Developing Minds Child/Teen Counsellors, Therapists and Teachers

06/09/2025

Trauma & PTSD | This article was originally posted on May 1, 2020. We decided to rerun the article, as we enter our eighth month of Covid19 reality, to support parents who are wondering whether Covid is a traumatic event, and whether they and/or their child are suffering from it.

05/09/2025

Are you feeling ""stuck"" in your work with a child or teen? Or just want to make sure you are following best evidence based practice? Or perhaps you’d like support working with the most complex of kids/teens/families/difficult situations?

Our most experienced psychologists (who have AHPRA board supervisor status) offer supervision (by phone, zoom or face to face at our offices). This supervision is suitable for psychologists, school counsellors, social workers, youth workers, teachers and others who work professionally with children or teens with mental health concerns. For more information go to https://developingminds.net.au/therapy-supervision

04/09/2025

03/09/2025

Behind Developing Minds clinic doors What is something our Psych team might be doing today - Helping a teen to use strategies to manage distraction during study sessions

Who - teens who have difficulty focusing on study or homework tasks
Why - young people - especially those with attention difficulties - will often waste hours of time sitting at desks "studying" and not actually getting much achieved. This can lead to them feeling frustrated and despondent.
What we might be doing: helping a teen think about whether this is important to them, and then using environmental strategies to make slight changes to their environment to make distractions a little harder to access or see (including digital tools which can help), helping them put one of these strategies into place and monitoring its effectiveness.

If you would like one of our child/adolescent psychologists to work with your young person to learn this skill, or would like other support with emotional, mental health or life challenges - please call us on 8357 1711 or email admin@developingminds.net.au

01/09/2025

Being a kid or a teen is not for lightweights - it's tough out there! Here's an age by age guide to what is normal behaviour for children from birth to teen

31/08/2025

What makes me Angry and how does it feels : Game!

When children act in angry ways with others, they feel worse and it can stop them from getting the help they need. On CKC, we have a new game where children identify which situations make them frustrated and how that feels. One way we can teach children to act in calmer ways is to a) get better at knowing their anger “triggers” and b) notice their anger in its early stages. This involves a discussion with pen/paper (and we can write these out for ourselves as well!)

If you would like more help with this, on Calm Kid Central we have a video and worksheet to help primary aged children can learn to do this. While you are there, you can also ask our panel of child psychologists questions about how to help your child deal with anger. NDIS families (Australia wide) can sometimes use their NDIS funding to access the program - otherwise you can access a month for free using code FIRSTMONTHFREE 👉Go to calmkidcentral.com to learn more 👈

29/08/2025

Behind Developing Minds clinic doors:

What is something our Psych team might be doing today - Helping a child feel motivated to work on sibling conflict

With who - kids having lots of arguments/fights with siblings AND who don't seem bothered by them
Why - Helping children feel more motivated to learn a new emotional management skill helps them do it
What we might be doing - Brainstorming good things that happen when siblings get along more, explaining (in kid friendly language) what research tells us about the benefits of resolving arguments, making lists or posters with the child for them to remember their own reasons for getting better at sibling conflict resolution

If you would like one of our child/adolescent psychologists to work with your young person to learn this skill, or would like other support with emotional, mental health or life challenges - please call us on 8357 1711 or email admin@developingminds.net.au

28/08/2025

In the last few weeks I’ve presented at a number of school “acquaintance” and “orientation” nights to parents of primary and secondary students – and one of the topics I cover in these seminars is sleep: how much children and teens need and how we support them to get enough.

It’s only a small part of the talk (I discuss a range of factors which are associated with success and wellbeing for young people) but I thought I’d do some reading to make sure I was across any significant developments in the science of sleep for young people.

In the last few weeks I’ve presented at a number of school “acquaintance” and “orientation” nights to parents of primary and secondary students – and one of the topics I cover in these seminars is sleep: how much children and teens need and how we support them to get enough. It’s only ...

27/08/2025

Thanks to a phenomenon called neuroplasticity, a few minutes of mindfulness every day can change the way you think, feel, and act—because it can literally change your brain. Here's the science to prove it.

26/08/2025

Do you work with parents who find it difficult to know how to “connect” with their child with challenging behaviour? It is often not easy to support parents/caregivers to do this important work, but the research tells us it is an essential part of supporting children. It can be helpful to provide parents/caregivers with the research/science on this topic, and then support them to turn off the “teaching and investigating” parent role, and turn on the “noticing and caring” parent role. If you would like to access a video/handout to show parents about this in your therapy room, on Calm Kid Pro we have one which might help (including an interaction between a parent and child as an example). While you are there, you can get other resources, training and support from our child psychs in working with children (and their families) with emotional, social or behavioural challenges. Go to www.calmkidpro.com to learn more