The Playful Psychologist

In the season finale episode of The Playful Psychologist podcast, I am joined by Educational & Developmental Psychologist, Sandhya Menon. Sandhya is the founder of Onwards and Upwards Psychology and has a huge passion for neuroaffirming practice in allied health. She is also the brilliant author of the most beautifully, neuroaffirming picture books for children. In this episode, Sandhya shares...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist Podcast, I am joined by Jess from the instagram account @aussieautismfamily. Jess is the mother of two beautiful kids. Her son Jacob is autistic and her account if full of raw and real challenges and successes of raising an autistic child.  As I also have a younger brother who is autistic and I am extremely passionate about supporting the family as...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist Podcast, I am joined by Mariah Apostolopoulos from Sound Adventures to explore speech delay. Mariah is a speech pathologist based in Melbourne. This episode will explore the following points: What is the role of a speech pathologist? What is a speech delay and are there different types of delay? What is the difference between a receptive and expres...

In this week's episode of The Playful Psychologist Podcast, I am joined by Sarah Bolitho from Secure Foundations.  Sarah is a Master's qualified Child & Family Play Therapist and a mother of three. In this episode, we explore the negative impact labelling children can have. We focus heavily of the negative connotations associated with labelling a child as 'SHY.' We explore...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist podcast, we are going to talk all thing 'toys.' So often, we get sucked in as parents and think we need ALL the latest toys, ALL the new toys and everything in between to keep our kids entertained, But what ends up happening? The more toys they get, the more overwhelmed they get, the less time they spend engaged in quality play, and the M...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist, I am joined by Jayde Gutterson to discuss communicating with daycares, kindergartens and pre schools. Jayde is an educator and has worked in childcare settings for many years. Her role is currently based in sessional kindergarten. In this episode, we discuss: What are the biggest difficulties educators face in a daycare setting when it comes to be...

In this weeks episode of the Playful Psychologist podcast, I am joined by Dr Kathryn Hackman, to explore toddler anxiety. Dr Kathryn is the founder of one of the most brilliant apps for anxious/sensitive kids, Courageous Kids.  Developed by Dr Kathryn Hackman, in collaboration with a leading paediatric occupational therapist and psychologist, all mothers, the Courageous Kids app is specifically de...

In this weeks episode of the Playful Psychologist Podcast, I am joined by Ali Fiorentino to discuss the role of a school psychologist.  Ali is an Australian school psychologist with experience working across primary, secondary and education support centres in rural and remote schools. Ali’s passion areas include suicide prevention, case management, incident management, mental health, staff wellbei...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist podcast, I am going to share with you how I prepared my clients for going on maternity leave. A lot of these tips are relevant for going on any type of extended leave as an allied health professional, with a few tips specific to going on maternity leave. But, by far the trickiest part of being a pregnant psychologist, was informing the families I w...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist podcast, the topics of selective mutism and social anxiety are explored. In this episode, I am joined by Dr Melissa Giglio, who is a child clinical psychologist from the US and the director of a multidisciplinary clinic in Hong Kong. Together with her colleague Daisy Geddes they specialise in treating Selective Mutism and Social Anxiety Disorder in...

In this week's episode of The Playful Psychologist Podcast, I will be sharing the tips and tricks that helped with a smooth(er) transition to welcoming our newest son into our family. There is a lot of helpful advice on the internet, and I didn't just want to share an episode that rephrased that content. Instead, I have shared the things we personally found useful, and how we implemented...

In this episode of The Playful Psychologist, I explore whether every 'quirky kid' is autistic. I think when it comes to autism, we are more aware, but also more confused. We seem to have this idea that any social difficulty or any emotional regulation difficulty constitutes a diagnosis of autism, and that is not the case. I strongly believe that a lot of children with emotional regulatio...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist podcast, I explore a technique called 'cognitive restructuring.'  Cognitive restructuring is a useful technique for understanding unhappy feelings and moods, and for challenging the sometimes-wrong "automatic beliefs" that can lie behind them. As such, you can use it to reframe the unnecessary negative thinking that we all exper...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychology Podcast, I share how I like to use picture books to facilitate a lesson with kids. Picture books are the most versatile resource you can own as a parent or clinician. I love using them to work on emotional awareness and understanding, as well as theory of mind. I share my top tips on how to use picture books and 10 questions I like to ask kids when g...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist, I share with you my five tips for keeping on top of things as a psychologist. For me, organisation is key to being a psychologist. If I am disorganised, my whole day is 50 times harder than it has to be. So I wanted to share five of my organisation hacks with you. For more information, check out my Student & Graduate Guide here: https://www.th...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist, the topic of 'loud noise' is discussed.  It is very common for children to dislike loud sounds, especially if they have not heard the sound before. Many children will become upset, anxious, or cover their ears if there is an unexpected noise.  These children may not like sounds such as vacuum cleaners, hand dryers, sirens, birthday parti...

In this week's episode of The Playful Psychologist Podcast, the topic of teacher referrals is explored. The role of the teacher has changed so much. While teachers are there to facilitate your child’s learning, their roles and responsibilities have changed dramatically in the 21st Century. When we think of the role of a teacher, we think of planning activities, delivering instructions, assess...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist, I explore sleep hygiene. I think it’s something we all know is important, but maybe we need a little bit of a friendly reminder on the topic.  This episode will explore our daily habits that contribute to quality sleep and how to improve our sleep hygiene.

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist, I am joined by Nabula from Supermarket Swap. I was honoured to interview Nabs for this episode and have a raw conversation about trusting your gut as a parent, and making changes that you know can benefit your family. Nabula has helped hundreds of thousands of families make preservative and chemical free supermarket choices through her amazing ins...

Welcome to a brand new season of The Playful Psychologist podcast! In this weeks episode, I am joined by Chrissie Davies from 'Chaos to Calm.' Chrissie I was a Special Ed teacher for 15 years and now has a consulting business where she supports families to understand their child’s behaviour and to approach it using supportive ‘brain based’ strategies and understandings.  In this weeks ep...

In the final episode for Season 6, I am joined by Genevieve Muir from Connected Parenting to discuss the dreaded public meltdown. We've all been there...a busy shopping centre, people everywhere, and your little one becomes overwhelmed/overstimulated and just loses their cool. This episode is going to break down ways to manage these situations and also explores the impact they have on us as p...

In this week's episode of The Playful Psychologist, I am joined once again by Jacquie Ward from The Brave Space to talk about school holidays. More often than not, parents feel like the 'wheels fall off' in the school holidays and that behaviour can in fact be worse, despite there being less pressure on our kids. In this episode, Jacquie and I discuss why this may happen and offer s...

In this week's episode of The Playful Psychologist, I explore a concept that is extremely important and extremely under recognised: Glass Child Syndrome. Glass children are siblings of a person with a disability. The word glass means people tend to see right through them and focus only on the person with the disability. 'Glass' is also used because the children appear strong, but in...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist Podcast, I explore the world of sensory play and what this type of play actually is.  With the rise of social media and people sharing their sensory play ideas, we are exposed to a lot of different materials and items to engage in sensory play. But are these things really necessary?  This quick episode will share some sensory play ideas and explain...

In this weeks episode of The Playful Psychologist, I explore 'emotion coaching.' It sounds tricky, but once you understand the five steps underlying emotion coaching, it all starts to make sense. This episode aims to break down those five steps into 'easy to understand' language. After listening, if you would like to learn more, check out The Gottman Institute's online cou...