A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Around this time each summer, many parents and children begin to get worried about returning to school and the potential for getting bullied again like last year. The summer offers a respite from school bullies, but does this break from bullying have to end because the summer ends? Schools today offer massive anti-bullying campaigns that [...]
THE life of a man who lived for smiles and laughter will be remembered. On Saturday, Australia's best-known clown doctor and Bowral general practitioner Dr Peter Spitzer, was farewelled as he lost his battle with cancer. Dr Spitzer was fondly known as Dr Fruit-Loop and was the co-founder and medical director of The Humour Foundation. [...]
The largest study of its kind has shown that smoking during pregnancy could cause epigenetic changes in the fetus, resulting in birth defects and health problems later in life. Christina Markunas of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and her colleagues have found that newborn children of mothers who smoked while pregnant are more [...]
Most youngsters believe their parents are oblivious to their web activities, while some admit to making fake social media profiles and fudging browser histories to deceive tech-savvy ones, a new report shows. Seventy per cent of children aged between 8 and 17 said their parents did not know about all their internet activities, a survey involving [...]
You may think you're better at reading than you are at math (or vice versa#, but new research suggests you're probably equally good #or bad) at both. The reason: The genes that determine a person's ability to tackle one subject influence their aptitude at the other, accounting for about half of a person's overall ability. [...]
New research by the Australian Institute of Family Studies (AIFS) shows children are expressing dissatisfaction with their body size as early as 8-9 years old and the majority of 10-11 years old are trying to control their weight. Executive Manager of AIFS' Longitudinal Study for Australian Children, Dr Ben Edwards said the research also showed [...]
Whose job is it to teach children about cyber-safety, online behaviour or digital citizenship? Parents seem to be waiting for schools to take the lead, whilst this is another area schools believe that parents have dropped the ball, and unfairly they’ll say, need to find time and resources to fit this into an already jam-packed [...]
Children exposed to stress have long-term changes in key brain areas, new study shows. The study, conducted by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, early-life stress due to poverty, abuse or neglect can alter brain areas dedicated to learning, memory and emotion. These changes in the brain could lead to future health as well as [...]
A group of New Orleans researchers found that children exposed to domestic violence are at risk for mental and physical illness due to a breakdown in their DNA. Dr. Stacy Drury, director of the Behavioral and Neurodevelopmental Genetics Laboratory at Tulane University, and Dr. Katherine Theall, a Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine epidemiologist, led [...]
The AMA Vice President, Dr Stephen Parnis, this week launched the second annual report of the Alcohol Advertising Review Board at Parliament House in Canberra. The reported provides further evidence that self-regulation of alcohol advertising is ineffective and many alcohol companies are ignoring concerns about young people’s exposure to ads through sport, TV and online. [...]
