Sara Clignett Psychologist

03/07/2022

Researchers at the University of Newcastle are seeking parents of children with special healthcare needs to participate in an online interactive program.

Are you a parent of a child aged between 0-18 years, with special healthcare needs (including children with chronic medical conditions, physical, developmental, behavioural, or emotional conditions) and have access to the internet and a smartphone?

You are invited to participate in a pilot study testing a web-based program, Wellbeing for CARERS. The program is designed to provide education, knowledge, and a way of connecting with other parents to support parents of children with special healthcare needs.

The study involves:
• Completing an online survey
• Participating in an 8-week interactive online program, with
access to the Wellbeing for CARERS website
• Receiving 5 weekly SMS messages with information and links
to the Wellbeing for CARERS program
• Completing a follow-up survey via zoom or phone

If you are interested in participating in the study, click the link below;
https://questionpro.com.au/t/ARnSuZRqQD

For further information or if you have any questions, you can contact Heidi Emery at heidi.emery@uon.edu.au, or Alana Horton at alana.horton@uon.edu.au

This study has ethics approved by the University of Newcastle Human Research Ethics Committee H-2019-0110.

27/03/2022

Every year, on the 2 April, the world celebrates World Autism Awareness Day. This year, instead of just creating awareness about , we want to also create UNDERSTANDING and ACCEPTANCE by celebrating people on the autism spectrum! We're very excited to launch our celebrations today!
➡️Share your stories on social media during April using hastag . We'll be showcasing a selection on our social media wall: www.autismspectrum.org.au/WAUD

20/03/2022

What an articulate and amazing woman Hannah Gadsby is. For someone who has a daughter with autism, this has given me a better insight as to how it feels to have autism

Even as a child, the comedian knew her brain was atypical. But it was only in her late 20s that her anxiety, depression and meltdowns finally made sense

17/02/2022

❤️❤️❤️

“Parenting has nothing to do with perfection. Perfection isn’t even the goal, not for us, not for our children. Learning together to live well in an imperfect world, loving each other despite or even because of our imperfections, and growing as humans while we grow our little humans, those are the goals of gentle parenting. So don’t ask yourself at the end of the day if you did everything right. Ask yourself what you learned and how well you loved, then grow from your answer. That is perfect parenting.”
L.R. Knost - The Gentle Parent: Positive, Practical, Effective Discipline.

Katherine Lewis - The Mothers.

03/02/2022

❤️❤️❤️

25/01/2022

For people with ADHD or ADD, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria can mean extreme emotional sensitivity and emotional pain — and it may imitate mood disorders with suicidal ideation and manifest as instantaneous rage at the person responsible for causing the pain. Learn more about potential treatments h...

17/01/2022

So true ❤️❤️❤️

“Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing.

It is making a spreadsheet of your debt and enforcing a morning routine and cooking yourself healthy meals and no longer just running from your problems and calling the distraction a solution.

It is often doing the ugliest thing that you have to do, like sweat through another workout or tell a toxic friend you don’t want to see them anymore or get a second job so you can have a savings account or figure out a way to accept yourself so that you’re not constantly exhausted from trying to be everything, all the time and then needing to take deliberate, mandated breaks from living to do basic things like drop some oil into a bath and read Marie Claire and turn your phone off for the day.

A world in which self-care has to be such a trendy topic is a world that is sick. Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure.

True self-care is not salt baths and chocolate cake, it is making the choice to build a life you don’t need to regularly escape from.

And that often takes doing the thing you least want to do.

It often means looking your failures and disappointments square in the eye and re-strategizing. It is not satiating your immediate desires. It is letting go. It is choosing new. It is disappointing some people. It is making sacrifices for others. It is living a way that other people won’t, so maybe you can live in a way that other people can’t.

It is letting yourself be normal. Regular. Unexceptional. It is sometimes having a dirty kitchen and deciding your ultimate goal in life isn’t going to be having abs and keeping up with your fake friends. It is deciding how much of your anxiety comes from not actualizing your latent potential, and how much comes from the way you were being trained to think before you even knew what was happening.

If you find yourself having to regularly indulge in consumer self-care, it’s because you are disconnected from actual self-care, which has very little to do with “treating yourself” and a whole lot do with parenting yourself and making choices for your long-term wellness.

It is no longer using your hectic and unreasonable life as justification for self-sabotage in the form of liquor and procrastination. It is learning how to stop trying to “fix yourself” and start trying to take care of yourself… and maybe finding that taking care lovingly attends to a lot of the problems you were trying to fix in the first place.

It means being the hero of your life, not the victim. It means rewiring what you have until your everyday life isn’t something you need therapy to recover from. It is no longer choosing a life that looks good over a life that feels good. It is giving the hell up on some goals so you can care about others. It is being honest even if that means you aren’t universally liked. It is meeting your own needs so you aren’t anxious and dependent on other people.

It is becoming the person you know you want and are meant to be. Someone who knows that salt baths and chocolate cake are ways to enjoy life – not escape from it.”
-Brianna Wiest
https://ko-fi.com/donate_nepenthe



[Illustration: Yaoyao Ma Van As Art ]

27/12/2021

Sounds like good goals!

It's okay if you don't plan on crushing 2022. It's okay to want simple things. ❤️

19/12/2021

17/11/2021

"Toughen up!" "Don't be so sensitive." "I can't believe that bothers you!" If you are highly sensitive to physical and/or emotional stimuli, you may have hypersensitivity — a condition common among adults with ADHD.