A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
The television ads for children's shoes and stationery tell us it's back-to-school time, bringing with it the thorny perennial public wrangling about equity and government funding. There will also be much time and attention devoted to the growing debate about the role of selective schools. If NSW Education Minister Rob Stokes intends pursuing changes to [...]
Pixabay Images Recently a primary school in Brisbane informed its Prep (Foundation) parents that all of its students would be required to have an iPad for school and this would be done at the parent’s expense. Needless to say this raised much discussion and debate. As part of this discussion I found myself [...]
Getty Images Too much face-to-screen time and not enough face-to-face interaction could degrade kids' ability to read other people's emotions, a new study suggests. A team of researchers from UCLA discovered that a group of sixth graders who didn't use a phone, TV or computer for five days were much better at reading [...]
We were pretty good at keeping computers and televisions out of bedrooms, but as technology developed we somehow missed that phones and tablets ARE computers. One of the main conversations I have with parents is about their exhaustion at parenting with so many devices in the home. Parents feel out of control. At my seminars [...]
Parents may not always see it, but efforts to limit their children's screen time can make a difference. A new study, published in JAMA Pediatrics, found children get more sleep, do better in school, behave better and see other health benefits when parents limit content and the amount of time their children spend on the [...]
This time a few weeks ago, give or take a few hours, I was standing dripping wet in the lounge room, looking at my kids in total disbelief. Seconds into my shower they had decided to battle it out, and I had to come back in to negotiate calm. As I stood there with conditioner [...]
British children who spend most time in front of televisions and computer screens have lower self-esteem and greater emotional problems, according to a study published today by Public Health England. The report found that excessive “screen time” – more than four hours a day – was linked to anxiety and depression and was responsible for [...]
Alex Wodak was the director of the alcohol and drug service at St Vincent's Hospital until last July, a position he held for more than 30 years. He has seen firsthand the shift towards seeking fast comfort, saying there was much more pressure on populations now compared with 20 years ago and people were turning [...]
Dr Aric Sigman, psychologist and author of Remotely Controlled: How Television is Damaging Our Lives and The Spoilt Generation is concerned that exposing children as young as 22 months to computers and Information and Communication Technology (ICT) actually impinges on their development rather than aids it because it is “subverting the development of children's cognitive [...]
