From the blog, with love
TIME FOR A NEW APPROACH TO OUR GENERATIONAL DIFFERENCES?
GENERATION... SNOWFLAKE, Z, MILLENNIALS, BABY BOOMERS There were the Millennials (Generation Y – born in the 1980s and 1990s), children of Baby Boomers and now Generation Z or Gen Z. Gen Z have been the source of a lot of debate in the media with Psychology professor...
IS MY CHILD REALLY INTELLIGENT?
I recently went to a parents' evening for both my boys aged 10 and almost 8. One is in Year 5, the other in Year 3. One loves reading and is always keen to learn new facts (particularly if they are linked to science and technology) and can sometimes be found reading...
SECONDARY SCHOOL CHOICES… WHY SO MUCH STRESS?
Today, I can see a lot of Facebook posts from friends and acquaintances talking about where their beloved children will be going to Secondary School next year. Some are delighted to get their first choice, others not so much. It left me pondering. In 2018, why do we...
WHAT’S WRONG WITH OUR EDUCATIONAL SYSTEM?
There are an increasing number of videos like Prince Ea’s 'The people versus the School System' being shared on social media which condemn the way our current education system works. Many researchers like Kohn had already highlighted the negative effects of...
TIME TO DITCH ‘MENTAL HEALTH’?
Last Monday, I attended a panel discussion organised by Bristol is Global on "What more can we do about student mental well-being?". This great evening with experts in student mental health left me with a specific question: Is there an issue with the word 'mental...
WOULD YOU HELP ME, PLEASE?
As you may know, I am on a quest to bring mental health its meaning and power back, starting in 2018. Will you join me? Have you experienced or are you experiencing mental distress, mental health problems or suffering from a diagnosed mental illness? Do you know...
GIVE MENTAL HEALTH ITS POWER BACK
On Tuesday this week I attended a conference on children and young people's mental health: improving care, treatment and support in Manchester. It was very informative and lead to many interesting discussions and exchanges. It also got me thinking about the gap...
Free resources from my BILT Talk
The theme of well-being ties in the strategic focus on Assessment - looking at workloads of students and trying to find ways to reduce this pressure on students around exam time. I will be using her Teaching Fellowship to develop my second book, exploring the...
What’s so wrong with the ‘S’ word?
Image source: www.anxietyuk.org Yesterday I gave a talk to about 100 Year 13 students at a secondary school and I asked: stress is bad for you. Who agrees? About 60% did...They looked surprised when I said that some stress can be good for us. Over the last few years,...
10 tips for surviving your first year at University
If you are one of the 420,000 students who started University this term and are wondering how to make the most of your first year, then read this article written by Amy Lewis and Fabienne Vailes. Read more here
Freshers’ week: how tutors can help students cope
Starting university can be an intimidating experience. But there are plenty of ways tutors can encourage students to tackle the challenge constructively. Read more here: Guardian Article
Labels? useful or not?
Once we have been labelled as 'cool' or 'a nerd' or even a 'psycho' or 'mental', does it define us forever after regardless of the changes we make later? The belief that personality is fixed Have you ever heard a joke about someone having cancer or made a casual...
Are you scared of failure?
Today, I told one of my students that 'feedback is information' and 'that there is no such thing as failure'. They responded by saying: 'yes, there is and it's not a pleasant experience'. Is failure having an impact on our ability to learn and change? The NLP...
Educare or Educere?
Watching my two children speak French and English fluently at the age of 9 and 6, I marvel at the fact that we didn't really have to teach them anything to learn to speak both languages, it just happened because they were exposed to both at home. Children are...
Further talk about my chimp
In a previous blog, I shared what I learned from a wonderful conversation with Dr Anna Waters who is Psychological Skills Mentor at the Chimp Management Ltd. She now works exclusively using the ‘Chimp Model’. Today, I expand further on the topic... The...
Where does anxiety fall in the pyramid?
I received a question to one of my previous blogs on the 4 mental health states based on Dr Kutcher's pyramid model and although I replied briefly, I promised that I would use the topic as a blog post. So, here it is... The language we use matters In our daily lives...
An interesting conversation about my chimp
Ever wondered why you set intentions such as going on a diet or stopping to smoke only to find yourself not being able to resist? If so, then this blog might shed some lights on the reasons behind some of our behaviours. As I am researching for my forthcoming...
Time to understand the different mental health states
Do you suffer from a mental illness or have suffered from a mental illness? Do you know someone who does or has? Do you feel that people don't understand your condition? Let's bring some clarity around mental health and its various states. Let's challenge the semantic...
What if mental health was simply a continuum?
Could mental health be compared to physical health? Could it be a continuum? What is physical health? Prior to the progress made by modern medicine, we would consider someone to be physically healthy if they were not stricken by an illness. Nowadays, all the progress...
Mental health disorder, mental health problem, mental disorder … Are you confused yet?
Mental health… problems… issues… disorders… ill health? What does it all mean? Is this creating a semantic confusion around the topic of mental health? Time for change? As a linguist, I love words and definitions. This is particularly true about English words I had to...
Mental Health Literacy – ‘A Must’ In Education?
Are you a member of staff or student in an educational setting? Have you been wondering what is going on with mental health and well-being in education, and why young people and staff alike are reporting increasing levels of stress and anxiety? If so, read on…...
To Commit Or Not Commit?
I recently read an article called the 100 per cent rule and it had a big impact on me. It made me aware that in order to achieve my objectives in life, I needed to commit 100% to the task at hand, otherwise I was always finding a reason (an excuse) not to do it. Now,...
Can stress be good for us?
A lot of the research focused on students and carried out over the last few years demonstrate that stress takes a significant part of a student’s life and show an increase in stress for students, especially in recent years. Large amount of information provided to us...