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No, the CDC did not drop its COVID-19 death count to 37,000. In fact, it didn't 'revise' it at all.

No, the CDC did not drop its COVID-19 death count to 37,000. In fact, it didn't 'revise' it at all.
Photo by Dimitri Karastelev on Unsplash

I'm losing count of how many times in the past few days I've seen someone post something along the lines of this tweet:

"The CDC has actually ADMITTED that they overcounted COVID-19 deaths!"

"Look at the numbers—they're right there on the CDC website plain as day!"

"See, it's all overblown! We did this whole shutdown thing and tanked the economy for nothing!"

First of all, no, the CDC did not revise anything. Let's dive into these numbers because they actually are a bit confusing when you don't read the whole page (and frankly, some parts are a little confusing even if you do—get it together, CDC).

There are different methods of counting COVID-19 deaths, and the CDC's website includes numbers for two very different methods. We have:

1) The official CDC death count, which you can find on the CDC's home page. This count comes directly from public health departments in each state and territory daily. As of the writing of this article, that count stands at 68,279.

2) The Provisional Death Count, which is where that ~37,000 number comes from. This count comes from the National Vital Statistics System—the system that processes and logs death certificates. The notable thing about the Provisional Death Count is that it's not up-to-date. The CDC site itself states that the numbers on the Provisional Death chart lag weeks behind other counts:

"It is important to note that it can take several weeks for death records to be submitted to National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS), processed, coded, and tabulated. Therefore, the data shown on this page may be incomplete, and will likely not include all deaths that occurred during a given time period, especially for the more recent time periods. Death counts for earlier weeks are continually revised and may increase or decrease as new and updated death certificate data are received from the states by NCHS. COVID-19 death counts shown here may differ from other published sources, as data currently are lagged by an average of 1–2 weeks."

Here's a real-world example of what this looks like:

This is a screenshot of the Provisional Death Count as of April 16, 2020 (which you can access at this CDC link). As you can see, the COVID death count for the week of 4/11/20 was 3,542.

And here is the Provisional Death Count as of the writing of this article, which you can view in real time at this CDC link. As you can see, the week of 4/11/20 has been updated from 3,542 deaths to 12,628—a nearly four-fold increase since the April 16 publication.

When the numbers were published on 4/16/20, there were still 9,086 death certificates that hadn't been processed yet from the week prior—that's what they mean by a lag. Three weeks later, the numbers are very different.

So that 37,000 total (well, 39,000 right now) will change as the death certificates get processed. The Provisional Death Count simply isn't accurate yet. And the lag means it will never be an up-to-date count, so it's not a reliable source for current death numbers.

The problem is that people have been sharing the not-up-to-date Provisional Death Count link as a way to make it sound like the COVID-19 death numbers are actually smaller. They are not.

It's worth noting that all COVID-19 death counts include both lab-confirmed and "presumed" COVID-19 deaths. This has also been a source of confusion, not to mention conspiracy. But "presumed" doesn't mean just a wild guess.

Test results for coronavirus have a high false negative rate—from 5% to 30%—according to Dr. Alan Wells, professor of pathology at University of Pittsburgh. So relying solely on positive lab test results for COVID deaths would miss thousands. At this point, doctors and medical examiners can generally recognize clear COVID symptoms in a critically ill or deceased patient, and if a patient meets the clinical, epidemiological, or vital records criteria for the COVID being the cause of death, that's considered "presumed."

Each state has different requirements for coding COVID-19 deaths, and it's generally a very small percentage that are counted as "presumed."

Adding to the confusion on this front, Dr. Birx, from the White House Coronavirus Task Force, said that the U.S. was taking a "liberal" approach to counting COVID-19 deaths, and ""The intent is, right now, that . . . if someone dies with COVID-19, we are counting that as a COVID-19 death."

People unfortunately did not take that statement in the context of underlying conditions, which is what Dr. Birx was talking about. Here's what she actually said:

"There are other countries that if you had a pre-existing condition and let's say the virus caused you to go to the ICU and then have a heart or kidney problem -- some countries are recording that as a heart issue or a kidney issue and not a COVID-19 death. Right now ... if someone dies with COVID-19 we are counting that as a COVID-19 death."

If a person has a heart condition and they get sick with COVID-19 and die, COVID is counted as a cause of their death, even if they died of a heart attack—the reasonable assumption being that the disease led the patient's weakened heart to give in. Dr. Birx did not mean that a gunshot victim or a fatal car accident victim would be certified as a COVID-19 death just because they tested positive for the disease. That would be silly, not to mention illegal.

Read more on how COVID-19 deaths are counted from a forensic pathologist here.

You can also see an email from the Louisiana Health Department specifying how doctors are to log coronavirus deaths here:

So, no, COVID-19 death counts have not been revised downward, nor are they artificially inflated. In fact, it's more likely that they've been undercounted than overcounted, since only deaths that had been confirmed by tests were being counted for at least the first month of the outbreak in the U.S.

More importantly, read the fine print on a website before you make any assumptions about what you're seeing. Health data tracking can be a confusing to dive into under normal circumstances, much less during a novel virus pandemic where we're all learning as we go.

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Science

What will Earth look like if all its land ice melts? These maps show the clear answer.

Climate change isn't pretty.

via Business Insider Science/YouTube.

A map of the United States post land-ice melt.

Land ice: We got a lot of it. Considering the two largest ice sheets on earth — the one on Antarctica and the one on Greenland — extend more than 6 million square miles combined ... yeah, we're talkin' a lot of ice. But what if it was all just ... gone? Not like gone gone, but melted?

If all of earth's land ice melted, it would be nothing short of disastrous. And that's putting it lightly. This video by Business Insider Science (seen below) depicts exactly what our coastlines would look like if all the land ice melted. And spoiler alert: It isn't great. Lots of European cities like, Brussels and Venice, would be basically underwater.

I bring up the topic not just for funsies, of course, but because the maps are real possibilities.

How? Climate change.

As we continue to burn fossil fuels for energy and emit carbon into our atmosphere, the planet gets warmer and warmer. And that, ladies and gentlemen, means melted ice.

A study published this past September by researchers in the U.S., U.K., and Germany found that if we don't change our ways, there's definitely enough fossil fuel resources available for us to completely melt the Antarctic ice sheet.

Basically, the self-inflicted disaster you see above is certainly within the realm of possibility.


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In Africa and the Middle East? Dakar, Accra, Jeddah — gone.



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Millions of people in Asia, in cities like Mumbai, Beijing, and Tokyo, would be uprooted and have to move inland.



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South America would say goodbye to cities like Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires.


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And in the U.S., we'd watch places like Houston, San Francisco, and New York City — not to mention the entire state of Florida — slowly disappear into the sea.


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All GIFs via Business Insider Science/YouTube.

Business Insider based these visuals off National Geographic's estimation that sea levels will rise 216 feet (!) if all of earth's land ice melted into our oceans.

There's even a tool where you can take a detailed look at how your community could be affected by rising seas, for better or worse.

Although ... looking at these maps, it's hard to imagine "for better" is a likely outcome for many of us.

Much of America's most populated regions would be severely affected by rising sea levels, as you'll notice exploring the map, created by Alex Tingle using data provided by NASA.

Take, for instance, the West Coast. (Goodbye, San Fran!)



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Or the East Coast. (See ya, Philly!)


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And the Gulf Coast. (RIP, Bourbon Street!)

"This would not happen overnight, but the mind-boggling point is that our actions today are changing the face of planet Earth as we know it and will continue to do so for tens of thousands of years to come," said lead author of the study Ricarda Winkelmann, of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.

If we want to stop this from happening," she says, "we need to keep coal, gas, and oil in the ground."

The good news? Most of our coastlines are still intact! And they can stay that way, too — if we act now.

World leaders are finallystarting to treat climate change like the global crisis that it is — and you can help get the point across to them, too.

Check out Business Insider's video below:


- YouTubewww.youtube.com


This article originally appeared eleven years ago.

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Joy

15 people share the life-changing phrase they heard once, and it stuck with them forever

"Don't confuse being needed with being valued."

via Canva/Photos

A woman thinking to herself.

Ever have a moment in your life when someone told you something wise that you’ve never heard before, and it felt like time stopped? You feel so grateful to have the wisdom, but at the same time, sad because you wish you had heard it earlier and avoided some of life's unnecessary trials and tribulations.

One of the primary reasons we remember some things people tell us and forget others is emotion. When we experience an emotional reaction to information, the brain perceives it as valuable and stores it in long-term memory. That’s probably why it’s easy to remember the lyrics to the songs we love. The words are combined with an emotional change created by the melody in which they are sung and the accompanying music.

A Reddit user asked people on the AskReddit subforum to share the phrases they “heard only once but it stayed with you forever,” and it inspired a wonderful conversation where people shared the timeless wisdom that they will never forget. Many of the phrases revolved around healthy ways to deal with relationships, making sense of inner dialogues, and how to change, even when it feels impossible.

truth, wisdom, wise phrases, man thinking, mind blown, great advice, memoryA man after hearing great advice. via Canva/Photos

Here are 15 of the most inspiring quotes that people “heard only once,” but they have stayed with them forever.

1. "You can't un-ring a bell."

"My high school history teacher told us - speak carefully to others, you can't un-drive the nail, the hole will always remain. Someone may forgive you, but the damage is done, the hole will remain."

"The axe forgets, but the tree remembers."

2. “You don’t have to attend every argument you’re invited to.”

"I cannot tell you how many times over the last few years I have had to stop and physically tell myself, that it's not my job to make sure anyone understands anything. Helped me put down my phone a number of times and just breath."

"The best thing to learn early in life is to walk away. Some ppl actually think they won the argument because I walked away. I feel like I won because I walked away."



3. "Sometimes, a man on the right track gets hit by a train on the wrong one."

"It is possible to commit no mistakes and still lose. That is not a weakness; that is life." - Jean Luc Picard

4. "Don’t confuse being needed with being valued."

"Ouch to that. To add to the confusion: true friendships can arise from responding to a need, and there are people who are really nice to you when they need you. But once you hit a bump on the road and become useless, even if just for a while, reactions vary."


truth, wisdom, wise phrases, man thinking, mind blown, great advice, memoryA woman thinking about some sage advice.via Canva/Photos

5. "Not everyone you lose is a loss."

"This is good advice, especially for people going through a life change (e.g., growing up, moving, graduating, switching jobs, etc). A lot of people have drifted out of my life over the years, and a lot more made me sad at the time than were actually worth getting sad about. A few departures might've even been worthy of celebration, but it didn't feel that way in the moment."

"As I grow older, I've realized a very important skill for my own mental health is being able to cherish and appreciate the person someone was, and even love them, while also appreciating some extra distance between our present selves."

6. "Don't believe everything you think."

"I needed this. Having some hang-xiety from this weekend on how I’m a total weirdo & I need to learn to stfu more. But I know the reality is I just opened up and made new friends."

"Having worked with and known people with mental health struggles, I will say, 'A (depressed or mentally unwell) brain is a liar. It will tell you things that aren’t true. Keep a list of what is real and the facts that support it."

7. "No matter how far down the wrong road you are... turn around."

"The longer it takes you to get off the bus, the more expensive the return ticket will be."

"When you realize you are in a hole, stop digging."


truth, wisdom, wise phrases, man thinking, mind blown, great advice, memoryA man after hearing great advice.via Canva/Photos

8. "The way you talk to / scold your kids is the voice and tone they will learn to talk to themselves in."

"Similarly, I've read, 'Your anger becomes their anxiety.' As a new mom who was raised by an angry father and struggles with anxiety, it is a perspective I'm glad I came upon early. It has redirected both how I speak to her and what I'll allow her to be exposed to."

"God, I feel that. My parents were basically always angry and/or annoyed."

9. "You are under no obligation to set yourself on fire to keep someone else warm."

"That one always makes me think of something my therapist said: 'You didn’t ask to be born. Your parents wanted a child and you have lived to fulfil their wants and needs for twenty years. You’re allowed to live for yourself now.'"

10. “If you don’t ask, the answer will always be no.”

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take in a different form."


11. "Grief is just love with nowhere to go."

"There have been a few similar phrases about grief that have stuck with me:

'The culmination of love is grief, and yet we love despite the inevitable, we open our hearts to it. To grieve deeply is to have loved fully.

And "But what is grief but love persevering.'

Both tore me to pieces and have stuck with me as I've lost people close to me."


12. "The time will pass either way."

"I heard this phrase once in the context of someone who was talking about wanting to go to med school and become a doctor, but they were already in their 30s. They were saying something like, 'I really want to do it but its 7 years! If I start now, I won't become a doctor til I'm 42.' And the other person responded: 'And how old will you be in 7 years if you don't go to med school? The time will pass regardless.'"

13. "Just because you lost me as a friend, doesn’t mean you gained me as an enemy. I still want to see you eat, just not at my table."

"My old boss used to say, 'I wish you well and I wish you away.'"

14. "In the absence of communication, the void is filled with negativity."

"Lack of effective communication in a close personal relationship, a business/professional relationship, a political relationship, etc. can lead to negative assumptions about how they might feel about you, create perceptions of incompetence, or increase suspicions/distrust."

15. "Don't let 'perfect' be the enemy of progress."

"The version we were talking about at my work just today was 'Perfection is the enemy of getting shit done.'"













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Science

8th grader's award-winning experiment tested if dogs' tongues are really cleaner than ours

Here's what science says about letting your dog lick your face.

Photo credit: Canva

Should you let a dog lick your face?

With nearly half of the households in American having at least one dog, there's a lot people need to know about them. Our furry friends come in wide variety of breeds, each with their own unique traits and needs. "Man's best friend" can be a guardian, a helpful worker, a loyal friend, and a snuggly companion, but there's one thing almost all dogs have in common: Licking.

Some dogs lick way more than others, but it's rare to find a dog who never licks anyone or anything. Many dogs communicate and show affection by licking, which is sweet—if a little gross—depending on how slobbery they are. There's a common saying that dogs' mouths are cleaner than humans', which is a bit hard to believe when you see what some dogs put in their mouths, but it is true? What does science say about dog tongues and saliva? Is a dog licking our face something we should worry about?

dogs, dog mouths clean, dog tongues, dog licking, should you let a dog lick your facePooch smooches are sweet if they're not too slobbery.Photo credit: Canva

It turns out, the answer to whether a dog's mouth is cleaner than ours isn't super straightforward.

An 8th grader named Abby tackled this question in a science experiment that won her a Young Naturalists Award from the American Museum of Natural History in 2011. Her family had gotten a dog and her mom kept telling her not to let the dog lick her face because dog mouths are full of bacteria. Instead of arguing, Abby decided to find out herself if this was true.

"I hypothesized that human tongues would be cleaner than dog tongues," she wrote. "I thought this because humans brush their teeth at least once a day. I hypothesized that dogs' tongues would be dirty because they were always licking dirty things like garbage."

After diving into the research about bacteria that live in and on humans and dogs, Abby decided she had a testable hypothesis. But this wasn't any old middle school science experiment. She applied for and got a grant to the State Hygienic Lab at the University of Iowa, where she was assigned a mentor to work with her.

You can read the nitty gritty details of her experiment here, but here was her conclusion:

dogs, dog mouths clean, dog tongues, dog licking, should you let a dog lick your faceMany dogs will lick you if you give them the chance. Photo credit: Canva

"I concluded that dog and human mouth flora are very different. (Flora means the bacteria found in a mouth or anywhere else.) The bacteria found in human mouths are more similar to another human's oral bacteria than the bacteria found in a dog's mouth.

I also concluded that dogs' mouths are cleaner than humans' in some ways, and dirtier in other ways. Humans have more bacteria in their mouths than dogs do, based on the total number of bacteria. Most of the humans had a 'moderate' number of bacteria, and most of the dogs had 'few' bacteria. A possible explanation of this might be that dogs pant a lot, and maybe while panting, bacteria falls off their tongues along with their saliva. But dogs had more types of bacteria. The average number of different bacterial colonies in a dog's mouth was about 5.7. The average number of different bacterial colonies in a human's mouth was about 4.1. I think this is so because dogs sniff and lick a variety of things, like carpets, floors, chairs, grass, etc., so they pick up bacteria from many places."

But what about the licking of our faces? That's a bit of a subjective call, but Abby's results gave her some peace of mind:

"In conclusion, will I let my dog continue to lick me? The answer to the question is yes!" she wrote. "I will feel guiltless about letting my dog lick me because I found out that human and dog oral bacteria are different, so my dog's oral bacteria present no harm to me."

lick, licking, face, dogs, dogpuppy love kiss GIF by Pickler & BenGiphy

What do the experts say?

According to Colin Harvey, professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s School of Veterinary Medicine and executive secretary at the American Veterinary Dental College, comparing dogs' mouths to humans' mouth is "like comparing apples to oranges." As Abby found, the microbes in a dog's mouth are very different than those in a human's.

The American Kennel Club elaborates:

"Most of the bacteria in your dog’s mouth aren’t zoonotic, which means you probably won’t get a disease from a big old doggy kiss. There are exceptions to this. Dogs that eat a raw diet are at an increased risk of contracting salmonella, which can be spread to humans. You also probably shouldn’t share kisses with a dog that regularly raids the litter box.

In other words, kissing your dog is less risky than kissing another human, but that doesn’t mean that your dog’s mouth is necessarily cleaner than a human’s—they just have a mostly incompatible set of germs."

dogs, dog mouths, dog kisses, dog teeth cleaningKeep your dog's mouth clean with regular teeth brushing.Photo credit: Canva

Keeping your dog's mouth healthy through regular teeth cleaning and dental check-ups can also help prevent issues that could potentially come from dog licks.

So there you have it. If your dog doesn't eat a raw diet and doesn't go snacking in the cat box (or some other equally fecal-bacteria-ridden place), their kisses are probably not going to hurt you. Guilt-free pooch smooches for the win!

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Pop Culture

People agree these 19 things are weirdly romanticized, but are actually huge red flags

"The idea of someone cheating on their spouse to pursue you. How is that romantic? Please be serious."

Photo credit: Canva

One person's romantic is another person's cringe.

We all love a good love story. The grand gestures, the unbridled spontaneity, and those "against all odds” moments that give relationships a dose of movie magic are everything. But, sometimes, the things we’ve been taught to swoon over—whether that be due to pop culture or more overarching societal trends—are actually pretty toxic when you stop to think about them.

Recently, someone asked folks to share their own examples of behaviors that are “weirdly romanticized” but are actually major red flags once you look past the glossy surface, and honestly, it’s eye-opening.

Here are some of the most surprising (and perhaps unsettling) examples they shared. One major category belonged to those tropes we see in many, many television shows, movies, and even songs…

1. "Having someone who is completely obsessed with you."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia1.giphy.com

2. "Enemies to lovers. It's cute in theory, but how can you be with someone when you know all the disgusting things they've said about you before your relationship?"

3. "I used to love the 'asshole-to-everyone-except-you' trope until he started being an asshole to my friends. Some tropes are meant to stay fictional."

4. "The 'I'm just a girl' trend and other TikTok trends that are used to deflect any accountability or responsibility as an adult human being."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia4.giphy.com

5. "The idea of someone cheating on their spouse to pursue you. How is that romantic? Please be serious."

6. "Pressuring someone to hurry up and put a ring on it."

Two people brought differing, yet equally important views on work/love life balance.

7. "Sacrificing your professional or personal life to pursue someone."

8. "Honestly, I think we conflate hard work with unhealthy boundaries between the self and career, and we romanticize working overtime, long shifts, and doing excessive tasks as a display of personal growth. We've manipulated ourselves into feeling that giving our time to pursue our work is noble. I'm saying this as a student in medicine, where hours are absolutely wild. I know I'll work my hardest, but I won't sacrifice my sense of self and my time to eke out my own passions and life just to get ahead in my career track. At least, I hope I don't lose sight of myself in the pursuit of following my dreams. It can be really hard not to notice that that's where you're headed until you've already sacrificed so much."

How folks handle—or don’t handle—conflict also was a major red flag.

9. "Not being confrontational. Needless confrontation is bad, but sometimes, you do need to confront someone."

10. "Fighting all the time. No, it doesn't mean that your relationship is 'passionate.' It means that you're probably incompatible and shouldn't be together."

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia.giphy.com

Finally, this category belongs to things that many people think often carry a hidden warning, even if they seem workable, even harmless, at first.

11. "I knew a girl whose boyfriend went everywhere with her. He wouldn't let her go anywhere if he weren't there, and she thought it was cute how 'possessive' he was over her. It thoroughly icked me out when she told me. Like, that is not healthy at all."

12. "Being a 'free spirit.' Like, there's a gray area, but there's a time and place to be inhibited and misbehave. Not following rules in public settings because you're 'free' gets old really fast."

13. "Being the charismatic 'heavy drinker' in friend groups. Goes for men and women."

14. "When people say things like, 'He's just broken,' as if it's something romantic. Having pain doesn't justify cruelty, and loving someone shouldn't mean bleeding just to make them feel whole."

15. "People who brag about not being interested in reading or learning. Here in the US, there is a huge anti-curiosity or anti-intellect movement, and people will literally brag about being ignorant."

16. "Being over controlling. My coworker thinks it's adorable when they say stuff like, 'My husband would kill me if I got a tattoo there!' Gross. Sorry that your husband is so fragile."

17. "People who constantly post about their partner. It's not romantic, it's performative. Real love doesn't need a PR campaign."

18. "'Traditional values.'"

dating, modern dating, dating apps, romance, romance tips, relationships, relationship red flags, relationship green flagsmedia3.giphy.com

Lastly, perhaps the oldest red flag in the book…

19. "The idea that playing games or being 'hard to get' in a cruel way will make their crush or interest want them more."

Note the one gesture that no one mentioned as un-romantic: flowers. Just sayin'.

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Parenting

Teacher shares the one thing parents need to teach kids to prepare them for kindergarten

Kindergarten teacher Emily Perkins says avoiding this can make them "unteachable."

Image via Canva

Kindergarten teacher shares #1 thing parents should teach kids.

Sending your kid to kindergarten for the first time is a milestone parenting moment. For parents looking to prepare their kids for attending school for the first time, kindergarten teacher Emily Perkins (@emmymckenny) from Kentucky has spilled her wisdom.

In a new TikTok video, Perkins shared the number one thing parents should be teaching their kids before sending them to her classroom—and it's slightly controversial.

"No. No no no. No," she captioned the video. In it, she explains that parents need to teach their children the meaning of 'no,' and telling them 'no' when necessary.

@emmymckenny

No. No no no. No. #teachersoftiktok #momsoftiktok #gentleparenting #controversial

She says in the video, "A lot of people ask me all the time when they figure out that I’m a kindergarten teacher: What can they do to prepare their kid for kindergarten? What can I do—help them open their snacks? Help them tie their shoes? No, no, no, not that. Tell your kid, 'No' ... Tell them ‘No’ as a complete sentence."

The mom of two continues to add that if parents fail to tell and teach their kids "no," it can make them "unteachable" once they get in her classroom. "Do not teach them that telling them, 'No' invites them to argue with you, because if I can’t tell your child 'No' as an adult, and they don’t respect the 'No,' they’re basically unteachable. Let me tell you something: I will open their snacks, I will tie their shoes, I will help them blow their nose, I will teach them how to wash their hands properly."

@emmymckenny

I went viral #teachersoftiktok #viral #no


Perkins does not mince words when explaining the importance of teaching kids "no," and takes a stand against gentle parenting that she argues has turned many parents into pushovers. "The term gentle parenting gets thrown around like a reward—'Congratulations, you’re a pushover.' You can validate your child’s feelings without being a pushover. I heard a parent tell me that they don’t tell their child, 'No' because it triggers them," she explains.

Perkins adds that if parents cannot tell their children "no," neither can teachers—which can lead to disaster in kindergarten. "And if your child’s teacher can’t tell them, 'No,' it’s really hard to help them learn," she concluded.

@emmymckenny

IDC #teachersoftiktok #controversy #thingsidontcareabout

In an interview withTODAY, Perkins shared that "'No’ is not a bad word," and added that “‘no’ is not an invitation to an argument." She added, "My whole job is explaining. Think of logistics—if we’re lining up for a fire drill, it’s, 'No, you may not stay inside if the building is on fire' or 'No, you may not climb on the table because it’s not safe.'"

While she notes that further explanation of "no" to kids is certainly important, it's more crucial for kids to not to question or argue right away if they are told, "No." "I love to explain why, but if I can’t right then, kids still have to hear and accept 'no,'" she told the publication.

Perkins' video got a lot of support from fellow teachers and parents in the comment section:

"Preschool teacher here. you are 10000000000% correct. Let them struggle a bit so they can ACTUALLY do hard things. Let them experience disappointment! make them resilient!" one wrote.

"THIS!! I’m a first year kindergarten teacher and some of this littles just don’t get no… it’s so wild to me."

A parent viewer wrote, "True gentle parenting is about telling your child no and sticking to it. If you can never tell your child no it’s permissive."

And another parent shared, "Not a teacher just a mom, but YES. Not everything needs to be a lesson…sometimes because I said so is a complete sentence."

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