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Eleva8 Mentoring

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Australia
Newcastle, NSW
Eleva8 Mentoring

NDIS Behaviour Support Practitioner, Disability specialist. Diploma and university degree qualified.

Specializing in complex behaviors, family support consulting, ASD, intellectual disabilities and crisis intervention.

08/10/2025

🚦 Why Kids “Act Out” Sometimes – It’s Brain Development, Not Just Behavior! 🧠💡

Did you know your child’s frontal lobe (the part of the brain that manages executive functioning) isn’t fully developed until their mid-20s? 🤯

👉 Executive functioning skills are like the “control center” of the brain. They help kids:
• Plan ahead 📅
• Control impulses ✋
• Stay focused 👀
• Manage emotions ❤️
• Solve problems 🔧
• Transition between tasks 🔄

So when your child:
• Melts down over leaving the park 😢
• Forgets their homework 📚
• Struggles to manage big emotions 🌪️
• Can’t “just calm down” when you ask 🛑

…it’s not because they won’t do better. It’s because their brain is still learning how to do better.

💬 Think of executive functioning like a muscle — it gets stronger with coaching, patience, and practice over time. 💪❤️

✨ Parents: Your role is to be the “frontal lobe” for your child until theirs fully develops. That means guiding, modeling, and supporting them as they grow the skills to self-manage.

You’re not “spoiling” them by helping — you’re wiring their brain for future success. 🌱

04/10/2025

🌍 Generational Trauma: How Far Back Does It Go? 🌍

While researching Roman history, I came across something confronting: in those times, it was common for mothers to lose 3 or 4 children before one survived into adulthood. Imagine the grief and fear carried through families generation after generation.

But here’s what really struck me—Rome wasn’t just one city. The Roman Empire spread across Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. It influenced almost half the world at its peak. That means these patterns of trauma and survival didn’t just sit in one place—they spread across continents, woven into countless bloodlines.

If trauma gets passed down, how far back should we trace it? Could the struggles families face today be echoes of losses and survival strategies from over 2,000 years ago, across an empire that shaped the world?

💭 It’s a confronting thought: maybe generational trauma isn’t just recent—it’s embedded in our DNA far deeper than we realise.

Would love to hear your thoughts?

02/10/2025

🚨The Boiling Kettle Analogy: Understanding Meltdowns in Kids 🔥☕

Imagine a child’s meltdown like a boiling kettle. When the kettle is switched on, the water heats up, bubbles, and eventually boils over, spilling hot steam and water everywhere. At this moment, if you try to grab the kettle, control it, or figure out why it’s boiling, you’re just going to get burned.

💡 Instead, what do we do? We step back and let the kettle boil until it naturally stops.

But here’s the key: Just because the kettle has stopped boiling doesn’t mean it’s safe to touch. It’s still hot, and if you turn the power back on too soon (poke, question, or try to reason with the child too early), it will boil over again in seconds.

The right approach? ✅ Wait for the kettle to fully cool down before handling it. That’s when you can safely pick it up and talk about what happened—without the risk of another explosion.

🔥 Key Takeaways for Parents, Teachers & Caregivers:
🔹 Don’t engage mid-meltdown—you’ll get burned! 🚫
🔹 Give the child time to fully cool down before discussing feelings. ⏳
🔹 If you turn the heat back on too soon, expect another meltdown. ♨️
🔹 Wait until they are truly calm to help them process what happened. ❤️

01/10/2025

🌱 Understanding Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD) 🌱

Oppositional Defiant Disorder isn’t about being “naughty” or “bad.” At its heart, ODD is a pattern of strong-willed, defiant, and sometimes aggressive behaviours that often arise when a young person feels their autonomy, safety, or sense of control is threatened.

Children and teens with ODD are not choosing to be “difficult” — their behaviours are often a way of saying:
⚡ “I need to feel safe.”
⚡ “I need to feel heard.”
⚡ “I need to have some control over my world.”

🔑 Why does ODD occur?
• It often develops as a response to environments where the child feels powerless, misunderstood, or unsafe.
• Trauma, anxiety, neurodivergence, or inconsistent caregiving can intensify these feelings.
• The behaviour is less about rejecting people and more about protecting their sense of self.

💡 What helps?
• Offering choices rather than commands.
• Building routines that give predictability and safety.
• Validating feelings while setting clear, calm boundaries.
• Focusing on collaboration instead of control.

When we shift the lens from “defiance” to “a child seeking safety and autonomy,” we create the opportunity for trust, growth, and healthier relationships. 💛

29/09/2025

✨ Are you looking for a Behaviour Support Practitioner who truly gets it? ✨

I bring a unique combination of lived experience from juvenile justice and correctional centres, alongside 12 years of hands-on work in the field. With a strong academic foundation of 6 years of study through TAFE and university, I understand the real-world challenges that trauma, anxiety, ADHD, and complex behaviours can bring.

💡 This blend of personal insight, professional experience, and formal education means I don’t just rely on theory – I know how to put strategies into action in a way that makes sense for individuals, families, and correctional settings.

🔑 If you’re in a correctional centre, or if your client or family member is navigating these environments, this is why you should choose me as your Behaviour Support Practitioner.

Because lived experience + education + real-world practice = meaningful outcomes.

⸻

💪📘🧠

23/09/2025

🌟 Not only am I a Behaviour Support Practitioner, I’m also a proud father to two beautiful adult daughters and a grandfather to a gorgeous little girl. ❤️❤️❤️

Through my work and my studies, I’ve gained deep knowledge around childhood development. What makes me proudest is being able to pass this knowledge on — supporting my daughters in their parenting journey and ensuring my granddaughter grows up with her needs understood and nurtured.

Family is at the heart of everything I do, both personally and professionally. 💙✨

22/09/2025

🌱 Understanding Reactive Attachment Disorder (RAD) 🌱

Reactive Attachment Disorder develops in early childhood when a child’s basic needs for safety, comfort, and consistent care are not met. 🚫💔 This can be caused by experiences such as:
• Severe neglect or inconsistent caregiving
• Multiple changes in caregivers (foster placements, institutions)
• Trauma, abuse, or prolonged separation from primary caregivers

When children don’t build secure attachments in those critical early years, it impacts the way their brain develops and how they connect with others. 🧠

👶 In Childhood, RAD may look like:
• Struggling to trust adults
• Difficulty seeking comfort when distressed
• Extreme withdrawal or, on the other end, indiscriminate friendliness
• Developmental delays and emotional dysregulation

⚡ Living in Survival Mode:
Children with RAD often don’t feel safe in their environments. This can lead to hyper-vigilance — always being on guard, scanning for danger, and finding it hard to relax. This constant state of alert puts their nervous system under immense stress and can carry on throughout life.

🧑‍🦱➡️👩 Across their lifespan, challenges may include:
• Difficulty maintaining healthy relationships
• Struggles with boundaries and trust
• Heightened risk of anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues
• Aggressive or oppositional behaviours
• Ongoing challenges with self-worth and identity

💡 The key message: Early intervention and therapeutic support can change the trajectory. Children with RAD can heal and thrive when given consistent care, safety, and nurturing environments.

If you’re supporting a child who shows these behaviours, reach out for guidance. Nobody needs to do this journey alone. 💜

20/09/2025

I’ve been documenting a hypothesis on ADHD and I’d love your thoughts. I don’t see ADHD as something you’re born with. Instead, I think it develops through early childhood attachment disruptions or trauma (particularly between ages 1–6, when the brain is in its most formative stage).

The way I see it:
• Attachment/trauma base – If a child experiences insecure attachment or ongoing stress, they spend much of their developmental years living out of the amygdala (the emotional/flight–fight–freeze part of the brain).

• Hypervigilance – This constant state of scanning for danger wires the brain into hypervigilance. The child learns to monitor every little sound, movement, or facial expression for possible threat.

• Concrete wiring – Because this happens in such a critical developmental window, the brain “locks in” this threat-based operating system. The nervous system becomes accustomed to living in survival mode.

• Presentation later in life – What we label as “ADHD” symptoms (hyperactivity, distractibility, difficulty focusing) may actually be the outward behaviours of a mind stuck in permanent surveillance mode. The person isn’t inattentive — they’re attending to everything in their environment at once, because their brain still believes constant threat monitoring is necessary.

So my hypothesis is essentially: ADHD = hypervigilance in overdrive, shaped by attachment disorder/trauma and reinforced by prolonged development in the amygdala.

Curious how that sits with people with a Psychology background?

Please share!

19/09/2025

🚨 IMPORTANT 🚨

🧠✨ Being a Behaviour Support Practitioner isn’t just about managing behaviours—it’s about understanding the brain behind them.

Think of it like this:
Ever tried to put together IKEA furniture without the instructions? 🪑🔩 You might get it standing… but chances are it’s wobbly, missing a few screws, and won’t last.

Or imagine taking your car to a mechanic who doesn’t understand how an engine works. 🚗🔧 They might fiddle around, but would you really trust them to keep your car running smoothly?

That’s exactly what it’s like trying to support behaviour without understanding brain function. Without the “instructions,” you’re guessing, missing critical steps, and risking breakdowns.

When we understand how the brain works—trauma, anxiety, autism, ADHD, sensory processing—we’re not just guessing anymore. We’re following the blueprint, building stronger, safer, long-lasting outcomes. 💡

Let’s stop winging it. Let’s follow the brain’s instructions.

14/09/2025

🌪️ 🚨 Living with Anxiety/OCD Feels Like This… 🚨 🌪️

Imagine you’ve spent your whole life with an alarm clock that randomly goes off. ⏰ Sometimes it’s loud, sometimes it’s faint, but it’s always somewhere in the background.

Now, picture one day the alarm doesn’t go off at all. For most people, that would feel peaceful. But for someone with generalized anxiety disorder or OCD-type anxiety, it feels unnerving. Your brain says: “Wait… something must be wrong. Why isn’t the alarm sounding?”

⚡ That’s the trap of these types of anxiety—worrying feels normal, not worrying feels strange. People who don’t live with this can’t understand why your mind searches for something to worry about. But for those with GAD or OCD, worrying has become the baseline—your brain thinks it’s keeping you safe.

So if you see someone worrying about things you don’t understand, remember—it’s not about choosing to worry. It’s about trying to navigate life with a brain that doesn’t know how to rest without it. 💙

01/09/2025

What an amazing first session today at Bro Fit Newcastle with Results Road💪🥊🔥

Our clients smashed out their workouts, hit the boxing pads, and most importantly built genuine connections, friendships, and a real sense of belonging within the community 🤝💯

This is just the beginning — excited to see the journey continue! 🚀✨

🥊💪👊

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Newcastle, NSW
2287

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+61404074601

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