Christmas is a magical time of year, especially for children. Unfortunately, between elaborate Elf on the Shelf staging and fending off questions about Santa, parents are often left wondering how much of the magic depends on them.

Specifically, many parents worry about whether they should encourage their children’s belief in the physical reality of Santa, about the potential impact of lying to them and what to do when their children realize they’ve been duped.

There are few things in life a parent can guarantee their child, but failure at something or with someone is assured. There is one major reason why we can guarantee failure in our child's lives. Children will feel a sense of failure at some things in life because so much about life is subjective.

Very little of life today is bias or judgement-free. Subjectivity is essentially someone's opinion or our own biased view about ourselves or others.

With every new crisis that the world faces, humanity’s differences appear increasingly intractable. Religion, ethnicity, history, politics and economics have all become tools to denigrate and demean. People seem to be drifting apart and no country is immune from divisive discourse.

What happens when you ask a group of elementary-school kids how they would teach their children manners if they were the parents? Based on the group of kids we brought together in Atlanta, you get a number of really good ideas. So, parents, listen up!

This week, Lebanon’s Parliament repealed the law allowing rapists to escape punishment by marrying the women they abused. Although this is a strong step from politicians in favor of women’s rights, there is still a lot more work to be done!One in three women worldwide experience some form of gender-based violence in their lifetime. In the Arab region, this violence exists in many forms – sexual, physical, emotional and economic. Intimate partner violence is the most common, with approximately 30 percent of women in the region affected.

Stop popping the balloons. Forget the dew on the grass. Bring back the conkers and the yo-yos. And ditch those hi-vis jackets that make every child look like Bob the Builder. It’s time, says the chief inspector of schools, to blast the bugles, sound the trumpets and chuck out the cotton wool. It’s time, in fact, to set the children of this nation free.

I recently visited a “girls club” – a safe space where adolescent girls come together with trained mentors to build their social networks and learn life skills – in the Tonk district of Rajasthan, India. As I arrived, I was greeted by a group of teenage girls bouncing along the road, so full of energy and laughter that I couldn’t help but smile, too. Just imagine, I thought, the potential of 600 million such girls.

One of the few positives for U.S. women and girls in recent years has been the increased awareness of female genital mutilation (FGM) as an urgent issue which affects over half a million people on American soil. The first ever U.S. trial is about to take place too and the government is finally taking action to end it.

The Manchester Arena was packed with thousands of children and young people when a suicide bomber detonated his device.

It happened two months after a deadly attack in Westminster, after which Nicky Cox MBE, editor-in-chief of children's newspaper First News, offered this advice for parents who want to explain terror attacks to children:

1. Don't try to turn off the news when there is bad news.

Thousands of videos on YouTube look like versions of popular cartoons but contain disturbing and inappropriate content not suitable for children.

If you're not paying much attention, it might look like an ordinary video featuring Peppa Pig, the cheeky porcine star of her own animated series. But soon after pressing play on this particular YouTube clip, the plot turns dark. A dentist with a huge syringe appears. Peppa's teeth get pulled out. Distressed crying can be heard on the soundtrack.