A social enterprise providing education and information to protect and enhance the mental health of young people
Girl Achieving: Girlfriend September 2013 Melinda Tankard Reist As always, when I review teen girls’ magazines I look for the girls who are taking up their rightful place in the world, engaging in social action and cultural transformation. This issue we meet ‘2013 Girlfriend of the Year’ (I’m ignoring the eight pages on GF’s Rimmel [...]
Most adult smokers begin smoking during adolescence. They quickly become addicted and most struggle to quit for decades afterwards. Prevention in the early years can prevent this battle from even starting. Here are 5 strategies that can help: 1. Avoid that first cigarette Young people vastly underestimate the addictive potential of smoking and think [...]
Children with involved fathers have better social skills, more successful relationships, stronger self esteem, more self-control and higher grades than those who do not. They are also less likely to be overweight, suspended from school or bully, take drugs, engage in risky sexual behaviour or crime. As fathers take a more active role in parenting [...]
A mother's perceived social status predicts her child's brain development and stress indicators, finds a study at Boston Children's Hospital. While previous studies going back to the 1950s have linked objective socioeconomic factors -- such as parental income or education -- to child health, achievement and brain function, the new study is the first to [...]
If we keep parenting like this, civilization as we know it is doomed. There is a new breed of toddler on the loose; he has discriminating tastes, he makes decisions, and he weighs in on conversations that no toddler has previously been asked to participate in. Do you know this toddler? My guess is we [...]
A great deal of parenting is timeless, but some things change so fast you can barely blink, and one of those is the rise of internet porn. For parents of both boys and girls, this is creating a surge of new dilemmas to solve. via How to raise boys in the era of internet porn.
Girl Mag Watch Girlfriend July 2013 Melinda Tankard Reist In my talks in schools around the country, I am told distressing stories of alcohol-related harm. Violence, sexual assault, damage to physical and mental health. My friend and colleague Paul Dillon, a drug educator with 25 years experience and founder of Drug and Alcohol Research and [...]
I have a saying that my teaching colleagues will be able to appreciate. Interesting kids have very interesting parents. I spent the past two years resisting invitations from schools to give parent talks. My reasoning was that whilst after 15+ years teaching, I can speak with some authority with regards to working with school students, [...]
Long before Amy Chua’s provocative 2011 memoir, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, raised the bar for tough-love parenting, psychologists at UC Berkeley were studying the effects of three kinds of child-rearing: authoritarian (too hard), permissive (too soft) and authoritative (combo). Now, with the recent release of UC Berkeley alumna Kim Wong Keltner’s memoir, Tiger Babies Strike Back, along [...]
We hear it everywhere - girls are growing up too fast. When I mention this to audiences of parents, their heads nod like they are going to fall off. Taxidrivers know it. Teachers know it. Doctors in emergency rooms almost weep when they say it, after dealing with twelve-year-olds who have drunk so much they [...]
