A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Last week I came across an interesting article on The Conversation. It was entitled, Wellbeing programmes in schools might be doing children more harm than good by Professor Kathryn Ecclestone from Sheffield University. It’s a counterintuitive statement isn’t it? How could wellbeing programmes do our students harm? Certainly in Australia we’re seeing an increase in [...]
Research by Barbara Fredrickson and Martin Seligman has shown that individuals can boost their wellbeing by improving the way in which they view their life. 1. What Went Well? A simple way to reframe your outlook on life is to ask, “What went well today?” and list them. Try to find three positives. This also [...]
How old were you when you decided that you weren’t any good at sport? Or that you couldn’t sing? When did you decide that you weren’t a maths person or that you couldn’t draw to save your life? Was it last week? In your late 30s? Early 20s? Late teens? Early teens? In primary school [...]
When schools ask me to chat to parents, one of the things I often cover with them is how to – or how not to – use social media. I urge parents not to vent their anger around a school on Facebook as, if we’re being honest, it’s often an issue that has been blown [...]
Lets face it, watching the evening news bulletin rarely makes for cheery viewing, but in the last few months it seems to have been particularly harrowing. Plane crashes, war zones, suicides and urban shootings have seemingly dominated the headlines. As an adult I’ve found it hard to watch. As an educator I’ve found it harder [...]
Imagine for a second that you arrive to pick you child up from football, netball, a music lesson or even school. Imagine as you get out of the car, all you can hear is the most abhorrent racial, homophobic, sexist or religious-based bullying. I’m assuming you wouldn’t be happy about this. I’m assuming you’d have [...]
Last week an article on the Generation Next Blog discussed how schools are struggling to deal with the perceived rise in teenage “binge drinking.” Having been a high school teacher my whole professional life I have seen first hand how schools are expected to take an increasing responsibility in teaching students about these kids [...]
Too busy for a ‘Thumbs Up?’ My 5-year-old son attends swimming lessons each and every Sunday. It’s a busy pool with multiple classes going on at once. During lessons parents sit around the pool and watch their offspring splash around, offering words of encouragement, the occasional ‘thumbs up’ and many smiles of pride. [...]
Is it April Fool’s day? Of course it isn’t. So why am I reading ridiculous headlines like this? Melbourne schools ban playground games because of lack of resilience The report stated that schools were banning Tiggy because kids would just give up when they were tagged, and quoted the Victorian Principals Association president Gabrielle [...]
With the HSC in full swing in NSW, parents will be all too aware of how stressful a time this can be for teenagers. Whether you believe it should be a stressful time or not isn’t the point of this post. The fact is that research reveals that approximately 40% of Year 12 HSC [...]
