parenting

National survey reveals concerns of the youth

The results of the largest annual survey of young people in Australia were released yesterday by Mission Australia. The National Survey of Young Australians 2009 obtained the views of almost 48,000 young people across Australia and found that the young people rank drugs, suicide and body image as the most concerning issues they face. The [...]

Guest Post: Preventing the Transition to Psychosis in Youths

In this guest post, Dr Jackie Curtis, a psychiatrist who actively works with young people with mental health problems at the Prince of Wales Hospital, and Dr Georgie Paulik, a clinical psychologist, explain how the onset of psychosis may be prevented or delayed in high-risk youths and describe some of the research which is currently [...]

Airbrushed images

Two images depicting women digitally edited to look unrealistically skinny have been making waves in the media recently. In the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney an advertisement for Ralph Lauren with an unrealistically skinny model is displayed. The model in the picture has had her waist significantly reduced to make her appear much smaller, as [...]

Bullying report investigates lasting effects

A report detailing a survey of 1,200 people aged 18-44 has found that almost seventy percent of the people surveyed still suffer from negative effects of bullying years down the track, including low self-esteem and a lack of assertiveness. The report Give Kids a Chance: No One Deserves to Be Left Out by Wesley Mission [...]

Generation Next at your school

We are currently in the process of planning the 2010 Generation Next series. Thanks to your feedback we have learned a lot of lessons about how best to run the events and use the limited financial and other resources available to us. Importantly, in 2010 we would like to explore the possibility of running the [...]

A message from Julie Gale

Issues like the sexualisation and abuse of children aren't humorous. They are serious. The Cotton On store declared in August that it would remove inappropriate slogan t-shirts after public pressure from around Australia and New Zealand - including comments from child development professionals, calling for the removal of the slogan t-shirts. Today in The Herald [...]

Book recommendation: Getting Real

Prominent Australian author and speaker Melinda Tankard Reist recently published a collection of essays on the topics of the sexualisation of girls in Australia. This important book features articles from author Steve Biddulph, Playschool presenter Noni Hazlehurst and Generation Next speaker Julie Gale. We strongly recommend this book and invite you to leave your comments [...]

Teen binge drinking – Dr Michael Carr-Gregg

Australia seems to be in the grip of a teen binge drinking Ebola. The contagion slips insidiously from family to family, school to school, suburb to suburb. You can't see it or smell it but it burrows in to teenage psyches and then roars into life.  The public health doctors have no cure.  They've thrown [...]

Calls for tighter underage drinking laws

Calls for tighter underage drinking laws have been made by drug body The Australian Drug Foundation, who believe the current laws allowing underage drinking on private property without parental consent are too lax. The foundation proposed that adults should only be allowed to provide alcohol to minors with their parent’s consent, the adults should only [...]

Setting boundaries – Dr Michael Carr-Gregg tells you how

In a recent radio segment Ian 'Dicko' Dickson of Australian Idol fame complained about how his 16-year-old daughter was adamant of getting a tattoo, despite that her age makes it illegal. He called psychologist and Generation Next speaker Dr Michael Carr-Gregg to talk about how should approach this issue. Listen to Dr Michael Carr-Gregg's recommendation [...]

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