] is the way to go. Bye."

That is a very destructive way, but also a good filter. At the end there's either no one left, or at least the people who see your point or people who really care (about you). Not the blindly clicked-on friends that you hardly know or even ever saw in real life. This makes the internet more of a place of coincidence again and it will give a more fair chance to, for instance, small entrepreneurs and artists. On big sites like Facebook, it is Facebook who decides if you will have customers or not, even with paid advertisements. Which I think is not a fair competition and it dilutes quality in a big sea of hobbyists and sets a way lower standard of quality. In real life that means you get passed by by people/clients who do not know quality and service anymore. I am all for breaking up big monopolists.

Wait...including Americans?

- Am representative American, at ideal body weight if I were 7'2" freedom units tall (am not 7'2")

Fairly standard approach. To really see financial freedom, getting rid of "bad" debt as quickly as possible has always worked for me. It frees up funds to increase investing, playing, and developing better spending habits.

Sounds interesting, and the idea of getting something for free is intriguing, but I suspect there is jail time for anyone caught doing this and this girl likes her freedom! I will watch from the cheap seats. ;-)

I am using Linux for quite some years already and am very happy with it. About eleven years ago I had the chance to follow two courses, not from the Linux foundation, but organized by the "evening schools" of university here in town. Linux System administration and Linux Network administration and Safety. Very basic down to earth courses, which taught me a lot about using my computer just from the terminal, without relying on any GUI, scripted installers and, god forbid, a graphical installer. Sweaty months and I passed the exams, which were pretty damn hard to do. My intention to do that was not from a professional perspective, because I have different career choices in life than being a sys admin or other IT job. I thought it was good, because it helped/helps me with easy problem solving, even when everything else has failed. It helps me feeling secure while tinkering to optimize my system. I will never regret that decision, because I could somehow validate the help I gave to others with their computers. Quite a lot of people have running Linux systems thanks to me and thus saved a shitload of money in the process. It gave them, just like me, the idea of choice and freedom of use of bought and paid for equipment. It works.

My little art-studio runs exclusively on open source and Linux, as far as computers are needed. It started being fed up with incompetence caused by using Windows and a plethora of proprietary software, the usual frustration every convert seems to encounter. It ended up with not really thinking about all those nights full of cursing ever again and the courses made me able to take on a problem and solve it. Most of the time in the terminal, without a sweat. The teacher I had with those courses was a hardcore Linux admin, nearly a fundamentalist, but I am very grateful for the liters of sweat he extracted from me. I am as technical as every next man/woman, as in none, and I do not consider Linux a hard thing to learn. All it takes is being open minded and having the will to learn something (new). Before the course I thought and boasted about "knowing" Linux, after that (now) I do not boast one little bit. I mostly giggle when people come to my place asking for help. And am happy when they walk out, knowing their fresh install will give them a little sweat, but with the foresight they will solve their problems themselves from now on. Some gave up when they bought their new computer after years of Linux and went back to frustrations, because "everyone uses this", but most of them installed the new machine with their favorite distribution and went on with their lives.

Totally recommend a decent course in the OS and not just for tech savvy people or for job prospects. :-)

I was a young, unattached man when this war started; my oldest son is now almost as old as I was back then

there are generations of Afghans who grew up in the midst of this war; some born into it

after two decades of violent conflict, there’s nothing like a peace talks summit - organized and facilitated, mind you, by the withdrawing and occupying force - to heal all wounds, right all wrongs and solve all problems which caused the violence to erupt in the first place

I hope the best for the Afghans but given the much-disdained facts of the matter, I fear the worst for them

I suppose I’m just a cynical old person who should be grateful for and positive about everything

especially given how nobody could foresee any of the events of the last 20 years unfolding beforehand (it’s not like there were any historical presidents for western invasions into Afghanistan or indeed for US involvement in land wars in Asia)

so long as lessons are learned, progress is being made and whatever the cost may be is at least not in vain

and I suppose we might look at it from the POV that Afghanistan and the rest of the world owes a big debt of gratitude to US DoD for trying their goshdarn hardest to bring peace, justice and freedom to Afghanistan at a low, low price of a trillion dollars and mere hundreds of thousands of lives

and let’s not forget the American people: a big thanks to them for cheering their government on every step of the way on this road to prosperity, in the name of righteous retribution

mishun accomplished!

if, that is, the mission was to destabilize the region, lose international credibility, leave a gaping hole for China and Russia, and put the Taliban exactly where they were twenty years ago

call me pragmatic, but you could have instead done nothing, saved a trillion dollars in the process and landed up with the same, exact outcome (minus the death and destruction, of course)

on a side note - how’s everything in Syria? has anybody at the US DoD proposed leaving Assad right where he is and pulling out now?

could save a couple of trill and that’s where he will land up being in ten years in any case

just asking for a friend cuz - ya’know... y’all have a rep ‘s all im sayin’

Toke up and enjoy your freedom. With Illinois becoming the 11th state to legalize recreational marijuana on Jan 1st, this should not be much of a surprise to anyone who has been tracking pot legalization.

And it's so very true. I feel sorry for today's kids.

“Children are needlessly overprotected by adults,” she says in a film from the 1970s. “They’re never given any freedom to explore and experiment and find out what the world is all about.”

I agree,as does Chelsea Manning, and Snodem too. But those with the power hate being caught with their hands in the cookie jar and those who did the catching will be punished cause it's all about the powerful keeping their dirty deeds hidden.

The Assange indictment is far more threatening than Trump tweets snarling at CNN. The ACLU warns that prosecuting Assange for Wikileaks’ publishing operations would be “unconstitutional” and sets a “dangerous precedent for U.S. journalists, who routinely violate foreign secrecy laws to deliver information vital to the public's interest.” Trevor Timm of the Freedom of the Press Foundation declared: “Any charges brought against WikiLeaks for their publishing activities pose a profound and incredibly dangerous threat to press freedom.”

Incident by incident people are going to realize the mistake of forgoing the rights you have in an open society to one that has neither rights nor the freedom to ask for them

Thing about being a billionaire is that part about not being broke and being able to do whatever the hell you want. So, let's see how many of them would love the government to take all their possessions and give up that pesky freedom and the continuous full wallet.

People in the US claim to have freedom and yet they aren't even allowed to grow food in their own properties? Classy.

I come from Eastern European country. I am not used to filing my taxes, and yes I find it inundating to fill in taxes in US

BUT

I also find that if you file as a "simple person", with a single w2, then it is actually very easy. Yes, it is harder than in my country, but it also reminds you, that you are paying your money to the government. The money you have earned. No you don't earn 40k, you earn 55k, and you forfeited 15k to the government. You paid them dude. So you can expect stuff. In countries without this "simple people" often see taxes as weather, something that just exists and you can't do anything about, often they don't even know how much taxes they are paying.

And also I find that this cumbersome process actually is complex because it gives you hundreds of ways to save money depending on the life situation if you are smart enough to use them. It is highly optional to use them. You don't have to. Leave money on the table and file simple. Your choice.

And even if you pay to attorney to do you taxes for you, I don't see it as a burden because in "other Western nations" it is still done for you, just by the government agencies that using your money you paid in taxes (that are much higher than those $100)! And you cannot opt out and do it yourself, or do it with TaxAct or something else.

So again, yeah freedom is pretty cumbersome. Making choices and decisions, it's hard. But begging for someone to take the choice away because you're too inundated to spend your will power to make the choice is just weird.

Maybe they'd be more forgettable if they were just countless, imaginative, hard-working dissident Dadaesque street theater samizdat guerrilla art wee folk, but you've gotta admire the way they didn't let winning their freedom go to their head. Thanks for them!

Ambassador-at-Large for Religious Freedom,

WTF? Is that the Ambassador-at-Large for Christian Religious Freedom? Isn't what that tribe did count as religious freedom?

From "Like this" link....a brilliant segue and find by the way:

“I’m proof,” he said, “that you can get a complete historical cycle in one lifetime.”

Still fit but graying at age 64, he is again on the front lines of a freedom struggle.

But this time, the blind courage of youth is gone. He knows the advantage lies with the autocrats.

Right-thinking people prefer to call that "Freedom-fried."

People need to be taught that freedom isn't free. Obviously, this being Trump's Amerika, that applies to some more than others.