Speech and language therapist Christian Wright discusses the impact on speech development in children of glue ear. Glue ear is the build up of sticky fluid in the middle ear which can cause hearing loss. It's estimated 80 per cent of children will have had one episode of glue ear by the time they're 10 years old. Thousands of children each year have surgery, where ventilation tubes or grommets are inserted.

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Speech and language therapist Christian Wright discusses the impact on speech development in children of glue ear.

Glue ear is the build up of sticky fluid in the middle ear which can cause hearing loss. It's estimated 80 per cent of children will have had one episode of glue ear by the time they're 10 years old. Thousands of children each year have surgery, where ventilation tubes or grommets are inserted.

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Educator and author Lance King has worked with tens of thousands of students, both here and overseas, and has seen a lot of children who are struggling to achieve at school or are lacking in self-confidence. His book, The Importance of Failing Well, aims to provide practical information for parents wanting to support their kids through their challenges.

Educator and author Lance King has worked with tens of thousands of students, both here and overseas, and has seen a lot of children who are struggling to achieve at school or are lacking in self-confidence.

His book, The Importance of Failing Well, aims to provide practical information for parents wanting to support their kids through their challenges.

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Recent research from the University of Otago has found moving house is linked with increases in emotional and behavioural difficulties in four-year-olds. Psychologist Sarb Johal talks to Kathryn about the impact of moving home, and how parents can help.

Recent research from the University of Otago has found moving house is linked with increases in emotional and behavioural difficulties in four-year-olds.

Psychologist Sarb Johal talks to Kathryn about the impact of moving home, and how parents can help.

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Education consultant and parenting coach Joseph Driessen talks about children who lack motivation and drive - what's behind this, and how can parents help them regain direction?

When children lack motivation and drive, their parents can be lost as to how to help them regain direction.

Education consultant and parenting coach Joseph Driessen told Kathryn Ryan that in these situations some children can be defeated by their lack of self-management, amid other possible problems like learning difficulties.

"They're just depressed because they can't make themselves follow through. They can't make themselves tidy up their work. They can't make themselves remember what to do. They go to school disorganised.

"Or some small children are just caught into a sort of an ADHD pattern of completely kind of being hyperactive and not calming down and not doing anything and eventually, both the parent and the child give up because they lack the skills or the system isn't working."

Listen to the full interview with Joseph Driessen

A lack of belief in one's self or lack of confidence can arise after repeated failures, Driessen says.

Eventually, the child can fall into a pit of realisation that they will not be able to accomplish anything and gives up, he says. Ultimately, their energy and feelings become negative.

But there are also children with attention deficit disorder, Driessen says, whose neurological system is far more focused on the immediate outcomes rather than the prioritising the most important goals and tasks.

"And so you get sidetracked, you don't read your list, you forget your diary, you don't pack your bags because something else takes the place and you just get caught in the moment and you think, 'well, that's fine that's what my brain told me to do, but now I forgotten this'.

"Repeated failures of that, that can cause a child to become deeply demotivated."

As a result of a lack of coherent planning and execution of important tasks, he says teenagers can feel down about sustained failure and not progressing in areas at school.

Strategies to help

However, there are ways for parents to help children who fall into that predicament. Driessen says the first thing to note is sometimes in these situations even the parent feels defeated.

"But what the children really most respond to, what I found and what the research finds, is that actually the adult takes it seriously and sits down with them and initiates a series of conversations initially, then actions…

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The number-one driver of mental illness is isolation, says parenting commentator and educator Nathan Wallis, therefore it's especially important for children to form healthy attachments in the first three years of life. Humans are interdependent by nature, and being socially connected gives our brain the peptides and positive hormones that it needs to stay well, Wallis says.

The number-one driver of mental illness is isolation, says parenting commentator and educator Nathan Wallis, therefore it's especially important for children to form healthy attachments in the first three years of life.

Humans are interdependent by nature, and being socially connected gives our brain the peptides and positive hormones that it needs to stay well, Wallis says.

Listen to the full interview with Nathan Willis here

Wallis tells Nine to Noon's Kathryn Ryan that forming secure attachments gives our three types of brains (survival, movement, and emotional) what they need to successfully develop the fourth - that is responsible for things like higher intelligence, control of emotions and planning for the future.

"Attachment theory is recognising that and then realising that human beings have this emotional limbic brain that needs to be engaged because it's the foundation of your cortex.

"We're talking about the dyadic relationship, which means a one-on-one relationship. So that just basically means that your outcomes are not just driven by your genes for your brain, your outcomes are a combination between your genes and the environment, and the environment is largely this dyadic relationship."

As a result of receiving this loving and caring attachment, a baby's stress responses can be calmed, Wallis says.

"When you receive that consistently, even in the first year of life, and consistently your stress response system has been calmed, that attachment then allows you to grow this brain number - this wonderful brain number four - it calms the human stress response system.

"So attachment is related to biology, we need it or else we would remain much more animalistic and much more in our brainstems and focused on survival."

Validating to control emotions

Wallis recommends that parents ensure they validate their child's feelings before approaching their parental duties to guide them, in order to induce the calming responses necessary for the 'fourth brain'.

Validating is hearing a child's emotion and reflecting it back to them, he says…

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Teaching young people how to manage money, budget and save. Auckland commerce teacher John Duston's dream is for every New Zealand teenager to be financially capable before they leave school. He's written a book - Financial Capability - which can be used as a text book, or a work book in the classroom, but it can also encourages people of all ages to think about money management. John Duston is a teacher at St Cuthbert's College in Auckland.

Teaching young people how to manage money, budget and save. Auckland commerce teacher John Duston's dream is for every New Zealand teenager to be financially capable before they leave school. He's written a book - Financial Capability - which can be used as a text book, or a work book in the classroom, but it can also encourages people of all ages to think about money management. John Duston is a teacher at St Cuthbert's College in Auckland.

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Youth Development lecturer Pat Bullen from the University of Auckland says all too often young people are stereotyped, stigmitised and discriminated against. Her ongoing research debunks the myth that adolescents are rude, lazy, self-entitled risk-takers who need fixing.

All too often young people are stereotyped, stigmatised and discriminated against by blanket acceptance that adolescents are rude, lazy, self-entitled risk-takers who need fixing, a youth development lecturer says.

Pat Bullen from the University of Auckland says her ongoing research is painting a different picture.

Irrespective of which generation, she says often people think about the challenges adolescents face in very negative ways, without having it based on any evidence or facts.

However, adolescent Millennials and Gen Z in general are not apathetic as stereotypes might show, she says. In fact they seem to be reflecting on their view of the world, for example in terms of climate change, and the future that awaits them, she says.

Listen to the full interview with Pat Bullen

"There have been others that have looked at this and conducted research in this space, and are really perhaps suggesting that many of our young people maybe are looking to a better world, a better future, and maybe questioning the way things have been going, and is that necessarily a bad thing?

"The ways in which our young people engaged and really stood up and against what we experienced in Christchurch was phenomenal and it was wonderful to see that representation in the media because that is the true representation of our young people - is how they are deeply caring, how they really do reflect and they really do want to make the world a better place."

Another myth on adolescents is that people sometimes believe that they're bound to face turmoil as part of their growth, Bullen says.

"What we know is that 80 percent of people don't experience challenges, that they're actually doing okay.

"A second myth is that we tend to think about these challenges as being based in biology, that young people have raging hormones, that they're driven by their hormones and as a result they have no ability to control or direct their lives in a sensible way.

"The research is clear around this that there isn't in fact raging hormones in adolescence, certainly they're experiencing things for the first time, but again it goes back to the fact that their contexts are changing, they're changing in terms of their school, in terms of their intimate relationships, peers, they maybe experiencing challenges in terms of their family relationships."…

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What is tongue tie surgery and is it needed? Wellington Speech and Language Therapist Christian Wright thinks it is being recommended in cases where it isn't needed.

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With university and secondary school students heading towards end of year exams, what are some key reading tips for study success?

With university and secondary school students heading towards end of year exams, what are some key reading tips for study success?

CEO of Spectrum Education Karen Boyes says pages and pages of text can seem overwhelming, but there are many ways to read different types of text.

She says always approach fiction and non-fiction differently, and know that its okay to read information a few times to understand. She also shares her Holiday Kindness Challenge for the next schools Holidays.

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Parenting commentator and educator Nathan Wallis with advice for parents worried that their kids are not making developmental milestones? When to be worried and seek help, and when to relax and let kids find their way.

They say it takes a village to raise a child. But parents shouldn't be overly anxious about their kids not making developmental "milestones", says parenting commentator and neuroscience educator Nathan Wallis.

In fact most of the milestones that parents worry about aren't really there, Wallis says.

"People get obsessed about walking whereas professionals aren't concerned about walking until about 15 months, if the baby isn't walking at 14 months that's fine."

When observing these so-called milestones, parents should take note of other indicators rather than evaluating it in isolation. Like in walking for example, they can look out for pre-movement indicators, seeing if the baby is pulling themselves up on furniture at 14 months or so.

"It's hard to give just one milestone and make it simply that every child is supposed to do this by this age, because the research always informs us about his imaginary average child so there's always ... a distribution of what's normal," Wallis says.

Kid will also often be born being better in a certain domain. For instance, often boys might develop motor skills before their language skills, Wallis says.

But again, this isn't a 'rule' of measure for all boys so parents shouldn't get too caught up in it.

"I can see why parents are concerned about . There's nothing else that quite marks your cognitive development quite as closely as language.

"But it's worth parents knowing that we divide language into expressive and receptive. Receptive language is the stuff you understand. We don't really measure a child's expressive language until after the age of two."

Wallis says that 90 percent of how much the kid speaks, the expressive language, will occur in a 10-month period between 26 months and 36 months.

"In that 10-month period, that's when you're really see that language bursting and that kid talking a lot with more complex sentences. Before that, we're measuring their receptive language ... it's just the way the brain works and the way you develop your language, you develop your receptive language before your expressive language."

Another factor that might get people worked up is whether the child is reading enough. But Wallis advises parents that it's more important to learn to love books than it is to learn to read books…

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