Sydney
21 July 2002

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Changing face of Pope’s soldiers

Vinnies SOS for cash to fight gambling ills

Priest’s anniversary wish – that more young men take up cloth

Simon’s still in need of a home

Excitement as pilgrims are blessed

Politics and prayers

International court is ‘crucial’ for East Timor

The icon of Our Lady of Kazan

Amnesty condemns attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers

Church unity theme for cardinal at Ryde mayor’s prayer breakfast

Aust gifts set charity record

Danger if teens are ‘running on empty’

Editorial: Romance in marriage

Letters: Jesus is the centre, not the clergy

Conversation: ‘Unreal’ love? Not if your love is real - Anne and Peter McGowan, family delegates

Reflections: Hunger – righting an imbalance

Becoming Catholic ‘a turning point’

Opinion: A return to the genuine ‘good old days’?

Schools fight to keep up with demand

Chaldean leader blesses new church

Helping hand for Sydney pilgrims

‘Big kids’ in new role as Seniors

Inspirations: Students rally to Winter Appeal

Danger if teens are ‘running on empty’

Michael Carr-Gregg

Many adolescents have a “hole in their souls” and feel spiritually empty, says psychologist Michael Carr-Gregg.

“They are spiritual anorexics,” he says. “They don’t believe in themselves, let alone anything else.

“Secular research tells us that kids who have a sense of spirituality do better in life.

“Those adolescents who don’t just exist in the material world are less likely to indulge in health-endangering activity such as drug taking”

Dr Carr-Gregg is the co-author – with Melbourne school careers counsellor Erin Shale – of the recently published book Adolescence: a Guide for Parents.

He wanted to head-off problems for adolescents, rather than have to deal with the consequences.

With three degrees in psychology and plenty of experience in dealing with young people – he has two sons – he felt he was in a position to offer parents practical advice.

The book sold out here within days of publication; it is now in its second print run.

Dr Carr-Gregg had his own experience with trauma as a teenager. As the son of a British diplomat, he was used to travelling the world and being treated royally.

“I was used to limousines and servants,” he says.

“Then, when I was 18, I was diagnosed with a malignant tumour of the salivary gland and told I had eight weeks to live.

“It certainly changed my perspective on life.”

Fortunately, the condition was not fatal as predicted; surgery and weeks of radiotherapy destroyed the tumour and saved his life.

Michael Carr-Gregg then formed CanTeen, the organisation that supports young people with cancer.

However, when his daughter died 16 hours after birth, he decided to “get out of the area of death” and into helping adolescents through the difficult experiences that all young people go through.

A charismatic lecturer turned him towards psychology.

Dr Carr-Gregg is a Catholic and does a lot of work with students in Catholic schools, as well as with their parents. “Some parents have created a culture of indulgence for their children,” he says. “The problem is they have failed to set boundaries for their children’s behaviour.

“However, children need those boundaries. They need to know where they stand and that their parents love and care for them.”

He makes the point in the book that parents cannot create those boundaries by “drawing a line in the sand”.

“Parents need to be more tolerant, but the question is how to do this effectively,” he says. “It is a problem all parents wrestle with. At almost every talk I give to parents I am asked: ‘Have you written a book on this?’.

“The problem for adolescents is that they don’t have a frame of reference for their experiences; they feel everything very deeply. They don’t understand the universal parallels the personal.

“When they fall in love they experience it so powerfully. But they don’t realise others do, too.

“And, when the relationship breaks up, the pain is unbearable – because they have never experienced it before.”

Dr Carr-Gregg believes Catholic schools are becoming much better at dealing with the problems adolescents face.

“They are using the curriculum to raise emotional literacy amongst the students,” he says. “This can be very effective, but to do it successfully the students need good parental role models.

“In the book we try to help parents respond in practical ways to the difficulties their children are experiencing.”

However, while the book deals with parental responses to the typical adolescent problems of drugs and alcohol, sex, relationships and finding a place in the world, it also warns that some types of adolescent behaviour require instant response.

Suicidal behaviour is one.

The book marks some aspects of adolescent behaviour, such as describing their life as hopeless, talking about death or suicide or self harm with a ‘red alert’!

These are potential signs of major depressive illness requiring professional help.

“Recently a young man in high school in Melbourne told his teacher he was going to kill himself,” Dr Carr-Gregg says.

“A day later he gassed himself to death. You have to take these things seriously.”

It is something of which he has personal knowledge.

The day before our interview he was asked to provide counselling at a school where a student had hanged himself.

Adolescence: a Guide for Parents, by Michael Carr-Gregg and Erin Shale, Finch Publishing, Sydney; rrp $22.95