Bay Paediatrics, Bay Paediatrics, Tauranga (2026)

10/05/2026

Somewhere along the way, perhaps we forgot what motherhood truly is.

And that’s understandable, considering you were so busy being everything to everyone else:

The appointment booker
The bedtime reader
The taxi driver
The advocate
The bad cop
The cleaner
The cook
The ATM

And you do it all. With no praise. No support. No appreciation. No recognition.

Yet, if you put yourself first for a change, you know the house will fall apart.

Dirty laundry kicked around bedroom floors.
Lights remain blazing in empty rooms.
School forms remain uncompleted.
Sports matches go unattended.
Sibling fights go unresolved.
Tears remain on cheeks.

And still, after all this, they will tell you they hate you. But their anger isn’t your failure, it’s their boundary being born. A child raised afraid to rage against their parent becomes an adult who swallows poison rather than spitting it out.

You make the sacrifices. You put yourself last. Every single day.

You do this not because you need to prepare the road for your child, but because you know you must prepare your child for the road.

And that’s why there’s nobody else who can do it better than you.

Today, and every day:

Happy Mother’s Day.

08/05/2026

EPIC FAMILIES LIVE 2026!!

New Zealand’s largest event for neurodiverse families is BACK

This year’s theme is: Raising The Gamechangers 🚀

It’s our goal to give families the playbook for raising the unique minds who will change the world.

On Sunday August 16th, we’re bringing New Zealand’s leading neurodiversity voices to the Bay of Plenty:

Sonia Gray: TVNZ host, actress, host of the award-winning ‘No Such Thing As Normal’ podcast, diagnosed with ADHD herself and raising a daughter under the neurodivergent umbrella.

Freddie Bennett: Guinness World Record holder, adventurer, podcast host, managing director of Bay Paediatrics and on a mission to help families discover their ADHD advantage.

Elen Nathan: One of New Zealand’s leading Occupational Therapists and certified Sensory Integration Practitioner. Elen specialises in Neurodivergence, Sensory Processing Differences and Developmental Trauma.

Spencer McNeil: Otherwise known as ‘Barber Spence’, Spencer is an award-winning business owner and passionate mental health advocate for young people.

Sarah Gillum: Expert entrepreneur and mum of a neurodiverse household showing you how to combine neurodiverse parenting with fulfilling your own goals and dreams.

Lisa Cowan: A neurodivergent parent to her neurospicy, Lisa is a leading voice to help families understand the complexities, challenges, and strengths that can come with navigating diagnosis, support systems, and everyday life. .cowan.735

The Bay Paediatrics Medical Team: New Zealand’s finest Developmental Paediatricians and Child Psychiatrists answering YOUR most pressing questions live on stage..

…and 500 parents, professionals and educators like just you!

And, as always, CHILDREN ARE WELCOME. We have the Kid’s Zone back...bigger and better than ever.

We are so excited to bring the neurodiversity revolution back for the third time.

Tickets go on sale 9:00am next Monday May 11th.

Come and find your people. Come and feel understood. Come and raise your Gamechanger.

06/05/2026

Stop Talking. Start Playing

What if the most powerful thing you could do for your struggling child wasn't another appointment, another assessment, or another parenting book…but simply getting on the floor and playing with them?

Melanie Gilbert-De Rios at Play Therapy Tauranga has spent 35 years working with children and families. She's a registered social worker, a child-centred play therapist, and a family therapist — and she believes something that might just change the way you see your child forever: that play is not what children do instead of healing. Play IS how children heal.

In this episode, you'll hear:

🧸 What play therapy actually is…and why it's SO much more than toys in a room

🚀 Why breakthroughs never happen in uncomfortable chairs in clinical rooms — and what to do instead

🧠 The concept of Filial Family Therapy…and why psychologists once tried to ban it for being too powerful

🪁 How 30 minutes of protected, intentional play time each week can transform your relationship with your child

💥 Why the behaviour you're seeing is just the tip of the iceberg — and what's really going on underneath

🫣 The one thing most parents do that quietly teaches their kids NOT to take responsibility (Freddie is guilty as charged…)

❤️‍🩹 Why empathy isn't something you teach a child — it's something they catch from you

🎁 The gift that matters more than Robux, more than screen time, and more than any toy in Mel's incredible playroom

If you've ever wondered whether your child is okay, whether you are okay, or whether things are ever going to feel less chaotic, this is a conversation you need to hear.

Hit the link in comments to listen now.

05/05/2026

How to explain it to people who don't get it...🙄

"Are you SURE they're neurodivergent? They look pretty normal to me."

Thanks. You've managed be both condescending and insulting in one neat little sentence.

The thing is, neurodivergence is invisible to people who aren't looking for it, and most people aren't looking for it.

What they see is a child who "seemed perfectly 'normal' at the birthday party"

What they don't see is EVERYTHING you did to make that moment possible... and the payback you'll deal with for the rest of the weekend.

We know from personal experience: When this happens with another parent or teacher, it's frustrating. When it happens with a family member or the 'other' parent, it can make life feel bloody impossible.

Many parents struggle with this, because they believe if they could only just explain things clearly enough, people will understand.

Some will....but many won't. And a few never will.

This isn't down to poor explanations, it's because of a world that still thinks neurodivergence is a 'behaviour problem' rather than a neurological condition.

You cannot logic someone into empathy they're not ready to have. What you CAN do is decide who gets your energy, and how much.

You don't owe anyone a TED talk. But if you want to get through to people who matter, here's what tends to work:

💬 Keep it clear, not clinical. Instead of explaining diagnoses, describe what someone can actually see. "When there's too much noise, her brain genuinely can't filter it. It's not a tantrum, it's pain." Specifics land better than talk of neurotransmitters and prefrontal cortexes.

🧊 Use the iceberg. A quick "what you see is the surface, what's underneath is enormous" goes a long way. People understand metaphors when they don't understand neurology. Everyone's seen Titanic. They should know that what's under the surface can cause a sinking feeling.

🛠️ Give people a job. Vague understanding rarely changes behaviour. Tell it to them straight: "It would really help if you didn't comment on the fact he never wears shoes" is far more useful than hoping they'll just figure it out.

And this is the really important one...

🚫 Let some people be wrong. Not everyone in your life needs a full briefing. You don't have to be AutismGPT and give a happy-clappy answer to every question. If they're that curious they'll do their own bloody research. Send them to us - we have plenty of free books, resources and podcasts for anyone who ever doubts you.

Save your time, energy and words for the people who actually deserve them.

And for the ones who say: "But they don't look autistic / ADHD"?

Try: "That's because autism / ADHD doesn't have a look. It has a nervous system."

That usually shuts them down pretty quickly 😉

30/04/2026

Our lives are a result of what we are prepared to tolerate.

And our kids are watching. Everything. Every day.

When your mouth said “Yes” but your brain screamed “NO!”. The shrinking in front of the teacher. The guilt that got you to the party you didn’t want to attend.

How many times do you say, “I don’t want to go either…but we HAVE to”?

Neurodivergent children spend years learning that their true nature is supposed to be edited. That they should pull the handbrake on their spirit. That their needs are too much. That staying SAFE means staying SMALL.

The mask they wear to school (the one that has teachers telling you they’re “fine) comes off the moment they walk in your door.

The meltdown that follows is the price of pretending to be somebody they weren’t born to be.

And what about you? Are YOU being the person you know you can be? If not, what is that teaching them?

You can’t protect them from a world that will demand they shrink. But you can show them what it looks like to take up the space your talents can fill.

Say “NO” to one thing this week. Put yourself first. Let them see you put yourself first. Let them see you smile when others call you ‘selfish’.

Then let them say “Yes” to something that’s entirely theirs. Let them make a commitment and truly OWN it.

None of this is easy. Since when did putting yourself first make you feel so damn GUILTY?

But do it anyway.

Let them see you take ownership of today, and they’ll learn to take ownership of tomorrow.

We’re always in your corner. Today, tomorrow and forever.

28/04/2026

She Almost Lost Everything. Then She Built a Village.  What do you do when the system fails your child?

When Lisa Cowan’s son Luca was five, he was being sent out of class almost every day. She had no idea.

It wasn’t until a little girl in his class asked “So Luca, are you going to stay in class today?” that Lisa found out what was really happening.

What followed was years of waitlists, wrong turns, stand-downs, and moments so dark that Lisa didn’t know if she could keep going.

But she did. And what she built on the other side will move you.
 In this episode, you’ll hear:

💥How Lisa fought the public system for years — falling off waitlists, being told “that’s just normal” — until she finally got Luca the diagnosis that changed everything.

🫶 Why she started It Takes a Village Papamoa…and how 56 local businesses showed up before she even had an audience

🛠️The Lego moment that told her the medication was working

🧠 Why lived experience might be more powerful than any parenting course

🎓 The school assembly that made her cry…four years in the making

🧩 Her vision for one place where neurodivergent families can come and never feel like a number

❤️‍🩹 And the stat that should shock every parent up to 95% of young people in the worst statistics — crime, imprisonment, su***de — are diagnosed or undiagnosed ADHD
 This is a raw, honest, and deeply human conversation about what it really looks like to fight for your child when no one else will.

It’s about shame, exhaustion, isolation…and the extraordinary things that happen when you simply refuse to give up.

🎧 listen now. Link in bio 🔗

27/04/2026

The meltdown isn’t the problem.

The meltdown is the summit. What lives underground — the shame, the overwhelm, the fear of getting it wrong — has been building for hours. Sometimes days.

Neurodivergent children don’t choose to erupt. Their nervous systems reach a pressure that has only one exit. The prefrontal cortex (the part of the brain that’s supposed to apply the emotional brakes) gets completely flooded with emotional lava. Reason and calmness evaporates. What’s left is pure, unfiltered, white-hot feelings.

Here’s what most parents don’t know: your child is terrified too. In the moment, they are not winning. They are drowning. And afterwards, they’re often confused and ashamed by the power of the emotions that just came out of them. They wonder why they couldn’t stop it, even when they wanted to.

That shame is its own kind of pressure. Left unnamed, it becomes the underground layer that makes the next eruption faster.

So when the volcano lies dormant once more, the most powerful thing you can do is not discipline first….It’s reconnect first.

“That looked really hard. I’m not angry. I love you.” Then, later — hours or even the next day — name what was underneath:

“I wonder if you were feeling scared when that happened.”

Everyone will have you believe that the most important question is: “How do I STOP a meltdown?”.

But really, the question you should be asking is: “Why did this meltdown START?”

The volcano isn’t the danger. The silence before it is.

21/04/2026

So excited to announce that the EPIC Families podcast is back for season two!

What happens when a tech entrepreneur realises the very industry he works in is disproportionately harming neurodivergent kids like his own son?

Rory Birkbeck, co-founder and CEO of Safe Surfer, is one of New Zealand’s leading voices on online safety. He’s also a dad navigating life with an ADHD child.

In this raw, honest, and eye-opening conversation, Rory joins to talk about what it’s really like raising a child whose brain runs like a Ferrari with BMX bike brakes.

In this episode, you’ll hear:

🎁 The moment Rory realised his son’s ADHD wasn’t a problem to fix...it was a gift to understand

🧠 Why ADHD kids are disproportionately affected by online harm (and what’s really going on behind the screen)

🚫 The stat that stopped Rory in his tracks: by age 10, ADHD children may have heard 10,000 more corrective statements than their neurotypical peers

📣The creator vs. consumer distinction that every parent needs to hear

❤️‍🩹 Why “it’s not that we don’t trust our kids...it’s that we don’t trust the internet” might be the most important reframe of 2026

⚒️ Practical, real-world tips you can use tonight to create healthier tech boundaries at home

🏄‍♂️ What Safe Surfer’s Kid-Safe Smartphone actually does...and why Rory built it

🛟 Where online safety is heading, and what parents need to know about AI, legislation, and the fight for our children’s attention

If you’ve ever wrestled with your child’s iPad, worried about what they’re watching, or wondered whether you’re winning or losing the battle for their attention, this episode is for you.

Link in bio to listen.

20/04/2026

You might have survived the holidays (just). But did you get through this morning unscathed?

Day one of a new term can be seriously overwhelming for kids and parents alike.

Old things to remember + New things to absorb = A superbly overwhelmed brain.

And to be honest, when the overwhelm gets to this level, everyone in the house is in meltdown mode. This means a cute little ChatGPT copy & paste of ‘5 steps to minimise mental overload’ just ain’t gonna touch the sides.

Overwhelm doesn’t slow you down, it freezes you in your tracks. Our brains just cannot find the starting line, let alone move forwards.

What we HAVE found success with is slowing things down and getting really frikkin’ simple:

Focus on ONE thing to adjust to make tomorrow a little easier.

That’s it. Just ONE.

Maybe it’s putting the PE Kit by the front door, or packing the lunch the night before, or laying out the uniform, or putting the toothpaste on the toothbrush.

Whatever it is. Just do ONE.

Because what usually happens is the first day of term is like first day of the year: You wake up with your head spinning and vow to make 1,853 changes to your daily life. Which is impossible. So you fail. Then you beat yourself up for not being ‘good enough’. Which is untrue.

So let’s not do that anymore.

Just. Change. ONE. Thing.

Small step. Big result.

Tomorrow will be easier. Probably.

11/04/2026

How to help your child find calm in the storm.

It’s going to be a hectic weekend for many kiwis.

With Cyclone Vaianu approaching, our hearts go out to every every family and we hope everyone is keeping their heads down and staying safe.

Weather can be a traumatic and triggering condition for many neurodivergent kids. Darkness + Anxiety + Howling Winds can be a terrifying combination for sensitive minds.

It seems like our children can feel the conditions before they arrive.

The drop in pressure. The howl of wind against glass. The shift in routine that nobody announced, but their body still registered it hours ago.

Neurodivergent children don’t just notice storms. They absorb them.

If your child is more agitated, more tearful, more wired than usual, they’re not being difficult. And they’re certainly not overreacting. Their nervous system is just doing exactly what it was built to do: sounding the alarm when the world stops being predictable.

Two things that can help right now:

1.Shrink their world. One room. Low light. Familiar sounds such a playlist they know, a TV show they’ve seen before. Novelty is the enemy tonight. Predictability is the anchor.

2.Name what’s happening before they have to. “There’s a big storm coming. It might be loud. We’re safe, and we’re staying right here.” When children can’t name the threat, they will invent one. When you talk about it in an open way, you can stop their imagination going into overdrive.

You can’t stop the wind, but you can still be the shelter.

Stay safe everyone 🙏🏻.

07/04/2026

ADHD is a superpower! Autism is a gift!

If we outsourced our opinions to ChatGPT and tired old clichés, then this is what we’d be telling you to believe.

But we know the truth, and we’re not afraid to speak it.

Meltdowns don’t feel like a superpower. 
Bedtime dramas don’t seem very heroic. 
Superhuman strength can slam doors, smash screens, and break hearts.

It can hurt when a child has a gift… but doesn’t get invited to any birthday parties.

So when you’re lying awake at night, feeling like the worst parent on earth, with your heart breaking because it seems like the world isn’t made for your child…

…a chirpy post about ‘gifts and superpowers’ really doesn’t help.

But here’s the thing: your child IS a superhero (and so are you)… but not in the way everyone tells you.

No superhero asks for their gifts to be bestowed upon them.

The superhero isn’t praised and admired. They’re the outcasts because they’re seen as ‘different’.

The superhero doesn’t enjoy their powers. Above all else, they just pray for a ‘normal’ life.

But despite all this, it is only the superheroes who have the power to change the world.

Being misunderstood is the price of admission.

Stop explaining yourself.

‘They’ aren’t supposed to get it.
 You’re not supposed to look like them.
 You’re not supposed to think like them.
 You’re not supposed to act like them.

What makes your child unique is their advantage…

…not something to be hidden under a mask.

Bay Paediatrics

10/05/2026

08/05/2026

06/05/2026

05/05/2026

30/04/2026

28/04/2026

27/04/2026

21/04/2026

20/04/2026

11/04/2026

07/04/2026

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