3 Simple Strategies to Supercharge Your Attitude
I don’t like to deal with absolutes… always, never, everything, nothing. After all, I’m a research scientist. For people like me, I prefer statements like “it depends”. I try to avoid being ...
Why Advice About Alcohol Falls on Deaf Teen Ears (and What You Can Do About It)
In late 2019, shortly before COVID-19 began to do its damage, I was in a coastal NSW high school talking to students in Grades 9 and 10 about the latest alcohol statistics. Those stats tell a very ...
My Annual Review – 2020 Edition
For the past two years I’ve written a behind-the-scenes, take-a-peek-under-the-hood kind of annual review so you can see what it is like to be both immersed in talking about having a happy family ...
What to Do When Parents and Grandparents Disagree
In Australia, two-thirds of parents are both working and raising young children. And many of those families are turning to grandparents to fill the vital role as carers for their kids. In fact, almost...
My Child is Struggling Because Everything Is Being Cancelled
We’re living in unprecedented times. Offices are shut, streets are increasingly empty, and some people are locking themselves away. The uncertainty that we are grappling with is challenging enough ...
10 Reasons You’re Doing Better as a Parent Than You Think
Parent guilt seems to be at an all-time high. Social media, tabloid ‘gotcha’ moments, and endless blog articles outlining our mistakes seem to be leaving us feeling dispirited, unmotivated, and ...
Parenting: Intentional vs Unintentional
As grown-ups, we have pretty much completely forgotten what it’s like to be three, or seven, or even fifteen years old. We think that we know what it’s like for our children, and we tell them all...
How do I stop my son drinking so much?
Hi Dr Justin, My 20 year old son is troubling me as I feel he is consuming far too much alcohol. For example, last Friday, he purchased a bottle of Scotch and finished drinking it last night. Today...
Overcoming consumer culture in kids
Consumer culture is making our children unhappy. The drive to have the latest stuff, and to look ‘hot’ is associated with a downward spiral of poorer peer relationships and lower self-esteem. And ...
18 ways to a more resilient child
In 2014 Andrew Fuller, one of Australia’s well-known child and adolescent psychologists, ran a study about resilience with approximately 16000 Aussie youth. The children who were most resilient ...