Almost five years I wrote about Hannah Lottritz, a 21-year-old college student from the US who had written a piece titled 'Drinking Responsibly' which featured this photograph of her on life-support. When it was first published in 2016, Hannah's article went viral, with the confronting image attracting a great deal of attention. The reason behind her controversial decision to share this disturbing image was clearly explained in her opening paragraph which read as follows: "I am writing this because I didn’t realize the importance of drinking responsibly until I was waking up from a coma, and ..read more

Few parents would be unaware of the importance of doing their best to 'stay connected' to their child during adolescence. This is particularly true as they transition from early to middle adolescence (around 14-15) - a time when they're trying to find their place in the world, develop their own identity and, in doing so, often pull away from their parents. It is at this time that peers become increasingly important and, as a result, teens can begin to disengage from their families. In addition, their interests may change and friends they've had since they began school may drift away. Yea ..read more

An article in a recent edition of the Daily Telegraph highlights the current "nationwide shortage of child psychologists", which was an issue pre-COVID but one that's become far more significant since the pandemic began. It discusses "massive waiting lists" and, provides results from the Australian Association of Psychologists' (AAPi) latest national survey of 600 private psychologists that found "nearly half of practices were unable to accept new clients - an increase of 10 per cent on 2020." Anxiety and depression were on the rise prior to the pandemic but COVID and all that goes with it, i ..read more

This is an updated version of a blog entry that I wrote some time ago and, in response to requests from parents, I've reposted it at the beginning of the school year a number of times. This version has been shortened down and is hopefully more 'user-friendly', ending with five simple things that parents can do to help support their child through the first few months of high school. I'm sure some people have fond memories of their first day of high school - I'm not one of them! The move from a state primary school to a private high school was tough. I knew absolutely no-one and felt completely ..read more

This is a slightly updated version of a blog entry that I wrote a couple of years ago. I've put it together due to a number of parents contacting me in the past few weeks requesting a copy of the previous article to give to their teens who had recently got their P-plates.  Even though the Christmas/New Year period has just passed, it's still school holidays and we're going to continue to see police out in force on the roads in an effort to prevent senseless tragedies from occurring. Random breath testing (RBT) units will be stationed on roads across the country and if you have a young dr ..read more

Over the past few months I've written very few blog articles, mainly due to the extended lockdowns and resulting restrictions that have been in place in parts of the country. Many young people have been unable to socialise as they usually would and it became extremely difficult to write pieces that were applicable to the majority of Australian parents. I have, however, been delivering many online parent sessions in recent weeks with a focus on what happens next, i.e., with restrictions eased, what behaviour are we likely to see when it comes to teens and socialising?  Of course, there ar ..read more

Recently I delivered a webinar for parents for the Mid North Coast Local Health District on the topic of vaping. Like so many other parts of the country, schools and parents in the area were requesting information and assistance around the use of e-cigarettes, particularly in relation to school-based young people. The event was well-attended and I provided some basic information about vaping. Particular attention was given to how parents should talk to their teen about vaping, particularly if they've recently discovered their child has used or is currently using these devices. Since that pres ..read more

In the past few months I've been contacted by a number of parents who have reached out for advice in relation to their teen's drug use. In some cases they discovered what their child had been up to completely by accident (e.g., finding a bag of pills and caps in dirty washing), others had police call to inform them their teen had been arrested and could they come to the local station, while others were summoned to school to be told their teen was being expelled for dealing. To ensure confidentiality all of the stories discussed in this piece have been slightly altered but they'll hopefully gi ..read more

One of the worst aspects of living in a COVID-19 world is the uncertainty that accompanies the pandemic. As the past week or two has shown us, things can change very quickly and just as we seemed to be returning to some degree of normalcy, we suddenly get the rug pulled out from beneath us and we find ourselves right back where we were a year ago ... What has saddened me greatly is receiving messages from young people across the country who are absolutely devastated that something they were looking forward to was suddenly ripped away from them due to a lockdown. Here is one such email: "My na ..read more

'Sticking to your guns' when it comes to any adolescent issue, whether it be rules around screen time, household chores or alcohol and teenage parties is never going to be easy. You can start off with the best of intentions, attend every parent information session, read all the right books and think that you have it all covered but when it finally comes down to actually putting it all into practice it can be really tough.  Here is part of a message I received from Carol, a mother struggling to maintain her stand in relation to alcohol and her teenage son: "I'm constantly being told by my ..read more