Short articles

Parents play a powerful role in raising children and modelling positive behaviours. Assisting parents to feel better about device use in the home may lead to improvements in parent and child wellbeing. This short article includes tips for professionals to help families achieve better balance in regard to their use of technology.

Parental self-compassion and self-care have a strong influence on child development. Parents who are kind to themselves and take time to relax and recharge have better health and wellbeing, are more confident in their parenting, and have more positive interactions with their children. This short article outlines ways professionals can support parents to be less critical of their parenting and to regularly practise self-care.

Children and young people need sufficient, good quality sleep to support healthy development. But many parents are concerned their children don’t get enough quality sleep. This short article explores the rate of child sleep problems in Australia and ways practitioners can help parents who are concerned about their child's sleep habits.

Children thrive when their parents are supported. While most fathers are doing well and feel supported, fathers with poor mental health report challenges with parenting. This short article explores ways in which professionals can enhance child wellbeing by supporting fathers.

Anxiety is considered the fastest-growing childhood mental health issue in Australia. It is important GPs feel confident in recognising the ranges of ‘normal feelings’ in children, so that they can intervene early at signs of paediatric anxiety, without over-labelling conditions. This short article looks at the signs of anxiety in children, and tips for GPs treating paediatric anxiety.

General practitioners are uniquely placed to support children’s mental health and development. No other health professional has the same kind of ongoing relationship and level of intimate knowledge of a family’s health. But with this insight, comes responsibility to act when things aren’t going well.

With the COVID-19 Delta variant across many parts of Australia and the accompanying lockdowns, school closures and surge in detailed media coverage, many children may be anxious about what this means for them. This short article looks at ways to talk with children about protection from the Delta strain and ways to navigate through these challenging times.

Exposure to family violence and traumatic events has long-lasting effects. Children’s brains and bodies are malleable, making trauma faster to manifest, affecting the way children react and relate to others and their physical environment. This fact sheet adapted from Tucci et. al. provides information about the effects of family violence on a child’s social and emotional wellbeing, and ways that interventions can play a role in healing.

Service providers will often need to refer families and children to other services for specialist assessment or care. Unfortunately, waiting lists for these services are quite common, which can cause further stress for families as they continue to deal with the status quo. This short article was inspired by research into barriers and facilitators to early childhood mental health pathways in the Barwon region in southwest Victoria, with one of the barriers identified as long wait times for appointments, and the following practices were suggested by professionals interviewed for this research.

This short article explores research conducted from May 2019 which investigated the barriers and facilitators to mental health care pathways in the early childhood mental health sector, with the aim of better understanding the behaviours and systems that underpin service co-ordination across sectors.

Strong self-regulation skills in early childhood are linked with a wide range of health and achievement outcomes across the lifespan, including positive mental and physical health, and educational attainment. This short article explores the factors linked with self-regulation growth in young children, with findings to suggest that self-regulation skills could be supported through addressing key aspects of children’s surrounding environment and context.

Research has found that around 14% of children in Australia and 10–20% of children globally experience mental health difficulties. Previous research has suggested that parental mental health is an important determinant of how children engage with, and respond to, treatment in child and adolescent mental health services (CAMHS). This short article looks at a study which investigated the prevalence of parental mental illness in CAMHS, and the ways in which CAMHS and child and adolescent mental health practitioners can support children, parents and families in these circumstances.