Teaching and Learning

Why You Shouldn’t Help Your Kids With Their Homework

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

If you’re like most parents of school-aged kids, you’ve probably witnessed an anxious child struggling with a challenging homework task.

The temptation to help them in some way can be very strong…

And even when the ‘help’ starts off with a gentle nudge in the right direction, it can sometimes end up with the child sleeping on the couch while you finish off the project!

It’s perfectly understandable. We want to stop children from being anxious, while helping them to succeed.

But it’s best not to help too much.

Why?

10 Tips for Being a Better Parent: From a School Principal

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Teachers may not be child psychologists, but they sure know kids.

Their day-to-day activities, likes and dislikes, attitudes and behaviours…

And they’ve often got good insights into where their behaviours come from.

A recent article in The Guardian revealed how teachers might sometimes understand more about your kids than you realise.

This author of the article — a school principal in the UK — has identified a number of strategies we often use in our work with children and parents.

The Many Benefits of Reading Aloud to Your Kids

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Reading is vital for developing literacy, a good vocabulary and a vivid imagination.

But with increasingly interactive electronic books that enable independent reading from a younger and younger age, we may be losing sight of the value of reading not only with, but also to our kids.

A number of recent studies have reinforced the importance of reading aloud to your kids — the traditional way.

Can Video Games Really Improve Academic Performance?

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

You may have seen a report in the news recently suggesting a positive link between playing video games and academic performance.

This conclusion came from a study that analysed data from over 12,000 high school students in Australia and it showed that students who played online video games almost every day performed above-average in academic testing.

The study found that gamers scored 15 points higher than average in maths and reading tests, and 17 points higher than average in science.

But the real question is:

Do gamers achieve better results because they play more video games?

What Every Teacher Should Know About The Psychological Assessment of Children’s Learning Ability

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Our psychologists have completed more than 500 learning assessments on children and adolescents in the last few years.

Here are 23 of the things we have learned.

Child Learning Difficulties: New Study Shows Why Early Action is Vital to Prevent Children Falling Into Long Term ‘Learning Gap’

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

According to a study recently published in the Journal of Pediatrics, early action is vital to help prevent students with learning difficulties from falling into a long term ‘learning gap’.

The study found that first grade children with dyslexia (reading difficulties) have significantly lower reading scores and verbal IQs compared with their peers, and these differences persist into adolescence.

The authors recommend that “reading interventions must be implemented early, when children are still developing the basic foundation for reading acquisition.”

What Every Parent Should Know About Learning Assessment

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Our psychologists have completed 714 learning assessments for children and adolescents in the last several years. Here are 24 of the main lessons we have learned.

Pirates and Cheese Sandwiches: Children’s Thoughts About Thinking

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Thinking about other people’s minds and their thoughts in relation to our own thoughts is a fundamental skill in socialisation.

“Theory of mind” is a phrase that’s used in psychology to refer to our ability to understand that other people have beliefs that are different to our own.

But how do we actually uncover other people’s thoughts? Rebecca Saxe and colleagues from MIT have demonstrated amazing lab work that demonstrates a specific part of our brain that which is engaged when make judgements about other people’s thoughts.

In past research, psychologists have estimated that theory of mind kicks in around age four, and this has been measured by children’s responses to behavioural tasks.

Self-Sabotaging Behaviours in Students

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

Many students across all levels of academic ability engage in “self-sabotaging behaviours”.

For example, the student who waits until midnight the night before an assignment is due before making a start. Then, when they receive a low grade, will shrug and say “oh well, I left it until the last minute”.

Now in some cases it is intentional but in many cases, it is driven by underlying issues such as anxiety.

Behind presumed lack of organisation or presumed lack of skill, students who engage in self-sabotaging behaviours often have high needs for self-worth protection.

Here are some of the most common self-sabotaging behaviours students engage in:

The Impact of Inflated Praise on Motivation

by Melbourne Child Psychology & School Psychology Services

“Wow, Tommy that is the best drawing I’ve ever seen!”

“Jessie, you are the best in the class at maths, you did that sum so quickly!”

As parents and educators, you are told that giving a child praise is a great way to improve their motivation, their self-confidence and their perseverance when things get difficult.

“Be specific with your praise!”

“Praise can be even more motivating than rewarding with material things”, many experts espouse.

But recent studies have shown that praise in certain formats may actually have the opposite effect to that which we are trying to achieve.

Researchers looked at the impact of “inflated” praise on children with both low and high self-esteem and found some interesting things:

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