When we look back at 2026 in the future, we’re probably going to be saying that the year belonged to Zendaya.

The woman of the hour has no fewer than three upcoming movies in the year ahead – not including one that’s in cinemas now – and she’s also set to reprise the TV role that put her on the map in the first place.

Outside of her work, she’s also been at the centre of rumours that she and her long-time partner Tom Holland quietly tied the knot in secret, after confirming last year that they were engaged.

Here’s your quick guide to everything Zendaya currently has in the pipeline, from her divisive new romantic drama to the return of Euphoria…

Zendaya and Robert Pattinson play a couple about to celebrate their big day in The Drama.

However, the pair’s relationship slowly begins to unravel when a dark revelation about the bride-to-be’s past during a drinking game leads both of them to ask themselves some big questions.

The latest film from Sick Of Myself and Dream Scenario director Kristoffer Borgli, The Drama holds a big secret that is being kept under wraps for the time being to avoid spoilers – but the movie was already sparking backlash and debate before it had even been released, with early reviews suggesting the movie could be one of 2026’s most uncomfortable and controversial.

It’s been a long time coming, but the third and final season of Euphoria is finally coming later this month.

In the final outing of Sam Levison’s acclaimed teen drama, its central characters are all grown up, but no matter how far they’ve come, there’s clearly only so far that any of them can run from their pasts.

Zendaya reprises her two-time Emmy-winning role as recovering drug addict Rue in the new episodes, which also see the return of cast members Sydney Sweeney, Hunter Schafer, Alexa Demie, Colman Domingo and recent Oscar nominee Jacob Elordi.

Meanwhile, the new season will be one of the final on-screen roles for Eric Dane, who died earlier this year at the age of 53.

Christopher Nolan is taking a big swing when it comes to his return to cinemas following the mammoth success of his Oscar-winning epic Oppenheimer.

For his latest ambitious project, he’s taking on the classic The Odyssey, marking his first time ever shooting an entire film with IMAX cameras.

The star-studded ensemble is led by Matt Damon as Odysseus, with a cast including Nolan regulars Anne Hathaway, Benny Safdie, Elliot Page and Robert Pattinson, as well as Mia Goth, Himesh Patel, Travis Scott and Oscar winners Charlize Theron and Lupita Nyong’o.

Reports have claimed that Zendaya will be playing the Greek goddess Athena, with her rumoured husband Tom Holland playing Matt Damon’s on-screen son Telemachus.

Just two weeks after the long-awaited release of The Odyssey, Zendaya and Tom Holland will be reunited once again in the newest film in the Spider-Man canon Brand New Day.

Four years on from the events of No Way Home, the world has seemingly forgotten that Peter Parker ever existed, including his long-term girlfriend MJ, who a recently-released trailer revealed had moved on with someone new, much to our hero’s chagrin.

Joining Tom and Zendaya in their latest Marvel adventure will be Stranger Things star Sadie Sink, Severance favourite Tramell Tillman and MCU fixture Mark Ruffalo, playing Bruce Banner, the alias of The Incredible Hulk.

Rounding off a huge year for Zendaya will be the third (and final!) instalment in Denis Villeneuve’s Dune series.

Based on the novel Dune Messiah, the film will see Zendaya back with series regulars Timothée Chalamet, Florence Pugh, Javier Bardem and Rebecca Ferguson, alongside some exciting new additions.

Remarkably, Dune: Part Three will also be the Challengers star’s third time sharing the screen with Robert Pattinson in the space of a year, following The Drama and The Odyssey.

No parent wants to sit back and watch their child experience anxiety over any situation, whether it’s going to a new dance school, a football game, trying new food or meeting new kids at school.

And while most parents have the best intentions, many actually come to their child’s rescue during moments of distress – which can be hugely detrimental to their child now and as they grow up, therapists told HuffPost.

The best way to help your child grow through anxiety and learn to manage it isn’t exactly a natural instinct. Here’s what to know:

“I think, in particular with anxiety … the biggest mistake that we make as parents is that when we see anxiety in our kids, we jump straight into that ‘I want to protect this child from this experience.’ So, we go straight to protection mode,” said Cheryl Donaldson, a licensed marriage and family therapist.

Parents don’t want their kids to feel anxiety, of course, but swooping in to take them out of an anxious situation or fix it for them isn’t a way to empower kids, Donaldson noted. It’s actually doing the opposite.

Research suggests that accommodating anxiety makes it worse, said Hannah Scheuer, a licensed clinical social worker with Self Space in Washington state.

“I’m both a child and family therapist and a mom, and I’m just gonna say that watching our child struggle and suffer is one of the hardest things,” Scheuer said. “And if we accommodate and give in, we will make it worse. Accommodation is essentially allowing avoidance, and avoidance feels really, really good in the moment, even to adults.”

For instance, if your teenager is anxious about driving on the highway, avoiding it when teaching them to drive only makes the experience scarier and more stressful when they eventually have to do it.

“It just makes it worse and worse, it leads to long-term negative outcomes,” Scheuer said. “That accommodation, that saying, ‘Oh no, you don’t have to do this thing that you’re upset about or scared of,’ it does temporarily alleviate that child’s distress. Then, what it reinforces is this perception that the thing that they don’t want to do actually warrants their anxiety, and so that gives them more reason to feel the anxiety.”

“Anxiety is our body’s mechanism to tell us that we either need to act in some way … or, in the case of kids, anxiety is telling them, ‘This is a new skill I need. This is a new experience. I need more skills. I need to know how to manage this,’” Donaldson said.

Supporting children through anxious moments takes a three-fold approach, said Laura Buscemi, a licensed professional counsellor at Thriveworks in Cherry Hill, New Jersey.

“We have to validate, we have to regulate and we have to mitigate,” she said.

Validation looks like normalising the anxiety and sharing that it’s something we all experience, Buscemi said. Regulation means helping your child learn to manage their anxiety through a variety of solutions, like breathing exercises and movement. Mitigation helps a child understand that temporary discomfort, such as facing the situation that makes them anxious, leads to long-term relief.

“Facing fears ultimately decreases them – and we prove to ourselves that things aren’t as scary as we’ve built up in our mind, or that maybe we’re just braver than it was scary,” Buscemi said.

“The research evidence does also show that what we need to do as parents is to provide support and confidence,” Scheuer noted. “What that looks like is supporting and validating the feelings while also showing confidence in their child’s ability to actually do the thing to cope with the anxiety.”

For example, if your child gets really anxious about going to football practice and has meltdowns in the car on the way to practice, a parent could say, “Wow, I hear you. I know you’re feeling really scared and upset right now, but I also know that you can do really hard things and you’re going to be OK,” Scheuer suggested.

“It’s that mix of validation of the feeling, without accommodating the anxiety and providing confidence that they can do it,” Scheuer explained. This one sentence isn’t going to erase your child’s anxiety and stop the meltdown, but as this encouragement comes up week after week, soccer will feel less and less hard for your child.

“And continuing to inspire that confidence … is going to really make a big impact, and that’s how we build resilient kids,” Scheuer said.

Many parents will be able to manage their kids’ anxiety through different calming and exposure techniques, but some kids (and parents) may require additional support from a mental health professional – and that’s perfectly OK.

There are certain signs that a child’s anxiety requires support from a therapist or other professional.

“If the anxiety is getting in the way of them being able to be in a relationship with other kids, go to a friend’s house … being able to go to practices and do different things, you want to reach out for help,” Donaldson said.

If you notice your child frequently worrying or frequently in distress, those are also red flags.

“Also, with younger kids, they don’t really have the language to talk about anxiety, so sometimes we see it as like more physical symptoms,” Scheuer noted. This includes stomachaches, having trouble sleeping, and general restlessness.

“That is something that I would say, if that’s pretty common, maybe they need some extra support,” Scheuer said.

If therapy or counselling isn’t accessible, your child’s school should have a social worker or school counsellor who can provide support, Scheuer said. Talking to your paediatrician could also be a good idea.

Managing anxiety in kids often involves the parents, especially if the kids are younger.

“So, it’s not just saying, ‘Oh, fix the kid’s symptoms.’ It’s also … what strategies can we give to the parents to help really make sure that everybody has the tools to help this kid navigate these symptoms?” Scheuer said.

It’s also on the parents to consider how they react to anxious moments in their lives. Think about it: if mum or dad doesn’t know how to manage their own anxiety, they likely won’t be able to help their child, either.

Ask yourself what you feel when your child gets anxious. Does it make you anxious, too? If so, what do you do to calm down?

“Leading with your own leadership” is an important way to go about this, according to Donaldson. If you know deep breathing helps you feel less anxious, gently guide your child toward that. Or, if you know that getting out for a walk reduces your anxiety, gently encourage your child to try it.

“You want them to know that you’re partnering, that you have answers that are going to be really helpful for them,” Donaldson said.

If other techniques and interventions don’t work, “sometimes the kids need to go on medication,” Donaldson noted.

Watching your child experience anxiety isn’t a pleasant experience for anyone, but it helps build life skills and confidence that are tough to grow later in life. The ability to live with discomfort and manage anxiety is important throughout the lifespan, as someone takes a big test, gets their first job, experiences their first break-up, faces job rejection and more.

“I really like to emphasise with my clients that we’re trying to push through temporary discomfort to achieve long-term relief,” Buscemi said.

An Easter staple, hot cross buns are believed to date back to 1361.

Some say their precursor, called Alban buns, was invented by a monk called Brother Thomas Rocliffe at St Alban’s Abbey. He is said to have given them to the poor on Good Friday.

They’re slightly different to the ones we know and love today – the cross on top was cut into the bun, rather than placed on top with a flour mixture – but they still contained spices, fruit, and yeasted dough.

Given their possible religious past, then, perhaps it’s not surprising that some think hot cross buns allude to more of the events of Easter than just the obvious cross.

The cross on top of the buns may have been placed on buns like Brother Roclliffe’s to allude to Jesus’ crucifix (Good Friday being “the day of the cross”).

But according to historian of food Dr Eleanor Barnett, hot cross buns weren’t really eaten as we know them now until the 18th century.

She also says not everyone agrees that they came from Brother Rocliffe: some think the origins date back to Ancient Greek crossed bread, while others think it has to do with Passover.

Nonetheless, Dr Barnett writes, the traditional ingredients are still “laden” with religious symbolism: “The bread is a nod to the Communion wafer, the spices represent the spices Christ was wrapped in in his tomb, and the cross is of course a reference to his crucifixion”.

Whatever their origin, they’ve proven somewhat divisive in the past. For instance, Queen Elizabeth I tried to tightly control the sale of buns because they looked a little too “Catholic” and “superstitious” for her taste.

“Perhaps they were associated with the blessed and crossed buns distributed by some Catholic churches on Good Friday, which were made from the same dough as the holy Eucharistic bread,” English Heritage shared.

Later, some believed that crumbling hot cross buns into water could cure them from illness. Victorian people would swap hot cross buns on Good Friday, saying, “Half for you and half for me, between us two good luck shall be”.

Others thought it could calm their stomachs, protect them from evil, keep pests away from grains, and never go mouldy.

Writing for The Conversation, historian Darius von Guttner Sporzynski said: “Ancient Egyptians, Greeks, Poles, Romans, Saxons, medieval monks and 18th-century street sellers all had their versions of spiced, crossed bread. Each group gave the buns its own meaning, from honouring gods to celebrating Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection.”