Positive Psychology

15 years on the sex offender register – a big price to pay for sexting

A YOUNG man's impulsive decision to email two pictures of himself and his girlfriend having sex when they were 17 still haunts him seven years on. via Teen sext haunts man 7 years on.

Buddhism expert contests claims about brain science

SCIENTIFIC studies purporting to show the ancient Buddhist practice of meditation leads to permanent beneficial changes in the brain rest on shaky foundations, a world authority on Buddhism has warned. Bernard Faure, a visiting professor of Buddhist studies at the University of Sydney, said in a recent Sydney Ideas talk that little was known about [...]

It’s a worry: study predicts lifetime of anxiety

A survey from Macquarie University's centre for emotional health, which asked people about their everyday worries, found more than 80 per cent of the 282 respondents under 30 worried moderately to a lot about work or study. More than half worried about social interactions, and nearly 70 per cent stressed about their image, including looks [...]

Traditional vs Brain-based learning, Assoc Prof Mike Nagel

Associate Professor Mike Nagel Duration: 12 mins Assoc Prof Mike Nagel will be speaking at our Mental Health and Wellbeing Seminars on applying the new brain science to working with young people. The remaining seminars for this year will be in the Gold Coast, Melbourne, Canberra, Adelaide and Sydney. To register or download the brochure [...]

Positive education

I read with interest this week an opinion piece in the Sydney Morning Herald by John Weekes, the headmaster of Knox Grammar. He was discussing the concept of Positive Education. Essentially, Positive Education embeds the tenets of Positive Psychology into the curriculum, both explicitly and implicitly.* Weekes says, “Our focus on academic outcomes such as [...]

7 Internet Safety Tips to Help Parents Keep their Kids Safe Online

Like many parents with young children, I wondered how early and how often my young daughter should be on the computer. The advice experts’ offer was both surprising and reassuring. 1) It’s almost never too early. Although the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends no computer usage before age two, by age three many children are [...]

Cyber-bullies….revenge of the nerds factor?

PSYCHOLOGISTS and educators need to go back to the drawing board on cyber-bullying and admit they have little idea what is driving the epidemic among students, a study suggests. And, in a finding that has surprised the researchers, it found cyber-bullying does not appear to have the same roots as traditional bullying. via Cyber-bullies truly [...]

Texting can be good for you

This study contrasts a rash of research suggesting social media and overuse of technology causes depression and can lower self-esteem. Unlike those studies, which focused on people who use mobile technology and social networks to compare themselves to others, the UC Berkeley texting study focused on person-to-person communication, which may account for the divergent results.Instead [...]

The new adolescence

Scientists describe how new research has changed our understanding of adolescence which was thought to start with the physical changes to the body around puberty and to be completed when growth stopped in the late teens. Now researchers believe the brain goes on maturing and is not fully developed until at least the age of [...]

Teens who experiment with drugs have differently wired brain- new study

Why do some teenagers start smoking or experimenting with drugs-while others don't? In the largest imaging study of the human brain ever conducted-involving 1,896 14-year-olds-scientists have discovered a number of previously unknown networks that go a long way toward an answer. Robert Whelan and Hugh Garavan of the University of Vermont, along with a large [...]

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