Understanding the Autism Spectrum

There are about 230,000 children in Australia with an ASD, or about one in 100 children, yet it remains one of our least-understood conditions. ...

01 April, 2021

Why do children with same-sex parents do better at school than their peers?

Children with same-sex parents get higher scores on standardised tests than children with different-sex parents. Report Jan Kabatek, and Francisco Perales.  This is the key finding from our study just published in the journal Demography. We also found children with same-sex parents to be slightly more...

24 March, 2021

What are breath-holding spells that causes children to faint?

Frustration or anger can trigger breath-holding spells, write Shivanthan Shanthikumar and David Tingay. As a parent should you be worried? It’s time to leave the playground but your 12-month-old daughter doesn’t want to. She gets angry, cries out loudly, breathing all the way out and then...

24 March, 2021

5 things all parents of ten-ager daughters need to know.

Madonna King sought the counsel of 500 10-year-old girls, 1,600 mothers, and 100 Year Five school teachers for her new book, Ten-ager. Dozens of school principals, teen psychologists, doctors, researchers and female role models were also interviewed to provide a guide for parents helping tween...

17 March, 2021

Guiding Kids Through the Rough Times

This mum believes that sometimes our children will face difficult situations that we will not be able to remove them from; but our job, as parents, is to help them through those hard times. ...

17 March, 2021

Why one in ten young women struggle to afford pads and tampons

Imagine having your period and no money for pads or tampons. Would you still go to school? asks Sarah Duffy, Michelle O'Shea and Patrick van Esch The New South Wales Education Department said last week said it would trial a program to hand out free pads...

17 March, 2021

COVID forced Australian fathers to do more at home

But at the same cost mothers have long endured! Research by Leah Ruppanner,Caitlyn Collins, Liana Christin Landivar, William ScarboroughandXiao Tan has shown. The COVID-19 pandemic was heralded as an opportunity to restart gender expectations at home. Our research shows Australian fathers have stepped into more participatory...

16 March, 2021

Same Sex, Same Experiences: 5 questions answered

 Families come in all shapes and sizes, writes Jacqui Tomlin. Something is happening in our house on weekday mornings. We call it Sock Torture. Our youngest started Kindy recently, and she’s loving it, but at either end of the school day she’s tired, and how shall...

10 March, 2021

5 steps to make vaccinations easier on your kid

One potential hurdle to vaccine acceptance is needle fear. Needles are nothing to fear, writes Therese O'Sullivan The COVID vaccine rollout has placed the issue of vaccination firmly in the spotlight. A successful rollout will depend on a variety of factors, one of which is vaccine...

06 March, 2021

In Their Shoes: life with Down syndrome

This article is not an argument for or against prenatal screening or testing for Down syndrome. Every week in my work as a clinical geneticist, I witness the trauma couples experience when making decisions about wanted pregnancies in which there is a problem with the...

03 March, 2021