Culture, educational leisure and transport face the start of the 2026-27 academic year with uncertainty. The reason is the stoppage of activities outside the classroom, which threatens an impact that goes well beyond schools. Still without concrete data on the extent of the effects, families, companies, associations, entities and experts warn of the educational, economic and social consequences of the temporary pressure measures by education professionals, who are demanding labor improvements.While negotiations with the Department of Education are not bearing fruit due to the unions' standoff, which, despite the agreement signed at the end of the school year, continue their standoff with the Government, the cultural sector is already starting to put numbers to the impact of the stoppage on school activities. In the world of performing arts, Óscar Rodríguez, a board member of ADETCA, the association of private Catalan theaters, explains that, on average, private theaters are recording 50% fewer school bookings compared to last year. In Barcelona, however, the drop is even more pronounced: "The figures are falling between 85 and 90% compared to last year in theaters like the Tantarantana or the Autèntica".ADETCA respects the demands of education professionals and ensures that it agrees with them, but warns that the situation "is directly harming a key sector for the culture of children and young people." It is not just a question of numbers and bookings, but also, Rodríguez remarks, "the undoing of an authentic tool for training and transformation."

This weekend is full of cultural and family leisure activities. As always, we have prepared a selection of activities for you to do with your children on September 25th, 26th, and 27th, such as continuing to attend the most family-friendly activities of La Mercè, enjoying the cultural proposals of the Rubió Performing Arts Festival, or exploring your most creative side at Art-Acció!, the annual day of artistic experimentation at the Girona Museum.

Sara Diego (Madrid, 1996) is an actress. Many of you know her as Carla from Com si fos ahir (TV3). We can see her in the theater in Primera llei de Newton, until October 4th at La Villarroel. In April she will return with Dones de ràdio. And in between we can follow her on the tour of Loop. Between Madrid and Barcelona. “I was born in Madrid and lived there until I was 3 years old. Then in Terrassa, in Barcelona, in between back in Madrid again... I have been to five different schools. My childhood has always been very much on the move”. And how did you experience it as a child? “When I was in third grade, my mother (Rosa Boladeras) got a series in Madrid and I had to go there with my brother, who had just been born. It affected me a lot, because it is the age when you have your group of friends”. And now as an adult, how do you see it? “It has given me great ease in adapting to places, in meeting new people. The fact of having been to five different schools means you can start over and be someone else”.

We live in a global context marked by emotional fragility: more than a billion people live with a mental health diagnosis, according to the World Health Organization. The situation is especially critical in classrooms: one in seven adolescents between 10 and 19 years old suffers from some mental disorder, and suicide is already the third leading cause of death among young people. Faced with this emergency scenario, preventive psychiatry focuses on accessible, zero-cost interventions with an unsuspected biological impact. The most powerful of all comes in the form of a book.

For a decade, the ideal young woman wore neutral tones, emptied her closets, and turned order, self-control, and productivity into an aesthetic. It was 2014 and Sophia Amoruso was unaware that a hashtag, #girlboss, would change everything. A hand extended to thehustle-culture, the culture of busyness, accompanied by a minimalist trend in dressing and decorating everything, drew an apparently self-sufficient femininity: a young woman who worked, was entrepreneurial, took care of her body, maintained an impeccable appearance and home and routines to the minute, always hand in hand with a specialty coffee (or a matcha latte, nowadays). Now, the pendulum seems to have swung back, after years of hustle-culture have caused an almost predictable burnout. Ribbons, pastel colors, and extravagant prints are arriving, a whole ode to kitsch, accompanied by a feeling of nostalgia and a need to recover play, to be little girls again. From the girlbossto the girl dinner (the least elaborate girl's dinner) or girl math (the mental gymnastics to justify an expense); from minimalism to maximalism; from the young woman who could do it all to the young woman who wants to play again. The whimsy-maxxing is one of the most recent expressions to define this phenomenon.

That a child feels safe is essential for their development, a duty for the welfare society and a longing of families. But when we live in a world where bad news arrives everywhere, it is more difficult to maintain the sense of security.Wars, AI threat, climate emergency, floods, weather alerts, emergency kits... We want to protect them and spare them any suffering, but, at the same time, it is not a solution to deceive them by saying that it is all a lie.How do we do it? Two ideas:The first would be to lower the noise of the alarm: a smoke detector warns us when there is a fire. Let's imagine that this alarm rang every day: we would end up living stressed, scared, and in a state of alert. This is what happens to children if we let all the bad news reach them, especially if we have not prepared them or their brain to understand when the danger is real, exaggerated, or fake news.That is why it is important to reduce screen time and, above all, try to control what reaches them. If we know what they have seen or listen to the news with them, we can provide context, contribute critical thinking, and prevent them from ending up frightened by the catastrophism or exaggeration that some media outlets often use.And the second would be to strengthen them from within: avoiding all worries for them is overprotecting them, which ends up leaving them unprotected because we waste opportunities to train their resilience, adaptability, and inner strength. It would be like putting them in a bubble so they never feel fear, and when one day that fear arrived, they wouldn't know how to manage it because they hadn't been trained.Information, context and resources

Children are much stronger than we usually think. Let's trust them, because adaptability is an innate capacity of human nature. We just have to try not to annul it while we educate. Parents should, first, stop, look at them, and ask them: "What have you understood from what you just heard? What is it that worries you about this news?"Fear grows when there is uncertainty, that is to say, when information is missing, or when we only have a part of the information, the bad part. Completing it, contextualizing it, and helping them to think is educating them in inner strength.I remember that a couple of years ago, during the severe spring drought, a very distressed 5th-grade group arrived at the summer camp. They told me that it wasn't worth the effort or thinking about the future because the world would end before they turned thirty. They were convinced that, due to climate change, we would all die of thirst. I asked them: "And in countries where there is a desert, how do they manage? Do they all die of thirst?" They looked at each other in surprise and answered no. I remember how their expressions changed and some smiled. I explained to them that humans are extraordinary beings, also capable of doing beautiful things, of adapting to circumstances, of inventing solutions, and of overcoming enormous challenges.I believe that here lies our responsibility as adults: we cannot promise our children that nothing bad will ever happen, but we can train them so they know they will have resources to face these situations, such as pausing before a piece of news, thinking critically, asking questions to calm down, and feeling that the world is a safe place to grow up and live in.

]]>

Health problems derived from intensive screen exposure are no longer a future threat for the youngest: they are a reality. The consequences vary according to the life stage, but the combination of risks over the years can favor the appearance of pathologies, some irreversible, among children and adolescents. From 0 to 6 years old, the inadequate use of technologies can cause them to start speaking later, develop myopia, or have motor difficulties. Between 7 and 11 years old, it can worsen sleep, favor overweight and the appearance of cavities, and affect academic performance. And from 12 to 18 years old, it can increase emotional distress, distort self-image, and increase vulnerability to patterns of violence and harassment, inside and outside of social networks.

]]>

Learning to wait is one of the most important emotional skills of childhood, and it is built in the small situations of everyday life. We live in a society accustomed to immediacy where everything goes too fast. A click buys what we want, a message arrives in seconds, and any doubt is resolved almost instantly. In this context, waiting has become one of the most difficult skills for both adults and children. But precisely because the world is accelerating, cultivating patience is more necessary today than ever.

]]>

One day, when my daughters were little, we were queuing at the butcher's shop, they were tired and threw a tantrum. I was also tired and embarrassed by their tantrum, because I felt that everyone was looking at me, and I handled it as best I could. I don't remember what I said to them, but they calmed down. Then, a woman who was waiting congratulated me for having done well. I haven't seen her again, and considering that in Castellterçol we all know each other, it was strange, but at that moment she gave me a lot of confidence. As if a fairy had touched me with her magic wand.

]]>

September 18th celebrates Saint Sophia, a classic name that evokes elegance and knowledge, and which has more than 2,500 years of history. It comes from ancient Greek and means wisdom. It has other international variants such as Sophia (in English and Italian), Zsófia (in Hungarian), or Sophie (in French). In France, there is even the famous Sophie the Giraffe, an ideal toy-teether for the little ones at home that has been awarded more than 60 times worldwide.

]]>

You don't have to be an expert to deduce that if our students are doing very poorly in calculation and reading, they would need to increase (and intensify) the hours of mathematics and language, from primary to secondary school. This is as evident as it is complicated to rectify in the short term. Precisely, the latest innovations have stolen the spotlight from these two basic areas of knowledge and have been sacrificed (or mixed) with other proposals that are perhaps more attractive to students, but which PISA results confirm are distancing us dizzyingly from the minimum requirements.

]]>

In a few days we enter autumn, although climate change has been altering the seasons for some time now. Since it looks like it will be sunny this weekend, we have prepared a selection of activities for you to do with your sons and daughters on September 18th, 19th, and 20th, such as taking a stroll through the Week of the Book in Catalan, enjoying the return of the Festa al Cel in Salou, watching birds at the Delta Birding Festival at Món Natura Delta, or awakening artistic creation at the Pluja d'Art Fair in Sant Jordi Desvalls.

]]>

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends allowing at least three years between one pregnancy and another to favor the physical and emotional recovery of the woman between both gestations, and several scientific studies state that the ideal age gap between siblings would be between 1 and 4 years. However, as we know: theory is one thing, and practice is something quite different. Just ask Laura and Joan, a blended family where he brought a daughter, Emma, who in January, at 13 years old, became the big sister to the couple's first child together, Agnès. The age gap, however, was not the main headache for both parents when considering expanding the family; for Laura, the concern was “thinking that Emma had grown up until then as an only child and not knowing if having siblings would really make her happy.” Joan, on the other hand, was worried about not knowing what his eldest daughter's reaction would be, as well as “the uncertainty of knowing if she would accept her for all intents and purposes as a sister even if they did not have the same mother.”

]]>

At what point did quantum physics go from being a theoretical revolution to a force capable of transforming or even destroying the world? It may seem like a complex question to answer, but it is an entirely necessary approach in times of war and polarization. The Doctor of Quantum Optics from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and science communicator Sònia Fernández-Vidal (Barcelona, 1978) concludes the successful trilogy The Door of the Three Locks with the prequel titled The Shadow of the Two Suns (Destino). Aimed at a young audience, the author once again turns to fiction to put one of the great debates of our time on the table: what has led human beings to the development of nuclear energy and the atomic bomb? Despite being a story with fictional characters, Fernández-Vidal incorporates tangible certainties and figures of 20th-century science.

]]>

The geolocation of children has spread in recent years as a very common practice among families, especially those who have preteens and adolescents at home who use a mobile phone. There are also many parents who, reluctant to give a mobile phone to their son or daughter, have opted for digital watches that also allow them to be geolocated, permanently or on specific occasions. Even families with younger children use other types of location devices (such as AirTags) when they go with them to crowded events such as concerts, parades, or local festivals.

]]>

My character is a real person, Verónica Estay. As an actress, playing someone real is quite a challenge. When she saw my work, she was very happy. She told me that there were moments when she felt that I was more her than she was herself.

]]>

The concept of family at home has become more extensive for us, and the one in charge of explaining it to me was my youngest son, who is now seven years old. Not long ago, when I proposed a whole slew of plans to do as a family on the weekend, he replied: “Okay, mom, but with whom will we do this, with the small family, the medium one, or the big one?”. Suddenly, we had three families, from the smallest to the largest, like all the objects and utensils in the three bears' home. He soon clarified his definition and who was part of each.

]]>

This summer that is now ending has undoubtedly been one of the strangest I remember as a teacher. It is a summer that has come after a very turbulent school year, with mobilizations that have certainly been historic, but which have left us exhausted.

]]>

Wonderful and dazzling minority with sash and seven-ribbon espadrilles. And, very often, with a barretina and everything. In the country there are 3,000 to 4,000 groups of popular and traditional Catalan culture, which bring together more than 100,000 souls. When parents and children participate together in a group – bigger or smaller, more or less well-known – the magic happens: bonds are strengthened, the children work on values and socialize at a rapid pace, and the new generations take root in the country with much more intensity. Most of the time, the older generation drags the younger one along, which inherits, almost genetically, the passion for castells, giants or stick dances. But it must be said that, in some cases, things can go the other way: there are families whose little ones have joined the group first and, little by little, have encouraged the older ones to get involved. We approach this reality and observe it through the eyes of a child based on the testimony of three families linked to Sabadell entities coinciding with the city's main festival.

]]>

The school year begins, and with it, families set in motion an almost perfect machinery: the fashionable backpack, the wonderfully covered books, schedules squared to the millimeter, and WhatsApp groups in full swing. We try to anticipate everything so that our children begin school calmly and without difficulties. But, sometimes, in this legitimate attempt to protect them, we are literally leaving them unprotected, because we eliminate what will help them most to become strong: the small daily setbacks. The start of the school year is a magnificent moment to train resilience, especially when they haven't gotten the teacher they expected, or their best friend is in another class, or everyone says it will be a complicated year.

]]>