This Friday, "La buena hija" premiered in cinemas, by director Júlia de Paz (Sant Cugat del Vallès, 1995), which shows the consequences of vicarious violence and sexist violence on children, often unrecognized victims. And it does so through Carmela, a 12-year-old girl, who has to periodically go to a meeting point to meet her father, whom she idolizes. Little by little, however, the girl – and with her, the viewer – will discover who he really is and his way of exercising psychological violence.

Mystery, adventures, horror, romance, dystopias, and comics. Above all, comics. The reading interests of young people are varied, and these are some of the themes that abound when it comes to discerning what they read, but there's more, and they obey reasons and interests that update as they grow older.

Everyone is clear that reading is good and having the habit of reading is even better. For years we have been trying to do this from high schools, especially language teachers. I say we try because we don't always succeed. In a few high schools in Catalonia, half an hour is dedicated to reading every day. Where I work, this is done in all courses, from first year of ESO to second year of baccalaureate. Sometimes, on guard duty or walking through the corridors, you see that the youngest ones, those in the first cycle, still maintain the desire to read. The key word is "still", because I fear that with adolescence, a good part of the students lose the reading habit. Some, unfortunately, forever.

I remember going shopping for clothes with my mother who had that habit of everything having to match, everything having to go together. There was that obsession with making sure any piece you bought matched the clothes you already had.This is no longer the case with your daughters. Do you have many arguments about clothes?

Of all the mistakes I've made in my maternal journey, of which there are many and varied, there has also been a great success: enrolling my children in the after-school club. It's the town's after-school club, called Globus Roig, and like all after-school clubs, they educate in leisure and, above all, they educate in something enormous: that the youngest have adolescents as role models who act as monitors, who play with them and take them on camps in exchange for nothing. Let's return to this concept so we don't overlook it. In. Exchange. For. Nothing. It is the maximum generosity in a world where adolescents have a reputation for not looking up from their phones and living in an infinite scroll without their own criteria. We value this refuge of young people who have decided to mortgage all their weekends and their holidays to be with our children. this refuge of young people who have decided to mortgage all their weekends and their holidays to be with our children.

You have an argument with your son or daughter and, without being able to help it, you immediately ignore them for a while and practically don't speak to them. This practice, known as the silent treatment, can have consequences for the minor. "This adult behavior generates feelings of guilt, rejection, and misunderstanding in minors, and can damage their self-esteem and their ability to face conflicts in the future," explains Sylvie Pérez, psychopedagogue and collaborating professor of psychology and educational sciences studies at the UOC.

In the school in Girona that I attended as a child, Carol Law Lee, of Chinese origin, was for a long time the only girl with parents from abroad. “I felt exotic. The older students would touch my hair and say it looked like threads!”, she recalls. Years later, however, another Chinese girl arrived, whom she “felt close to” and “was very eager to meet”.

—Martí, you have blood cancer.

A few weeks ago, the students of the Baldiri i Reixac School in Barcelona went on a school trip. The children in I5, second, and fourth grade did. Until last year, all grades went, but the teaching staff decided to reserve them only for the end of the cycle because it was becoming increasingly difficult to find teachers willing to go each year. They thought that the fact that not everyone had to go each year would lead to greater availability on the part of the teachers. Years ago, the opposite decision was made. The trips were held at the end of the cycle, and it was agreed to extend them to all grades. “We teachers attached great importance to the trips, but little by little we have been getting worn out,” comments a teacher from the center.

Today we will have meatballs with potatoes, which with the basics I have in the freezer are quick to make and ideal for days, like today, when we have a lot to do before lunch.Will the girls give you a hand?

Between 1996 and 1998, the Montsolís family, owners of wineries in Penedès, entered many Catalan homes through television. Nissaga de poder, the afternoon daily series on TV3, popularized a woman's name that until then was anecdotal in Catalonia: Abril. Actress Mónica López played the character of Abril Montsolís, much loved by the audience, daughter of Raimon Montsolís, the younger brother of the winery owners.

Adolescence is a very complicated stage of development to accompany with serenity and empathy because it requires adults a combination of patience, listening, and constant understanding. The adolescent, submerged in a web of physical, cognitive, psychological, emotional, and social changes, often appears at home irritable and with little desire to share everything that worries or bothers them. An attitude that, far from being a personal rejection, usually reflects the need to protect oneself, to understand oneself, and to find one's own place in the world. In this context, the adult perspective becomes key: interpreting these behaviors calmly and without judgment can make the difference between raising walls or keeping communication bridges open.A family moment when talking to children stops being easy: what arose spontaneously in childhood – explaining how the day at school went, sharing worries, or asking curious questions – progressively transforms into a true odyssey, where managing to exchange more than four words without tension, argument, or anger appearing becomes a challenge that often bewilders and exhausts adults. And it is precisely in these difficult moments when parents' patience and calm can make the difference between building walls or keeping communication bridges open.

For young people, it is positive and necessary to have role models to follow, it helps them to build their identity, imagine different possibilities, find motivations, and know where to go. “The most important thing would be to have several role models, and for them to be human and imperfect, so they become a guide to look up to and not a pressure to imitate”, proposes Sylvie Pérez Lima, a registered psychologist and professor at the UOC. But what are young people's idols like in the digital age? From the 1960s to the 2000s, teenagers' bedrooms were transformed with posters of their youth idols hanging on the walls. “They were young people a bit older than them whom they looked up to, and they idealized their image and identity,” explains Carles Feixa, a professor of social anthropology at the UPF and coordinator of the Youth in Spain Report (INJUVE 2024). In the 1960s, teenagers appropriated their bedrooms for the first time and displayed their idols, especially musical ones, rock’n’roll and rock evolutions. In the 70s, they were revolutionary political idols –Mao Tse Tung, Che, or Fidel Castro–, who, with the crisis at the end of the 70s, ceased to have continuity. Then, consumer idols returned with more commercial music, not so much protest-oriented, and sports idols, especially in football and tennis, who were models of success. It is from the 2000s onwards that digitalization began and more artificial idols emerged, youtubers and influencers, who would go on to occupy an even more intimate space, social media. Lucía (15 years old) does have posters hanging in her room, a couple from one of the Spiderman movies and several of Sadie Sink (@sadiesink_), an actress from Stranger Things: “I follow her on social media and watch all the interviews she does, she's my crush”. What she watches most on TikTok and Instagram are reels of series, music, and especially humor, accounts that make her laugh –“many silly things, falls, and slips”–, Manu Rivas (@manurivasr) or Pablo Vera's (@pablovr11) dances, news channels, and people who explain things like Javi Hoyos's (@javihoyosmartinez) gossip.

The two siblings in the play, Ernest and Sandra, have opposing memories of their dying father, Climent. In my case, the memory is more multifaceted. I see my father's good sides and also the bad ones, which are not about authoritarianism, but about a certain affective and emotional neglect. One of those men from an era when it was thought that men don't cry, who only knew how to communicate with their children by talking about FC Barcelona. There is a lot of reflection on fatherhood, from many aspects.At the farmhouse, however, strange things happen.

Salt is known today as the municipality with the lowest per capita income in Catalonia. Also one of the towns with the highest concentration of migrant population: nearly 40% of residents are of foreign nationality. But what headlines have overlooked in recent years is that almost half of this town's surface is still orchards and pastures. The Monar canal, parallel to the Ter river, marks the border between the built-up Salt and the agricultural zone. Few facilities surpass it, except for a large institute built on fertile land. Located on the border with Girona, surrounded by greenery and with magnificent views of the Mare de Déu del Mont, lies Vallvera. A secondary and vocational training center with more than 1,200 students, inaugurated in 2008, which contrasts with its surroundings by being a large gray sheet metal center with a concrete-filled courtyard. "In winter it's a refrigerator and in summer an oven, there's no in-between!", laments the director, Ferran Maimir, who started this academic year with a direction very focused on working for the renaturalization of the courtyard, but with a different method: that the students themselves build the shade with their hands.

Sleeping well is essential, as sleep allows the body and mind to recover and function correctly. In the case of children, sleep takes on even greater importance because it is key to their knowledge and cognitive development. As explained at the Sant Joan de Déu Hospital's Health School, babies and children need deep and restorative sleep to process what they have learned during the day, consolidate memory, and develop their motor and emotional skills. In adolescence, the hormonal changes typical of this stage can make it difficult for them to maintain adequate sleep schedules, which can have consequences on their mood and academic performance.

Coia Valls (Reus 1960) is an actress, teacher, speech therapist, and writer. In 2010 she won the Néstor Luján prize for historical novels with her first novel, The Jade Princess. She now publishes her tenth, Gaudí's Dream (Rosa dels Vents).

She studied at the Sant Josep school in Reus. “It was a convent school, and my mother started taking me before I was old enough, at two years old, because she had to work and look after my younger sister”. She was a very quiet child. “While my sister would climb everywhere, I was like an artichoke. I would listen, look, play with a toy and could spend hours like that”.

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It's 10:30 a.m. on a winter Friday, and when we arrive at 12-year-old Martín's room, we find him with his hospital teacher, Alba Sau. Together, they're trying to identify the fruit scent of each of the perfume bottles arranged on a tray. The young boy, who suffers from a rare metabolic disorder called sulfite oxidase deficiency, laughs every time he correctly identifies one of the fragrances, showing off his keen sense of smell. The day before, they had been painting, improvising a paintbrush with a straw and a pencil that Martín used in his mouth. "We try to adapt as much as possible to each child's tastes and interests to connect with them," Alba explains, while trying to set up Tobii, the tablet Martín uses to communicate through his eyes, on Martín's bedside table. "For me, it's essential that Martín can communicate, not only with me, but also with his mother and the healthcare staff; it's part of his recovery," she emphasizes.

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What should the relationship between parents and their children be like when the latter begin to delve into the world of social media? How do the algorithms work? What security measures should families and children take? Or what red lines cannot be crossed to guarantee good management? A window in your pocket (Editorial Mediterrània) is a family story, funded by the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities, that answers all these questions. The story stems from three years of research by communication PhDs Mireia Montaña Blasco, from the UOC, and Mònika Jiménez-Morales, from the UPF, on how young people use social media. More than 1,000 teenagers between the ages of 12 and 18 participated in the research, explaining how they use platforms like TikTok and what the consequences are.

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At three months old, Pau was rolling over, and by nine months he was already walking. As a baby, he was a chatterbox. We read together a lot, and this, in addition to reinforcing his literacy development, also strengthened our bond, his curiosity, and his imagination. He would run out of the house, his eyes always sparkling.

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