A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Eating disorders are serious mental illnesses that are associated with significant physical complications. Eating disorders not only involve considerable psychological impairment and distress, but they are also associated with major wide-ranging and serious medical complications, which can affect every major organ in the body. Eating disorders occur in both men and women, young and old, [...]
One of the most moving experiences I have had as a speaker addressing young people around the country took place about a year ago when a Year 11 student in a WA secondary school stood to his feet during the discussion time following my talk on how our culture shaped boys views of themselves in negative ways. Visibly distressed, this young man recounted that his brother [...]
Fewer than one in four young people with autism continue their education after school. Too often, colleges and universities are just not equipped or well-enough prepared to support young people with autism to move into further or higher education. There are also problems with their transition from school. Even where schools do provide support for [...]
Fear is a survival tactic that is built into our species. You are all familiar with the fight or flight syndrome, and that is where your fear originates. In the early days of mankind, the human body's fight or flight syndrome was meant to protect you from the dangers in your environment. Today, however, your [...]
I am a mother of sons and the thought of them growing up within a culture of rampant male sexual entitlement terrifies me. Right now they are six and seven – still innocent, still able to see their female peers as fellow humans – but as adolescence approaches, I fear that a deluge of misogyny will [...]
Getting a blood sugar test at a mobile clinic near a New Delhi slum. Chronic health problems like diabetes are on the rise among India's population, even as there has been success against more immediately life-threatening ailments. Credit Prakash Singh/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images As illness patterns worldwide shift toward chronic, [...]
The physio digs her thumbs into the crook of my shoulder. "So when you're sitting on the computer at home on Twitter or Facebook, you can do these neck exercises." Like many adults, this physio has immediately made the presumption that because I'm a teenager, I obviously spend all of my time huddled in a [...]
The contribution made by parents and grandparents to a child or teen’s success in school and in life is enormous. When teachers and families work together the results that kids achieve are amazing. Here are some of the main things we can all do to give children and teenagers a boost in school success. 1. Be [...]
Larissa Dann blog post May 2015Photo:Shutterstock Children and discipline - a perennial issue. Discipline (the verb) can mean either ‘to teach’, or ‘to control’ (Gordon, T. 1989). If we use discipline to control children, then we rely on reward and punishment to change a child’s behaviour. This article questions the use of one of the most commonly used discipline (punishment) techniques - time-out. Many schools, childcare centres and parents rely on time-out to discipline children. What is time-out? Time-out [...]
A new study by researchers at the University of Colorado, New York University, and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill estimates the number of deaths that can be linked to differences in education, and finds that variation in the risk of death across education levels has widened considerably. The findings, published July 8 [...]
