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.

 

 

Teenage Depression

My work by it's very nature involves receiving secrets.  It's sacred information from the hidden spaces within my clients. The teenagers I see are beautiful, young and free. But those qualities are the last things that they themselves see if they are battling depression and anxiety. As they slowly approach me, with their intelligent caution they begin to share secrets. At times, I find  some of those secrets heartbreaking.  They speak of self hatred and isolation. Behind the shy smiles, there are beliefs of being ugly, dumb. There's something wrong with me.

Such is the truly monstrous nature of depression and anxiety. The turnaround is what we work towards. Sometimes it involves medication. But no amount of pharmaceutical support will ever be as good as the power of genuine self regard that is continuously nurtured. Refusal to believe any of these Black Dog* thoughts, a stubbornness, a determination not to be defined by this condition...These are the things to be inspired.

The great blessing for the young is that they are young. With their whole lives ahead of them, they can learn to take this Black Dog, tame it and keep it in it's rightful kennel. It can actually be a stunning opportunity - the meeting of depression and/or anxiety can be the whole reason for the growing of strength and true self esteem that can be taken into adulthood. 

I am always greatly moved and honoured when I am allowed into these secret places, these shadowy spaces. Once that door is opened I can sit down with my teenage pal and we can nut out the best ways of being kind and compassionate to the self first. Then we get to work out how  he or she can start to have some fun again and to grow who they are, in all their rebellious and wonderful youth.

*Winston Churchill's Black Dog was the name he gave his depressive periods.

Books. They're Good.

I wonder why I chose to write a novel.

Counting now around 50,000  words, I find myself mumbling, as I clack away on the laptop, 'Nobody likes this. Nobody will ever like this.'

That no-one has read it yet remains irrelevant. The whole exercise makes me want to grind my teeth and hit a table with something. One of the cats perhaps? Yegads. It would  have to be stiff and therefore dead, so I don't go any further with that thought. 

But then I watch and listen to Neil Gaiman, and I smile (it's a happy, though stupid smile). I smile with hopefulness. As Inky at Inside A Dog notes:  This is the best idea EVER.  

It is!

Have a look and breathe it in.

Literature for YA (Young Adults) and kidlets is so much fun. Even if more than half of it takes place in your own dear deluded head, the whole idea is that you will indeed connect with other same-head types. Or at least talk with types who like a good story.

Ok then. I will soldier forth towards the thing I'm soldiering towards. Yes.

Vive le Neil Gaiman!

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Oz: The Great and Powerful

Lovers of magic, witches, wizards and  (goofy voice) really pretty moving pictures, take note! This looks to be a little gem and it's released next month.I was sold from the moment I heard,"You don't know much about witches do you?" But even moreso after a couple of crows chant "You'll die! You'll die!"

 

via Inside a Dog

Evil Child Syndrome And It's Relationship to Love

Actor Ezra Miller portrays the troubled Kevin as a teenager.

We Need To Talk About Kevin by Lionel Shriver is a story from the mother's point of view about the entire history of her teenage son who, one sunny day, embarks  upon a kill-spree at his school. It's a story of a child who fits these descriptions: deviant, psychopathic, evil.

Understandably, the mother in the story (read 'parents in real life') resorts to harsh and punitive discipline.

New Australian research which will be presented in Paris next week at the International Association for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. It will present the findings of a 3-year study which shows  that nurturing, love, empathy and emotional warmth do in fact work.

"A University of Sydney psychologist, David Hawes, will tell the conference that contrary to earlier studies which found that the quality of parenting had no bearing on the behavioural problems of deviant children, parents who maintained a warm and emotionally engaged parenting style could protect their children from developing aggressive and anti-social behaviour."

Via Essential Kids

Obviously, the parents of these kids need a lot of support, understanding, advice and time out. But what a breath of fresh air to know that there is something to do in response to such difficult personalities, that parenting can indeed have a positive bearing, when previously the 'wisdom' was that such kids are just born evil and no amount of parenting will change that.

How sweet the one thing that looks like being influential is love. But I'd like to point out something of note:

    Why do we need constantly need numbers and science state the bleeding obvious? (This is one of my favourite moans regarding psychology, I'll try not to be too boring in my repititions).

The science means it will be made credible and therefore respected, which in turns gives a higher possibility of being acted on.... So I promise not to complain about that part.

 

 

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.

 

 

Sisterhood by Kate Wilson

Sometimes I find myself almost panicking about the media's narrow and twisted portrayals of young women, the sexualization of girls and the backlash against women that it all represents.

 I caught up with a precious friend from high school on the weekend and spent a number of moments panicking about it again. Chris assured me I would work it out.  

Another dear friend  Maree sent me this link today. I'm comforted, reassured and inspired by this. There are more of us than a tiddly wee few who want sharper awareness, change and guts shown by and for women.

A heartfelt and very strong poem performed by Kate Wilson:

 

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.

The New Year

 

"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

--Andy Warhol

Sunday, December 31, 2006 .Taken from Theresa Duncan's blog Wit Of The Staircase

 

 

I've noticed other people's desires to really do something this year. You know - leave that crappy job for something that is more suitable to one's inner self; ditch the loser and go solo for a while etc. People I'm seeing want to aim higher.

A great book to support one's wish to do this is Jack Canfield's  How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Be: The Success Principles (There's a link to success principles for adolescents as well).

I've read it and it's great. Full of success stories and commonsense ideas all with a good grounding in positive psychology. It's got all the visualization = attraction biznezz in it but it is very big on ACTION.

In other words, you can write positive affirmations till the cows come home (they are quite necessary) but you must DO whatever is necessary to achieve what you want.

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"They say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself."

--Andy Warhol

Sunday, December 31, 2006 .Taken from Theresa Duncan's blog Wit Of The Staircase