Woman and Child First

BRAVE online Self-Help Program for Anxious Kids

Developed by a team of Queensland mental health professionals over the last 15 years, the BRAVE program has now gone online with a program that can be used by children and young people with anxiety. This is an excellent resource on all levels of anxiety management, as demonstrated in the program's name and steps: B (body signals) R (relax) A (activate helpful thoughts) V (victory over fears) E (enjoy yourself).

BRAVE being an online self-help tool supports those kids and teenagers who are reluctant to go into face-face counselling and those who are in regional areas with little access to mental health facilities. But it's really for all kids who are struggling with this particular monster. It can be used with parent support (helpful for younger children who may have reading difficulties) or it can be entirely self directed.

Giving kids the tools to manage anxiety sets them up well. It gives them a gift that they can continue to use and modify as they get older. 

Trial it here.

Good Young Men on Domestic Violence

I'm running a program with a male teacher called GYM ( Good Young Men) for Year 5 boys. We kick the whole thing off by asking the boys about what they think makes a "good man" and we cover many things around that topic including domestic violence (DV). White Ribbon day is held annually in Australia and highlights this disturbing problem.

Our Assistant Principal sent me the video below yesterday knowing it would be very cool for our group. I'm so impressed by this piece of work. It's very moving, optimistic and frankly - it rocks.  It features beautiful young Yr 5 men from Bankstown Public School clearly stating their opposition to violence against women.  It comes out of a project run in south-western Sydney by BYDS (Bankstown Youth Development Service) and we are SO going to use it in our GYM group.

 

 

We're All From Venus And Neurosexism Is So Yesterday

It was a Sydney Morning Herald  front page subheading that grabbed me whilst standing in a cue yesterday. 

As brain research sheds more light on how we operate, it becomes clear that there's actually very little difference in the "hard-wiring" of male and female brains.

And to say otherwise is to be a boring and walking cliche and you will be vastly and embarrassingly out of date within 18 months.  

However.

A book about to be published by a researcher from Melbourne Uni states there are no major neurological differences between men and women. Cordelia Fine is the author of Delusions of Gender and she challenges any "hard-wiring" at all. The wiring is actually soft, not hard, she says.

Yes there are basic behavioural differences between girls and boys. They are exaggerated not because of 'hard-wiring' but because of a culture that has to delegate gender roles. Such is the view from Chicago Associate professor Lise Eliot who has written Pink Brain Blue Brain.

In short, the case against sexism and racism is always the same. As a race, humans - all of us - are more alike than we are different.

For such a viewpoint to hold any credit, science has to keep proving it.  And science is.

I like to think this science will have wonderful and wide reaching implications for the teaching and educating of children. Our brains are "flexible ...changeable" says Fine. Boys can be good at verbal tasks, girls can read maps. It goes on and on, just how much alike we can be, if only we were taught to be human and not put into boxes of boys or girls.

But it's interesting isn't it? How insecure we are - to constantly need the nod of 'hard science' to finally and conclusively prove the bleeding obvious.

Cordelia Fine pictured.

 

 

Kids Biz, Asteroid Close Ups and National Geographic

Next time I come here, I will reincarnate as a National Geographic photographer. 

But until then, can I refer your attentions to the website please - it's packed to busting with fabulous material - and in particular the bits for kids.

Oh and the games, for bigger kids as well. Hey but the photographs, some of which can be downloaded as wallpaper, are just grand.

Teaching: An Art Form

This year my private practice has been suspended due to gaining full-time employment until December, in public schools as a School Counsellor. I've been doing this work since 1988, give or take a couple of babies and several city/town/house moves.

This position, particularly working as a casual/relief counsellor usually means remaining on the periphery of the staff at a number of schools at any one time. It can feel isolated. Teachers' quite rightly don't see you as one of them anymore (though I taught primary school classes as a pre-requisite to this) and you're only there 1 or 2 days a week. So I always try to make my services relevant and my 'self' accessible.

But today I became a teacher person again and barged myself into a presentation on the instruction of reading and writing. (Quite frankly I think that this was invaluable to my job anyway - makes sense to see what is being taught when you are advising on Learning Difficulties!)

Stephen Graham presented an extremely straightforward model of "Explicit Teaching". Yes! Simple teaching for complex ideas. User friendly. He gave a couple of demo lessons and once again I am humbled by what an outstanding job most teachers do.

How difficult it is to have a group of children in front of you and skillfully instruct them in some of life's most important tasks - reading and writing.

It's not a bad experience either, to see that most of these people genuinely like children. And the kids love them back.

Driving home I reverted back to memories of being an idealistic 22 year old primary school teacher. When goals of modelling excellence and being an influential person in a kidlet's life were real. Too many of us in Education take what we do for granted. This work is really.... very... important.

Here's to the teacher's who have made their art their life's work.

Let's give them more money and stop complaining about their holidays. They earn every bit of both.

An Interesting (Informal) Statistic

Whilst sitting watching the unfolding of a Kindergarten lesson today, I noticed two (2) things.

1. That Kinder teachers who enjoy their job are entirely fabulous to watch in action and

2. That at any random point in time you can look out onto a group of 4 - 6 year olds and at least two (2) of them will be picking their nose.

I like spending time in Kinder classrooms, those guys haven't hit earth yet.  One little dude today ran up to me and said, "Hey I'm going to choke you!"

"I love to see what a fantastic job I do as the School Counsellor!" I thought. He remembered me!

So I said, "Hey Jimmy!" and suddenly realized his name was Felix.*

Untalkative Bunny pictured during a session with a psychiatrist.

* Not real names

The Dore Program For LD, ADHD And More

If you have a child with a Learning Disability or behavioural problem like ADHD, then you know how difficult schooling can be for them.  These kids have average to above-average intelligence yet fall behind significantly in one or more areas of schoolwork. The self-esteem issues are huge. Many programs designed to help them just don't.

So it's obvious that if a program comes along purporting to "cure" your child of his/her LD, ADHD and more,  then you take notice. You may be more than willing to part with vastly large sums of money in order to help your child. The Dore program has offered this opportunity and for many, it's worked. For other's it hasn't and it's really very expensive.

Four Corners, a documentary show consisting of very good journalism and a long history of being well-respected has recently presented a bunch of scientists, psychologists, teachers and LD specialists slamming the Dore program. See Dr John Rack, Dorothy Bishop amongst others.The claims largely revolve around the lack of decent, validated research to back up claims of "cure" for Learning Disabilities. That's a big NO NO in psychology. One must have good research data!

The owner of the program, Wynfred Dore,  however is unphased by the outcry.  He says he has enough anecdotal  evidence, through satisfied clients, to confirm the success of his work.

So who's right? Well I think both of them are probably in charge of bits and pieces of fact. I don't think there is a right and wrong here. The Dore program will work wonders for some kids. It won't work for others.

But I do agree, the research needs a thorough doing over. And parents need to be made aware. The whole issue of LD, ADHD and other behavioural and learning difficulties is extremely stressful for parents and children. Things that work, even just for some, need more objective attention.

Wild Things

When I first went into playing this game I thought, "What kind of sick and twisted mind would have children play a game where they see animals trapped in glass jars inside closed lockers?" I was outraged I tell you.

Then I realized the object of the game is actually to set them free.

So Justine Cooper is off the hook and the Queensland Art Gallery isn't made up of monsters in human suits after all.

Cute game for littlies aged around 4 - 7. But hey. I've been playing it for 2 hours.

Skills inspired: memory, auditory, basic reading/word recognition. Knowledge: animals, names and sounds, habitats.

Message: conservation and freedom for wild things.

Pictured: Justine Cooper (artist) at Museum of Natural History, New York

Being With Adolescents: The Urgency Of Our Future

Today I was lucky enough to watch Dr. Michael Carr-Greg (Adolescent Psychologist) speak to a room of 400 people, most of whom were High School teachers in the public system of North Coast, NSW, Australia.

Carr-Greg is a high profile Oz psych who writes articles for such publications as the Sydney Morning Herald and Girlfriend magazine ( I heard the teacher sitting next to me groan with ignorant disapproval to that last one).

He is passionate about people, more specifically educators, knowing about what the brain research in the last 5-10 years has found. I've written about this myself, on this blog, and I can tell you: This man was like a long lost friend to see in action.

He put this to his audience:

The teenage brain secretes melatonin (sleep inducing chemical) at around 11pm each night, some kids get it at midnight. This we know. What we now also know is that the same teenage brain needs 8 hours sleep per night. So work it out... They stay up late and then we get them out of bed at 7.00 am to start school at 8.30. This actually means  they are sleep deprived 5 times a week by 1 - 1 and a 1/2 hours.

Moreover, that last 1 hour sleep is REM sleep - the period of time that the brain dreams, processes all the day (before's) info, gets rid of the junk it doesn't need and completes the whole "good" night's sleep.

He said (I I love this guy), " I challenge every school principal in this room to delay your school's starting time till 10.00 am and take it through till 4.00pm.... Oh! I know!~ This is going to inconvenience all the adults. BUT WHO ARE YOU THERE FOR? ISN'T IT THE KIDS?"

There's more, so much more and I will post on what other things this man said, all the same stuff I've been reading up on for the last 2 - 3 years. We need people to fight for our young. It was a great inspiration to me to experience this.

Watch this man, he knows his stuff. Michael Carr-Greg.

ps. He asked the audience at one stage to put up their hands, if they themselves had never made a mistake as a teenager. One teacher, thinking he was being funny, did so. Carr-Greg gestured to him and said, "There's always one IDIOT in every audience".

The Inverse Power Of Praise

You have to read this article in the New York Magazine it's so important. It appears that to praise a child for being intelligent (EG. "You must be smart at this!") has the reverse effect to what many parents and teachers believe to be the case.

That is, It doesn't encourage children and in fact, appears to have the opposite effect, particularly on gifted kids who underachieve.

What works so much better and does really encourage a child is to praise them on the effort they put in (EG. "Hey, you've put a lot of work into this!") Less pressure with this slant too, no doubt.

So then, kids prefer knowing that their individual efforts (which they can control) will have them eager to carry on and try new work (take risks) rather than knowing they have a natural intelligence (which they can't control).

Thanks so much to Vaughan over at MindHacks for finding and sharing this extremely helpful piece of info.