Published on: 14 June 2013


Australia’s leading child and adolescent psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg returned to the Senior School to give boys important life advice and talk about positive psychology. Dr Carr-Gregg’s annual visits are made possible by the Christ Church Parents’ Association.

Dr Carr-Gregg had some great advice for Years 11 and 12 boys on coping with the final years of school. He said there was too much hype around the final years and while they were important they were not ‘the’ most important years of life. According to research, starting or ending school came in at number 25 on a list of the most stressful events in a person’s life.

He also talked about the greatest prediction of future behaviours was previous behaviors and that if you could not change something directly then maybe you could change the way you thought about it.

Dr Carr-Gregg had 20 pieces of advice for Years 11 and 12, which began with agreeing to ‘play the game’ in order to do the best you could do in the final years of school and by using the support structures around you to do so. He also talked about eating the right foods, getting enough sleep and the use of ‘mind maps’ to help you think and learn.

The Years 7 to 10 boys were given ‘the most important pieces of life advice you’ll ever get’ including an insight into the benefits of positive psychology. Once again, the importance of sleep and good nutrition were emphasised and he walked the younger boys through the value of using visual identification or ‘mind mapping’ as learning tools along with other study recall strategies.
He also showed inspirational videos, recommended apps and suggested writing a gratitude journal as some excellent examples of positive psychology in action.

In the evening, Dr Carr-Gregg talked to parents in the Chapel on the topic of ‘What the science of psychology tells us builds happy and resilient young people’.