Life Education

Raising a child can bring joy, love and deep fulfillment. But modern-day parenting takes place against a backdrop of many life pressures – demanding jobs, financial stressors, grief, separation, and sometimes a lack of extended family support. Parent burnout is a common phenomenon, with 60% of parents in a recent study saying they never find time to relax and recharge and nearly half feeling they do not have enough time to get everything done. Self-care might seem like a luxury, especially during a cost-of-living crisis, but evidence shows parent self-care is crucial to the wellbeing of children and vital for parents’ physical and...

Getting kids off gaming devices can be a huge stress for many parents, but where do you turn when your child’s gaming hobby becomes a worrying addiction? In some cases, gaming is taking over all aspects of life - family, relationships, school and work. Excessive gaming can even affect cognitive function, leading to addiction, depression and aggression. Dr Kim Le is a psychiatrist and internet gaming disorder specialist and host of the SBS documentary - Are you addicted to technology? A former gaming addict himself, he knows all too well the hold that video games can have on young pe...

Does it sometimes feel like technology is the bane of your parenting existence? Wasn’t life simpler when kids just played sport, climbed trees and created their own make-believe games? Probably, yes, but like it or not, today’s kids are living in a digital world, and somehow, we need to blend the best of days gone by with 21st technology. Digital wellbeing and productivity expert Dr Kristy Goodwin says parents can achieve more digital balance if they learn to be the pilot of the digital plane (not the passenger). She shares the latest neuroscience analysing screen time’s impact on you...

Consent is an important concept for everyone to understand. It applies to situations that occur every day, to everyone. Consent education is now mandatory in Australian schools, but consent is not just about sex. It’s an agreement regarding your rights or your body. In this podcast, host Tracey Challenor speaks to expert educators and a parent for advice on how to approach the consent conversation with younger children. Dr Melissa Kang, academic, physician and co-author of Welcome to Consent, says it begins with helping children to understand private and personal space as well as teaching kids to identify th...

Anxiety is a mental health condition, meaning it can affect the way you think, feel and behave. Surveys suggest that anxiety may be on the rise. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics, around one in eight Australians (13.1%) had an anxiety related condition in 2017-18, an increase from 11.2% in 2014-15. Mental health services report this number has risen further since COVID. 

Respected author and parenting expert Michael Grose knows firsthand how debilitating anxiety can be. Using his own experience and latest research from around the world, he co-wrote Anxious Kids with Dr Jodi Richardson. In this podcast h...

For many parents and their children, the school journey is a long and winding road.  Along with the good times, there are also challenges – the daily demands of the school routine; separation anxiety; homework headaches; motivation issues and even bullying.  

Popular clinical psychologist Dr Judith Locke - the author of The Bonsai Student - chats with journalist Tracey Challenor about the simple ways to help your child succeed in today’s school environment. She says the school report card is not the only measure of success: helping kids become responsible, resilient and ready for the years that follow...

Despite Australia having some of the freshest and healthiest food on Earth, Aussie kids and adults are falling well short when it comes to eating enough greens. Journalist Tracey Challenor chats with leading dietitian Kate Di Prima, author of More Peas Please: Solutions for Feeding Fussy Eaters, about how we can reverse the trend - which has huge potential health impacts - and also how to manage fussy eaters and food allergies. After COVID and Christmas, this is the perfect podcast to help you reset the family diet for 2021.

Would you like to get a better handle on stress and be boss of your own brain? Why do we reach for the sugary foods when life is throwing us curveballs, even though we know it would be better to grab an apple? According to leading neuroscientist Professor Selena Bartlett, it’s all to do with how our pleasure-seeking brain responds to stress. But she believes we can beat binge eating and other addictions, and improve our mental health, by gaining a better understanding of how the brain works.  

In this fascinating podcast, find out how modern neu...

Many parents worry about internet safety and online grooming. According to cybersafety expert, educator and former detective Brett Lee, the chances of a predator trying to groom your child via the internet are all too real. But with knowledge and a little planning, families can arm themselves with the tools they need to keep kids safe online.  

Brett says we don’t need to know everything about technology, but we do need to be aware which devices connect to the internet and what programs, apps, and websites our kids are using. This knowledge, along with regular conversations, sho...

Growing up today is a lot different to what it used to be. Although we all want to raise happy kids, there are added pressures like social media, too much screen time, cyber threats and 21st century challenges beyond our control. Hugh van Cuylenburg, founder of The Resilience Project, says we can’t control the future and we can’t change the past, but we can improve our everyday outlook by practising the GEM principles – gratitude, empathy (or compassion), and mindfulness. In part two of his chat for Life Education, Hugh talks about what drives his work, how to stop techno...