Mental Health & Wellbeing

Pop neuroscience is bunk!

By now you’ve seen the pretty pictures: Color-drenched brain scans capturing Buddhist monks meditating, addicts craving cocaine, and college sophomores choosing Coke over Pepsi. The media—and even some neuroscientists, it seems—love to invoke the neural foundations of human behavior to explain everything from the Bernie Madoff financial fiasco to slavish devotion to our iPhones, the [...]

Reading novels makes us better thinkers

Are you uncomfortable with ambiguity? It’s a common condition, but a highly problematic one. The compulsion to quell that unease can inspire snap judgments, rigid thinking, and bad decision-making. Fortunately, new research suggests a simple anecdote for this affliction: Read more literary fiction. A trio of University of Toronto scholars, led by psychologist Maja Djikic, report that people [...]

We must let our children fail

Last week in France, a 52-year-old mother took over-parenting to new heights. Donning Converse boots, skinny jeans and heavy makeup, she posed as her 19-year-old daughter and tried to sit the Baccalaureate English exam in her place. via Painful as it is, we must let our children fail.

Girl Cliques

I have a male friend who calls his daughter's 'friends' emotional terrorists. When his child was 9-years-old she was the target of cruel smears and gossip for a year. This culminated in the day she came home and said 'Dad, I wish I was a boy like you, 'cos then they'd punch me and move [...]

Girl Mag Watch Dolly June 2013

Only half the mag is worth reading Melinda Tankard Reist Readers wanting something of substance from Dolly’s June issue would do best to skip the first half and go straight to the second.  Articles on self-harm, hate pages and unhealthy attitudes toward food redeem the insubstantial nature of the pages that go before. ‘Would you [...]

Why is ADHD an Aussie Issue?

In the US, at least 9% of schoolchildren are on medication for ADHD. In Australia it is estimated that 11% of children and adolescents fulfill the criteria for ADHD. In France the figure is .5%. As in POINT five. Half a percent. Why is this? Well, first of all the way in which French psychiatrists [...]

Autism, are children being over-diagnosed?

Lately, we read a lot about the so-called ‘over diagnoses’ of our children. An increasingly popular view suggests we are medicalising completely ‘normal’ aspects of childhood. Autism, Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disorder, Asperger’s Syndrome and Oppositional Defiance Disorder are just some of the conditions we hear about more often these days – and that attract considerable [...]

Trying to Stay Positive

How positive are you? Dr Barbara Fredrickson has designed a simple questionnaire to answer that question! Take it at: http://www.positivityratio.com/single.php     Go on… it only takes 2 mins. Then come back to me.   Done? OK.   Are you close to the recommended 3:1 Positivity Ratio required to flourish?   Does this surprise you? [...]

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