A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Young adults are more likely to feel lonely than older age groups, says a study from the Office for National Statistics. The research found that almost 10% of people aged 16 to 24 were "always or often" lonely - the highest proportion of any age group. This was more than three times higher than people [...]
The number of students being suspended or expelled from Australian schools is “skyrocketing”, according to news reports. These note a 10% increase in suspensions over two years at NSW primary schools and that students in south-western Sydney are being suspended more than four times as often as students in other parts of the city. Suspension and [...]
It is normal for parents to argue, but the way these disagreements affect children varies greatly. What can parents and carers do to limit the harm caused by their rows? What happens at home really does affect children's long-term mental health and development. But it is not only the relationship between the parent and child [...]
Selfies can distort the face and make the nose look larger than it is, according to plastic surgeons who say they’ve seen an uptick in requests for cosmetic procedures from people who want to look better in selfies. “Patients under age 40 take out their phones and tell me they don’t like how they look,” [...]
Today's teens have a reputation for being accomplished, fluent, and effective social media users. But they learn these skills the way we learn most life lessons: through trial and error, by making mistakes and learning from the outcomes. While these trial-and-error experiences can be educational in many contexts, social media makes trials public and errors difficult to [...]
"Your kids are living in a world that you are not invited to be part of. And they know how to keep you out." That's the stark warning one teacher has issued to parents about their teens' use of social media, urging them to "wake up". Skipper Coates, from Pleasant Grove, Utah, asked her 14 [...]
Glued to screens and with nothing else in town to entertain them, Warwick youth carry their problems everywhere and there is no escape. Former Warwick State High School student and young leader Jacob Meiklejohn said many adults did not understand the unique challenges millennials faced in an age of social media. On the National Day [...]
A young child is gradually learning how to interact with other children in a safe play environment. The child had presented at SalvoConnect in Ballarat with severely stunted physical and cognitive development. Born in to a life of family violence, the young child had little social interaction with other children and had a strained relationship to [...]
An honest chat with children about healthy, consensual sex could not come any sooner. Time and again, society fails to educate young people — particularly young women — about sexual health. What’s more, in the United States, abstinence-only sex education is the rule, not the exception — and studies show it actually hurts kids as they grow into adolescence. [...]
Fake Instagram accounts, often referred to as “finstas” or “spam accounts”, have become the norm for many teens – but their reasoning for creating these is not as sinister as you think. I’ve spoken with 50 Australian families – including 118 children aged 1-18 – about technology use, and am currently conducting a follow-up qualitative [...]
