A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Remember anxiously waiting for your child to take their first steps or speak their first words? It’s exhilarating when they reach a new stage in their development. Every child grows and develops differently. Some will change at a steady pace and amaze us each day with a new skill or word, whereas others appear slow [...]
As bushfires rage and our cities lie shrouded in smoke, climate change is shaping as a likely topic of conversation at the family dinner table this Christmas. Such discussions can be fraught if family members hold differing views. You may not all agree on the urgency of dealing with climate change – or indeed whether [...]
It’s the end of the first year of school for many children and proud parents. Some children may be reading quicker than their classmates, others slower; some can add double digits, others only single. What’s normal? Not all babies talk, walk and are toilet-trained by the same age and it’s the same thing as the [...]
New Australian research into body image and eating disorders in adolescents has found an alarming rise in the prevalence of chewing and spitting out food. More than one in ten of the cohort of over 5,000 11- to 19-year-olds reported having spat out food at least once per week, with 2.5% having done so four [...]
Regardless of whether you teach in remote, rural, regional, or metropolitan schools, you can expect to come across a child in your classroom who has experienced trauma. Understanding the impact of trauma on learning capability may assist you to create trauma-sensitive learning environments. What is trauma? Adverse childhood experiences (ACE) are stressful or traumatic events, [...]
The Australian Bureau of Statistics shows children are mostly likely to start studying music between the ages of nine and 11. Researchers in a 2009 UK study suggested the dramatic drop in music tuition after age 11 was linked to children starting high school. The study also revealed the main reasons for children ending music [...]
We all want to reduce drug-related harm and ensure young people don’t take unnecessary risks. But decades of research shows fear isn’t an effective way to do this. This week, Newscorp Australia released The Ripple Effect, a series of articles and accompanying videos about party drugs, aimed at parents of young people. Rather than drawing [...]
There is a body of research linking parent engagement to improved student learning outcomes in the classroom (Jeynes, 2010; Anderson & Minke 2007). Research has shown that when schools and families work together, children do better, stay in school longer and are more engaged in school. Parent engagement results in longer-term economic, social and emotional [...]
It's difficult to not drink in Australia, and if anything, it's even harder for teens. Adolescence is a time of desperately wanting to fit in and be accepted, and many teens see drinking as one of the easiest ways to achieve this. On the other hand, parents (and other adults responsible for teens) are generally [...]
When I was younger, I decided to learn Greek. I learnt the letter-sound correspondences and could say the words – the sounds, that is. But although I could and still can decode these words, I can’t actually read Greek because I don’t know what the words mean. Being able to make the connection between the [...]
