Finding Solutions

13/11/2025

These packs are always greatly appreciated by those in need.
🌿

13/11/2025

1. Move Your Body Daily
Even a short walk, stretching, or dancing can boost mood and reduce stress. Physical movement helps regulate your brain and body.

2. Practice Mindful Moments
Take 5–10 minutes a day to breathe deeply, meditate, or notice your surroundings. Mindfulness calms the nervous system and builds focus.

3. Connect with Others
Reach out to friends, family, or colleagues. Social connection is a powerful buffer against stress and loneliness.

4. Limit Digital Overload
Take breaks from screens and social media. Too much exposure can increase anxiety and reduce sleep quality.

5. Build a Reset Toolbox
Identify activities that help you reset, reading, music, journaling, or breathing exercises. Use these tools during stressful moments to regain calm and clarity.

06/11/2025

Holding your breath isn’t just fun, it helps kids regulate their bodies and emotions!

Add a little challenge: see if they can hold it longer than you. The laughter and connection that follow help repair the bridge to their thinking brain and mend any little cracks.
Having a toolbox of reset tools can be really helpful in challenging moments.

30/10/2025

Telling a child to “calm down” doesn’t work if they’ve never learned how.
Self-regulation is a skill.

Mr. Detective and his friends help children understand their minds and bodies, notice when their “Detective” gets confused, and learn simple ways to reset.

The more tools they have, the more in control and safe they feel.

19/10/2025

Big Emotions? Mr Detective and Friends are Here to Help!

Has your child got big emotions and challenging behaviours that are hard to manage?

Sometimes, children struggle to be in control of their bodies and there are so many reasons why:

1️⃣ Their brains aren’t fully developed until around age 25, so they need lots of tools and support to learn how to regulate.

2️⃣ The more they understand about how their body and brain work, the more in control they can become.

3️⃣ Teaching self-talk, and understanding the fight, flight, or freeze response works best when it’s kept simple and playful, that’s how they remember it!

4️⃣ If we as adults don’t understand these concepts, it can be hard to guide our children through them.

5️⃣ Big emotions are often a form of communication, learning to decode them helps everyone regulate better.

That’s where Mr Detective and Friends come in!

We make emotional regulation fun, interactive, and easy for kids (and parents!) to understand.

Because every feeling is just a clue and we’re here to help children solve the mystery behind their emotions.

https://finding-solutions.thinkific.com

10/08/2025

🤯 Are you sharing the mental load?

You know…
• Remembering everyone’s birthdays 🎂
• Knowing exactly when the milk will run out 🥛
• Keeping track of which kid hates broccoli this week 🥦
• Remembering the Netflix password 🤯

Sometimes we don’t realise how much is sitting in our brains or how much our partner is juggling too.

📝 Write down everything you’re carrying in your mind.
📝 Ask your partner to do the same.
💬 Swap lists and see where you can share the load.

It’s not a competition, it’s a “let’s stop being one argument away from losing it over who is stacking the dishwasher”

Teamwork = lighter loads + happier humans. 💛

29/07/2025

Absolutely love the work at Compass Children's Consulting! Such a powerful reminder to give children the space for self-directed learning, the results can be truly amazing! 🤩

Great work from one of our young learners at Compass Children's Consulting! This child self-directed their learning activity today, arranging letters and words on sticky notes, while still meeting the session's goals. This hands-on approach helped him meet his regulation goals by improving fine motor skills and focus, and addressed his cluttered speech by encouraging language organisation and sequencing. A fantastic example of how self-directed learning can be a powerful tool for childhood intervention specialists!

*shared with permission

23/07/2025

🌟 Have Your Say – Bordertown Showgrounds Playground! 🌟

A group of local mums – the Bordertown Showgrounds Playground Committee – are exploring the idea of creating a new playground at the Bordertown Showgrounds, and they want to hear from you!

They're in the early stages and are seeking community input to help guide the vision. What kind of playground would you love to see? What features are important to your family? Your feedback will help them better understand the community’s needs and interest.

📝 Take the short survey here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/PKGVWXS

21/07/2025

Hearing a child share how much they just wanted the freedom to “do stuff” really touched my heart.

It made me pause and reflect… Yes, life comes with responsibilities, and we all have to do things we don’t always want to do. But it struck me that, as adults, the very things we’re often trying to escape, the constant busyness, the demands, the pressure – are sometimes the same things we unintentionally place on children.

It made me wonder: surely there’s a better way? A way with fewer demands, less rushing, and more space for creativity, play, and exploring the world.

(Just to be very clear, I’ve worked with this family for a long time, and there are no concerns about abuse or neglect. What they’re seeking help for is completely standard, around school-related challenges. This reflection isn’t about them specifically, it’s about all of us, myself included, and the pace of life we pass on to children.)

18/07/2025

Hi, I’m Maddy, the creator of Mr Detective and Friends!

I thought it was about time I properly introduced myself. I’m a social worker in private practice, working with families every day, and one thing I’ve always known for sure is this: understanding your brain, especially that fight, flight, and freeze response, is key to managing emotions.

But here’s the thing… trying to explain that to kids? Not so easy. (Have you ever tried explaining the amygdala to a 7-year-old? Let’s just say their eyes glaze over fast!)

That’s why I created Mr Detective and Friends, a simple, visual, and fun way for children to really understand what’s happening in their brains. And it’s been amazing to see the impact. Kids are not only opening up about their feelings, but they’re actually practicing ways to regulate them and that’s huge.

A little about me personally as a teenager, my mental health really took a hit. It took me a long time to find my feet, and now it’s my mission to help others on their journey.

I want children to have these tools early, so they can grow up knowing how to manage big emotions and feel confident in themselves and I want parents to feel supported alongside them.

Check us out in instagram for more information and tips detective.and.friends

o

16/07/2025

🤯 Big emotions? Here’s a brain tip!

Mr. Detective & Friends teaches kids (and grown-ups!) that there are two magical worlds in your brain:

🧠 Thinking Brain – helps you make good choices, solve problems, and stay calm.
❤️ Feelings Brain – your “alarm system” that reacts FAST (great for danger, not so great for tantrums!).

The two worlds are connected by a magical bridge but when big emotions take over, the bridge “blows up” and the Thinking Brain goes offline.

The secret? Noticing when you’re stuck in your Feelings Brain and finding ways to reset and build back the bridge.

Helping kids understand this is a game changer for managing emotions!
detective.and.friends