Healthy Mindz - Counselling and Family Therapy for Anxious Children

01/07/2025

🙏🏼💗🙏🏼

This guide provides practical strategies to help you, as a parent or carer, start open conversations with your child about screen time, online safety, and positive digital behaviours.

14/05/2025

They’re always watching. 👀

11/05/2025

🩷Happy Mother’s Day 🩷
I am blessed to be called mum but this isn’t always an easy day for others🙏🏼
Sending love to all those 🩷🩷🩷

10/03/2025

This!

They are always watching. 👀

10/02/2025

🌈🌈🌈 2 SPACES LEFT FOR THIS TERM 🌈🌈🌈

💗MY PASSION IS SUPPORTING YOUNG PEOPLE TO BECOME THE BEST VERSIONS OF THEMSELVES 💗 THEIR CHALLENGES ARE REAL AND THE MORE SKILLS WE CAN GIVE THEM AND LESS TIME ON SCREENS MEANS WE ARE DOING ALL WE CAN TO SUPPORT THEM.💗

The most wonderful thing about this is that the kids in the group changed the name to ‘HAPPY CLUB’ because they all feel so happy when they leave!🤗💗😊💗😊💗😊💗😊💗😊💗😊💗😊💗😊💗😊💗😊💗😊💗
Think we all need a Happy Club!!

We commence next week Monday 4-45 - 5.45pm for 7 weeks 😊

Please feel free to share and thank you for your support 🙏🏼

05/02/2025

This is SO important to protect our children

Last year I attended a webinar hosted by In Hope entitled ‘Predators Hiding in Plain Sight’.

I would like to share a few things that the presenter shared.

⚠️ Content of interest to predators (COITP) included:

- Children in swimsuits
- Pageantry photos
- Children doing gymnastics
- Children in diapers
- Children in the swimming pool
- Back to school photos
- PLUS everyday family photos

‼️ Predators are driving minors to self-produce content on:

- In gaming environments, which are often described as the ‘modern day playground’.
- Mainstream social media — predators are posting and browsing content of interest, finding like-minded individuals to trade CSAM with, and finding victims to move off-site to messenger platforms.
- Messenger apps — including encrypted platforms to communicate with victims.

⛔️ When a predator contacts a child, they will try to lure the child to an encrypted messenger platform.

Algorithms play a role in recommending more content, i.e., if a predator has searched for ‘girl gymnastics’, the algorithm will push more of the same type of content.

Predators can find other like-minded individuals in the comments section.

In live streaming, predators will often ask a child to:

- Do a handstand
- Pout at the camera
- Blow a bubble gum
- Can you draw with your feet?
- Put the camera at this angle

‼️‼️ I cannot reiterate how important it is to have any social media account set to PRIVATE.

❌ NEVER share images of your children on public accounts. Keep in mind that once you post an image, you lose control over it.

❌ Please do not include photos of your children in your profile photo.

🙏 Please supervise your children online.

❌ Children should NEVER use devices in private spaces.

❌ Children should NEVER communicate online with anyone they do not know in the ‘real’ world.

15/11/2024

We are all doing the best we can do with the information and wisdom we have 🙏🏼💗

Asking a parent to stay calm and regulated while their child is dysregulated is like asking them to forget their entire emotional history in that moment.

Our responses to children’s feelings have been socially and culturally conditioned. When we get frustrated with our children's emotions, it's often because our own emotional experiences were shaped by how our parents responded to us when we were young. If our feelings were dismissed, ignored, or met with frustration, we might have internalised the belief that emotions—especially big or messy ones—are something to be avoided or “fixed.” These responses are often passed down through generations, ingrained in adults as they become parents themselves. So, when our child is experiencing big feelings, we might find ourselves reacting in ways that mirror the frustration we experienced growing up—because it feels familiar, even if it’s not helpful.

That’s why it’s so important we give ourselves grace when struggling to stay regulated in the face of our children’s feelings. I talk a lot about co-regulation, but the truth is, we’re human, and we can only do so much with what we’ve got in the heat of the moment.

You’re doing the best you can 💛

04/11/2024

A great reminder for us all 🙏🏼❤️

❤️
Renewed Hope Parenting

07/06/2024

Over the past few years, we have been humbled to receive hundreds of emails and messages from you, sharing heartfelt stories about how social media has negatively impacted your children. You've told us that it has unsettled them, addicted them, depressed them, sexualised them, exhausted them, scandalised them, bullied them, extorted them, abused them, and even driven some to self-harm and su***de.

It is now time for your very real and raw stories to be heard by a wider audience, and particularly our lawmakers - our MPs, Ministers and even the Prime Minister - in Federal Parliament.

You may also wish to avocate for raising the social media minimum age from 13 to 16 years and express your desire to see the introduction of age verification to ensure that rules around age are actually enforced.

Submissions close in three weeks - on 28 June 2024 - so there isn't much time to waste.

You can be certain that Big Tech and its lackeys will be pulling out all stops in the next few weeks to paint a rosy picture of the state of affairs. They will - under the guise of “nuance” - try to obfuscate the essential truth of conflict and misery that social media visits upon countless families around the country.

But while they may be well-resourced and while they may have their quadzillions of dollars, we have an even greater love for our children. We hope to see parents overwhelm the committee with submissions of parental love!

The committee prefers to accept submissions via the online system here: www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/OnlineSubmission.

If that's not your style, we think a hand-written or typed letter can also be very impactful. These letters can be posted to:

Committee Secretary
Joint Select Committee on Social Media and Australian Society
PO Box 6100
Parliament House
Canberra ACT 2600

An email to socialmedia.joint@aph.gov.au is also acceptable.

SUBMISSION TIPS

Begin your submission with a short introduction about yourself and your family.

The best submissions are personal, highlighting your own family's experiences and perspectives.

Submissions don't need to go on for too many pages. One or two pages is fine and a good rule of thumb is to keep them less than five pages long.

You may wish to propose some solutions (as the committee looks to submissions for ideas to make recommendations).

Provide your return address and contact details with your submission (although not in the main body of the submission).

If you are extremely time-poor, then a short email submission along the following lines will still be a great help: "Dear Committee, I am a mother of three children aged 6, 10 and 13 years. Our family resides in Geraldton, Western Australia. We have experienced the negative effects of social media on our family in numerous ways. Our eldest daughter was bullied on social media earlier this year which required the intervention of the school and counsellors. I would like to see laws enacted that will increase the minimum age for social media use to 16 years. Equally important is the introduction of a meaningful age verification mechanism so that children cannot circumvent laws by simply ticking a box. Kind regards, Sarah Freeman."

For more information, please go to the inquiry’s home page at www.aph.gov.au/Parliamentary_Business/Committees/Joint/Social_Media/SocialMedia

08/05/2024

21/04/2024

Hello neighbours

I am a local therapist and student support officer and I run these small groups to bring young people together to connect, share and learn the most important life skills 🙏🏼

Please let me know if you would Like more information 😊

Many thanks
Beck @ Healthy Mindz - Counselling and Family Therapy for Anxious Children

20/04/2024

This 💗💗💗