Mental Health & Wellbeing

Punish them or engage them?

Researchers to share findings of major study of student behaviour Results from a major study show that the key challenge for teachers in classrooms today is to find ways to encourage active and engaged learning. A UniSA-led Behaviour at School Study (BASS) surveyed almost 1400 South Australian teachers to assess how they viewed student behaviour [...]

Scientists explain ‘beer goggles’

The area of the brain that makes us want to mate keeps functioning, no matter how much we drink, meaning that people can still assess how visually-appealing others are, says Dr Amanda Ellison. “We still see others basically as they are,” she said. “There is no imagined physical transformation - just more desire." Dr Ellison, [...]

Stress and Pregnancy

The placenta of a pregnant woman absorbs more than just nutrition and oxygen, a new study has found. Researchers, from the University of Pennsylvania, found that stress is transmitted to the placenta, altering the levels of a protein that affects brain development in the foetus. The authors of the paper, published online yesterday in the [...]

Eating Disorders In Children

Recent research suggests that up to 75% of adolescent girls view themselves as overweight or needing to lose weight and around a quarter of our teenagers are experimenting with dangerous dieting behaviour, such as taking laxatives and severely restricting their diets (Hutchings, conference). Australian research suggests that the prevalence of disordered eating behaviours have increased two-fold [...]

Stealing the innocence of children

Many health professionals argue that a sex-soaked culture is taking an insidious toll on the emotional, psychological and physical wellbeing of children and young adolescents. ''It's not only about other, older children reading messages like that [on the jumpsuit]; it's also about what the parent is doing by placing their child in a sexualised space,'' [...]

Kind kids reap rewards of happiness

Hey, kids, want to be more popular and happier in school? Then just be nicer.  That’s what researchers at the University of California discovered during a recent study. The researchers divided more than 400 kids ages 9 to 12 into two groups: One group performed “acts of kindness,” and the other kept track of pleasant [...]

INSPIRING THE ‘RACER’ IN ADOLESCENT LEARNERS

Teachers - is there something missing in how you are connecting with your students - those kids in Years 5 to 9 who sometimes seem to be in a world of their own? Do they appear to be at times fidgety, uninspired, unsure and at other times loud, challenging and emotional? The 'middle years' period [...]

The PERMA approach to Wellbeing

A couple of weeks ago I attended a lecture at the Sydney Opera House. Speaking was Professor Martin Seligman, the founding father of what has been termed Positive Psychology.   His research has led him to devise a model that he has termed the PERMA model for wellbeing. P = Positive Emotions Seligman cites the [...]

Tips on how to build bonds with girls

Famous for his book Raising Boys, author and Generation Next speaker Steve Biddulph has just published a new book Raising Girls. He wrote the book out of concerns for increased mental health issues which many girls now face and are facing earlier and earlier. "Anxiety and depression have doubled in the last 10 years. Girls' [...]

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