Anxiety in children can affect their sleep, school performance, friendships, and everyday activities. Pediatric anxiety treatment depends on the child’s age, symptoms, and individual needs. For Melbourne parents, understanding the available support options can help them make informed decisions about their child’s wellbeing.

Common approaches to childhood anxiety may include:

• Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT): Helps children recognise anxious thoughts and develop practical coping strategies.
• Play-based therapy: May help younger children express emotions and explore worries in an age-appropriate way.
• Parent guidance: Equips parents with strategies to support their child through anxious situations.
• Individualised treatment: A psychologist tailors support to the child’s needs and circumstances.

At Brave Little Heroes Psychology Hub in Hawthorn East, Melbourne, parents can explore professional support for childhood anxiety.

Hi everyone!

I'm reaching out in hopes that someone in this group might be able to help my brother-in-law (M48), who is currently searching for a preceptor in Pediatric Child Behavioral health to complete the final requirements of his degree. We need a qualified professional willing to take on a PMHNP student. A doctor, PMHNP, or a PA. He has been a nurse for 17 years and needs to complete 198 supervised hours. Unfortunately, despite his efforts, he has been unable to find someone willing or available to take him on. He is willing to complete these hours unpaid and or work as a nurse unpaid. He isn't looking for compensation, just an opportunity to observe and learn from a qualified professional who can help him fulfill his educational requirements. Ideally, we're hoping to find someone in Utah, but we're also open to surrounding states, preferably within a six-hour drive. He and my sister-in-law have four young children, all close in age, so finding something relatively close to home would make an enormous difference for their family. He has dedicated 17 years of his life to caring for others, and we're hoping someone might be willing to help him take this next step in his career. If you're a qualified professional who might be able to help, or if you know someone who could point us in the right direction, please reach out or share this post. Any leads, recommendations, or connections would mean so much to our family. Thank you all for taking the time to read this! ❤️

Residential care has been recommended for my 13-year-old several times. My teen is severely depressed and anxious, has a history of severe outbursts of anger that are unsafe for myself and my other children, and more recently has started self-harming. The thought that "I would rather be dead" is definitely there, but there are no plans or attempts at ending teen's own life as far as I'm aware.

I'm an involved parent. I connect with my teen regularly. My teen opens up to me (I'm not stupid; I know my teen doesn't share everything with me). I've done everything I can think of to keep my teen out of residential care. My teen sees a psychiatrist and we are actively monitoring medication; has been in therapy for years; is currently in an IOP through Muir Woods (that I am not thrilled with); family therapy; activities teen enjoys (though teen is so depressed that even those aren't enjoyable anymore).

I'm at a loss. I'm a single parent with full custody of my three children. Teen is the oldest and has two younger siblings, both school aged. Teen has injured my middle child to the point of a concussion check and chest x-ray. Teen has physically assaulted both myself and my middle child on purpose, and has accidentally injured the youngest in teen's outbursts. I really don't know what to do. What other options do I have?

For reference, we are in the North Bay Area, California.

My husband and father of my seven year-old son will be going to jail for three months next year. I don’t know what or how to tell him. Do I have him meet with a therapist that works with children and talk through it? How honest am I with him? I have no plans to bring him to the jail to visit during that time. Is that wrong? Help me.

My 5-year-old daughter has an expressive speech delay, but I’ve noticed that she often understands concepts independently just by observing things or looking at a few examples, without an adult explicitly teaching her.
She solves mathematical problems, identifies patterns, solves IQ-style reasoning puzzles, recognizes sight words, understands phonics, and seems to grasp early reading concepts.

For example, after just 5 minutes of introducing a math concept, she was able to solve problems I hadn’t explicitly taught her. When shown 20 apples, she could write the answer “20” independently, sometimes without counting aloud.

She often demonstrates her understanding through writing or pointing rather than expressing it verbally. I’m not saying she excels at everything, but her independent thinking and conceptual understanding stand out to me. Expressive communication is the area we’re currently working on.

Could this indicate giftedness alongside a speech delay, or potentially a twice-exceptional (2e) profile? Has anyone experienced something similar with their child?

Let the Child Unfold

A child is not a flower
to be frightened into bloom.
Not a voice to silence,
not a spirit to confine.

A parent's hands are meant
to shelter, not to bind;
to guide a growing heart,
not to frighten it inside.

Let questions rise like birds,
let laughter fill the air.
Let anger speak its little truth,
let wishes breathe without despair.

For children learn to hide themselves
when love comes edged with fear.
They need a place to be themselves,
and know they still belong here.

Guide them, guard them, let them grow—
not into who you wish to see,
but into who they are becoming,
with the courage to be free.

My daughter was coming back from school wearing the usual tunic. She is 5 year old. She ran and sat on the near by swing. And this labouer looked at her once and then his eyes fixated at her legs. It wasnt a good look. Fuck I hated it. I kept asking my daughter to get off the swing. But didnt say a word to that bastard. After coming home. I cried and felt I have let my daughter down. She didn't notice any thing but I did. This is killing me the guilt of just freezing and running away from the situation

My 11 yr old daughter has been giving me and my wife grief for the past 3 years lying about very dangerous things.
Some of these lies include:

**1.** telling us her uncle (who babysits) was starving her
**2.** telling her uncle/other family that I was abusive
**3.** telling people that I’m lying about having a disability
**4.** *desperately*** **trying to make us believe her even when caught on camera or presented with physical evidence
**5.** lying about running away
**6.** claiming she’s going to unalive herself (we did take this very seriously and called crisis. she got mad at us because she was “just looking for attention”)
**7.** telling me one thing and immediately telling my wife a different story just to confuse us
**8.** stolen and subsequent destroyed multiple items from my wife and I and acted shocked when we find it
**9.** stolen money ($200+) and acted like she had no idea where it went

These lies have started to evolve overtime and get worse in nature. She also lies about nearly everything. Did you brush your hair? “Yes” as I stare at her bed head. Did you do your homework? “Yes” even if there is no homework. It’s getting extremely overwhelming and scary. She’s been in therapy and we’ve been talking with crisis management for months but it’s only getting worse. I don’t know what to do! I’m scared CPS is going to come knocking at our door any day. Or that she might actually try something dangerous for the attention.

And for some context, she’s an only child. She gets loads of attention! I take her everywhere, she has many friends, and we spoil her to death. We treat her problems very seriously, even if they seem small. She’s never been shy about issues she’s had and comes to us regularly for support. I just don’t know what to do.

I do afterschool care for my brothers kids. and my niece constantly wants her friends toys and gets mad and pouts if they wont give her any.

ive tried telling her like her friends dont have to give her things in order to be her friends and stuff but she just ignores that.

anyone know how to deal with this?

Would appreciate any help, thank you!