A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Ian Gordon, The University of Melbourne; Mary P. Coupland, University of Technology Sydney, and Merrilyn Goos, University of the Sunshine Coast Imagine if you enrolled your child in swimming lessons but instead of a qualified swimming instructor, they were taught freestyle technique by a soccer coach. Something similar is happening in classrooms around Australia every [...]
Alison Bedford, University of Southern Queensland As Year 12 students begin term 3, they will be thinking increasingly about what to do next year. Throughout August, many universities have have open days as students investigate different courses and options for study. This is a significant time for young people as they navigate study pressures with [...]
Sam Sellar, University of South Australia This week, the national 2024 NAPLAN results were released. This was met with headlines raising alarm about one in three students not meeting literacy and numeracy standards. While these headlines may be worrying to parents, they do not say anything about individual students. Families have been receiving individual student [...]
Andrew J. Martin, UNSW Sydney and Rebecca J. Collie, UNSW Sydney Adolescence is often characterised as a time of “storm and stress”. Young people are dealing with physical and cognitive changes and, as they move from childhood, can become increasingly distant from the adults in their lives. In academic terms, this time of major hormonal [...]
Chris Speldewinde, The University of Melbourne In Australia we have a long history of taking children outdoors to learn about the natural environment. But thanks to computer games, tablets and busy lifestyles, children aren’t getting as much exposure to nature as they used to. “Bush kinders” are one way to counter this. In a bush [...]
Becky Freeman, University of Sydney This year the Australian government is introducing a series of measures to restrict the availability of vapes, starting today. The new reforms address loopholes in the current laws that allow easy access to highly addictive, flavoured, cheap, and harmful vaping products that are marketed to kids. Vaping products will still [...]
Dr Li Huang , Melanie Lloyd, Professor Kim Dalziel and Professor Mimi Tang For many people peanuts are a healthy snacking option, but for those people with an allergy, peanuts can be a serious, or even deadly, health risk. Interestingly, Australia has quite a high rate of peanut allergies. At one year of age, [...]
Steven Roberts, Monash University and Stephanie Wescott, Monash University Many parents are worried about their children using social media. But these concerns tend to focus on privacy, exposure to explicit material or contact with strangers. As researchers looking at sexism and misogyny in Australian schools and the influence of social media, we think it is [...]
Corey Bloomfield, CQUniversity Australia These long summer holidays may seem like an extra blessing to families who are dealing with a child who does not like school or who refuses to go. But even as January stretches out in front of us, parents will no doubt be thinking about the challenge of getting their child [...]
Gemma Sicouri, UNSW Sydney; Annabel Songco, UNSW Sydney; Chloe Lim, UNSW Sydney, and Jennie Hudson, UNSW Sydney In the movie Inside Out 2, 13-year-old Riley, who has recently started puberty, has a panic attack during a hockey game timeout. Anxiety (the emotion responsible for the panic attack) becomes completely frenzied and there is a [...]
