Yesterday Andrew Bolt, with some of his trademark snip-and-drop editing,  turned an essay by art critic Robert Nelson from Freudian to freaky. Today Michael Carr-Gregg -  a media-happy Melbourne psychologist who makes his living flogging seminars and lectures to whoever is willing to pay - weighed in with his two bits:

“I don’t believe that any six-year-old could possibly have the cognitive or emotional maturity to consent to being photographed in the way that her mother has photographed her,” Dr Carr-Gregg said. “I’m really worried that these pictures are on the net already and they will go around the world and that they have the potential to haunt this little girl for the rest of her life.

I’m really worried too, Mike. Much like at Chuck’s house, in my family home there are faded old Kodachrome pictures of my siblings and I playing naked in the backyard, jumping under sprinklers and what-not. My parents have shown these to literally dozens of visitors over the past two decades, both relatives and friends. Mum and Dad are obviously peddlers of child-porn; I’m obviously mentally scarred. Carr-Gregg has really opened my eyes … but the best is yet to come:  

“Now she’s very mouthy at 11 years old, she’s already been paraded in front of the cameras, and I, as an expert in bullying, would be very, very concerned about what that might mean for her in her school life later on.” 

We’re getting closer to Carr-Gregg’s quaint philosophy now - and he knows all about kids too because he’s an expert (and is happy to tell us so). Olympia Nelson might have seemed “mouthy” to him but to me she seemed confident and articulate beyond her years - is that something psychologists wish to discourage? Is his advice to children ’shut the hell up or you’ll be bullied’? What kind of social vision is that to be articulating in the mainstream press? No wonder Carr-Gregg is the go-to man for tabloids when they run sensationalised stories about adolescent behaviour.

Dr Carr-Gregg said many of Freud’s psychosexual theories were being discarded. “I don’t think it’s a viable argument, the whole sensuality of children argument,” he said. “I think ordinary Australians can and do interpret what (Mr Nelson) has done as furthering the sexualisation of children, and no amount of misconstrued psychobabble is going to change that.”

A psychologist accusing someone of “psychobabble”; just taste the sweet irony. Remember when a number of teenage boys were charged with tormenting and sexually assaulting a girl in the Werribee area, filming the attack and distributing the DVD? Carr-Gregg said we shouldn’t imprison them because it was all down to ‘neurological underdevelopment’:

Research says the last part of the brain to develop is that responsible for planning, impulse control, risk assessment, and that any vestige of self-control disappears in a pack.  [There is] scientific evidence from neuro-imaging studies that teenagers do have less culpability than adults because of their brain development.

School healthy eating schemes to tackle obesity are driving teenage girls towards eating disorders, according to new research.
Attempts to drum home healthy eating message were making pupils acutely aware of their weight and inadvertently driving some to potentially dangerous behaviour, the Loughborough University researchers said. (Source)

So if we want to stop childhood eating disorders, The Ed and his Maoist comrades-in-chalk need to stop making fat kids feel fat by promoting healthy body types (yes, it’s all their fault again). As a community service - and to help The Ed out with his teachering - I’ve provided some useful lesson ideas and phrases to avoid this situation in future:

“Boys and girls, this is called ‘celery’. Blleeeeeeeaaaaahhh. Have a donut.”

“It’s a lovely day today, kids… bugger PE, let’s break out the nachos.”

“Self-esteem is very important, Grade Five. Go home and smash all the mirrors.”

“Listen up now for an important a commerce lesson: ‘How to get full value from upsizing’.”

“Today we’re going to go to the Library and research a great person from history. You can choose from John Candy, Chris Farley, Ricky May, Rodney Dangerfield or Kim Beazley.”

“Flab has benefits, boys: if it hangs over far enough, no-one can see your weiner in the showers.”

“You can be morbidly obese and still play sport … just look at Groupthink FC. And you can’t see their weiners in the showers.”

A primary school teacher responds to John Howard’s claim at the Liberal campaign launch that “Australia does not need an education revolution. Australia needs an education system that teaches its children to read, to write, to spell and to add up.”

Lachlan Connor has announced that he will release a policy each day for the rest of this week, ahead of a trip to Canberra on the weekend to “soak up the democracy.” I wonder if he’s going to drop into Fyshwick to soak up anything else?

Here is Lachlan’s first policy release for the week: education.

Lachlan Connor has today launched his Advertising to Children policy. He explains the policy in more detail in a YouTube personal broadcast.

Rate this broadcast at YouTube.
Visit Lachlan’s blog.