Mackay Youth Support Service Inc

26/11/2025

🔴🟡 Are you looking for a FREE fun, aquatic activity for your child who loves the water?

In partnership with Royal Lifesaving Qld, we are running a NextGen Lifesavers program where your child gets to participate in a range of educational & enjoyable activities centred around pool lifesaving.

They will learn
✅ How to rescue others
✅ Self rescue techniques
✅ Activities based around the sport of pool lifesaving including towing manikins, obstacles races & board paddling.

Participants are encouraged to attend all 3 days but can still register if they aren’t available for the duration. Places are limited!

⭐️ Our event is run by Peter who is a World Champion in Pool Lifesaving as well as a Sate & National medalist in Surf Lifesaving & Pool lifesaving!

📆 Mon 15/12 - Wed 27/12
⏰ 11am - 1pm daily
🐠 Aimed at 8-17 years
🐠 Must be a min. Of level 3 in their swimming level & confident in a 25m pool.
💰Cost: FREE thanks to funding from Qld Government
☎️ 0490 834 345 or email swimmackay@superkidsaquatic.com.au to register

26/11/2025

Pathological Demand Avoidance (PDA) is widely considered a profile within the autism spectrum characterized by an extreme, anxiety-driven need to resist everyday demands and maintain a sense of autonomy and control. This avoidance is not an act of defiance but an anxiety-based response to perceived threats to control, often resulting in a fight, flight, freeze, or fawn reaction.

Image Autism ❤️

26/11/2025

𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝗔𝗥𝗘 𝗘𝘅𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝗙𝘂𝗻𝗰𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗦𝗸𝗶𝗹𝗹𝘀?
https://www.theottoolbox.com/executive-functioning-skills-course/
(This is a fantastic resource via a free email course)

Here’s a (non-exhaustive) list of executive functioning skills, which are cognitive processes that help with self-regulation, planning, and goal-directed behavior:
1. Planning and Organization- The ability to set goals, develop steps to achieve them, and keep materials and information in order.
2. Working Memory- The capacity to hold and manipulate information in mind over short periods of time.
3. Impulse Control (Inhibitory Control)- The ability to stop and think before acting, resisting temptations or distractions.
4. Emotional Regulation- Managing and responding to emotional experiences in a socially appropriate way.
5. Cognitive Flexibility (Shifting)- The capacity to adapt to new situations, shift focus between tasks, and think about multiple concepts simultaneously.
6. Self-Monitoring- The ability to assess one’s own performance, recognize mistakes, and adjust behavior accordingly.
7. Task Initiation- Starting tasks without procrastination, even when they are difficult or less preferred.
8. Time Management- Effectively budgeting time and estimating how long tasks will take to meet deadlines.
9. Sustained Attention- Maintaining focus and effort on a task over a period of time, avoiding distraction.
10. Goal-Directed Persistence-The ability to stay focused on completing a task or achieving a goal, despite challenges or delays.
These skills are critical for success in everyday tasks, school, and work...daily life skills.

26/11/2025

26/11/2025

Warning: This blog post discusses youth su***de. This week has been brutal for Brisbane. We have lost 3 tweens/teens to su***de. I’ve been flooded with emails with people expressing grief and asking how they can be part of the solution. While I’m answering Brisbane based emails, I am actually wo...

26/11/2025

I am delighted to have been invited to talk about mothering boys at the 2026 Virtual 'What Boys Need Conference', coming up in two months, from 23 to 26 January.

This event is hosted by The Gurian Institute and, if you're familiar with my books about boys or the Parental As Anything podcast you'll know I am a huge fan of Michael Gurian's work. Should be a great summit!

Check out the full schedule and long list of guest speakers at:
https://helpingboysthrive.org/what-boys-need-as-males-conference/

26/11/2025

Why are teen girls so mean to their mothers?
I remember the one time my teen daughter said she hated me.

She was 14, a freshman in high school, and wanted to attend a party after a football game. She begged me all week trying to justify her reasons for wanting to go, including the fact that all her friends would be there.

And each time, I returned her request with a no. I did not feel comfortable with the situation, and I didn’t know the older girl who would be driving to the post-game event.

My mom spidey-sense felt it was just a bad idea. So, I told her that there would be other parties in the future, but at this point, my answer was no.

When she made her last ask before heading out to the football game, and I told her for the last time that the answer was still no, she stormed out of the house and said, “You are ruining my life. I hate you!”

To say I was a little stunned is an understatement. It happened so fast that I couldn’t move for a second from my place at the kitchen counter. In fact, I wasn’t even sure what my next move should be.

Should I go after her and ground her?

Should I ignore it?

Should I succumb to the exhaustion of her behavior and break down and cry?

The relationship with my three teen daughters has had some severe ups and downs. Sometimes we get along so well that I feel we are best friends. We laugh and dance in the kitchen. We try to eat dinner together when possible. We support and help each other.

And sometimes, especially in those pre-teen and early teenage years, they hit me with barbs that I was unsure I could withstand. They have lashed out at me from nowhere, and their attitudes can make a warm room feel ice cold. They have made choices that make me cringe and said words that make me cry.

And I’m not proud to say that I didn’t always handle it well either.

While I don’t ever believe in being your child’s doormat, it is helpful to look beyond the behavior and find out the why behind their actions.

Mothers and their teenage daughters have had complicated relationships since the dawn of time.

It often starts with a subtle shift as the daughter starts pulling away, wanting to spend more time with her peers, in her room, or on her phone. As mothers try to hold on, their daughters are often desperate to pull away and exert their independence and individuality at every opportunity. This often creates friction, like a too-tight shoe rubbing against a naked heel. The result is a blister that continually erupts into a messy goo and never heals.

It doesn’t help that often daughters and mothers are facing an onslaught of life and hormonal changes during these formidable years. Moms will talk about their adolescent’s mood swings, irritability, irrational behavior, and mean-spirited barbs. Daughters will highlight their mom’s controlling nature, unwillingness to listen, lack of understanding, and yelling.

What often is happening, however, is misunderstandings and a failure to communicate. It feels like your teen daughter is pulling away from you in every way, and it most likely pains you, the mother, much more than it does them. This causes a palpable tension between the two of you, a tug-of-war that has no end in sight.

If you are struggling with your teen daughter’s behavior, first know you are not alone. Nearly every parent experiences this to some degree, some more so than others.

Sometimes we have an image in our head of what we want our relationship with our teen daughter to look like. We may have imagined more of a friendship with our daughter or that they might want to spend more time with us during the teen years. You might have hoped they confided in you more or that there would be more movie nights. You may have thought that the relationship with your daughter would be different than the challenging one you had with your own mother.

It’s important to underscore that if your daughter’s moods or behaviors change significantly and suddenly, it could be an indicator of something else, such as trauma or a mental health issue such as depression or anxiety. You should consult a health care practitioner or a licensed therapist immediately.

Continued in first comment

26/11/2025

Supernanny vs PDA
Why They’re Not a Match

If you’ve ever mentioned PDA and had someone say,
“Have you tried Supernanny-style parenting? That always sorts kids out…”
this one’s for you. 💛

Supernanny approaches are built on strict routines, time-outs, rewards, consequences, and following through no matter what.
And for some kids, that might create short-term compliance.

But PDA isn’t about “won’t.”
It’s about “can’t.... my nervous system is overwhelmed and I’ve hit survival mode.”

PDA isn’t a behaviour issue.
It’s a brain-based profile where pressure, loss of autonomy, and demands (even tiny ones) trigger a threat response.

So when we use approaches that rely on control, firmness, and compliance, PDA kids don’t calm down… they shut down, or explode, or spiral deeper into panic. They don’t feel safer, rather they feel trapped.

Here’s the thing:
PDA kids don’t need firmer rules.
They don’t need more consequences.
They’re not trying to dominate you, manipulate you, or “win.”

They need:
Co-regulation instead of correction
Collaboration instead of compliance
Autonomy instead of authority
Safety instead of stress
Invitations instead of instructions

When we switch from “How do I make them listen?” to
“How do I help them feel safe?”
things change.

I know this can feel counterintuitive to those raised on traditional behaviour models. And that’s okay, different nervous systems need different approaches. PDA kids simply cannot thrive in systems built on pressure and control.

And here’s the hope:
There is a whole community of us,parents, carers, professionals, and PDAers themselves, changing the narrative. We’re building a world where PDA kids are understood, supported, and met where they are.

A world where we prioritise connection over compliance and safety over supremacy.

And that world?
We’re creating it together. 🌻

26/11/2025

The Hidden Grief of Parenting a PDAer (And Why No One Talks About It)

There’s a kind of grief in parenting a PDA child that nobody prepares you for.

Not the grief of losing your child, but the grief of losing the version of life you thought you were going to have.

The grief of watching other families do things that feel impossible for yours.
The grief of having to parent differently than everyone around you.
The grief of realising the world is not built for your child, and that you’ll have to fight for spaces where they can simply exist.

It’s the grief beneath the exhaustion.
The grief inside the silence when someone says, “Have you tried being more firm?”
The grief of cancelled plans, school refusals, sensory storms, and walking on eggshells not because you're fragile, but because you’re attuned.

It’s the grief of watching siblings adapt.
The grief of losing friendships because people don’t understand.
The grief of not getting to be the parent you thought you’d be, because you had to become the parent your child needs.

And maybe the hardest part?

This grief comes with love.
Deep, fierce, unshakeable love.

So you don’t feel like you’re allowed to grieve.
Because how can you grieve someone you adore with your whole being?

But grief and love are not opposites.
Grief is love with nowhere to go.

You can love your PDA child more than anything and grieve the life you thought you were walking into.
That doesn’t mean you don’t want them.
That doesn’t mean you’re failing.
It means you're human.

If no one has said it to you:

Your grief is valid.
Your heartbreak is real.
Your strength isn’t in pretending it’s fine.
Your strength is in surviving what most people couldn’t imagine.

You don’t have to “get over it.”
You just need a space where it can be named.

If this is you, you're not broken.
You’re grieving.
And grief is not a flaw, it’s evidence of love that has had to stretch beyond what you expected.

🤍