Rachel Rouse Counseling, PLLC

11/16/2025

Coaching With Brooke❤️

11/14/2025

Childhood worries are a normal part of growing up and range from fears of the dark and monsters in young children to school-related stress, social pressures, and even abstract concepts like climate change in older children. Common worries include peer relationships, school performance, fitting in, family issues, and specific fears like dogs, heights, or thunderstorms. If worries are persistent, overly intense, or interfere with daily life, they may signal a more serious anxiety disorder and professional help may be needed.

Image The Contented Child, Child Wellbeing Consultancy❤️

11/11/2025

Therapy Group❤️

11/11/2025

-edu ❤️

11/10/2025

Pathological demand avoidance, or Pervasive Drive for Autonomy (PDA)*, is an anxiety-driven need for control and resistance to demands/expectations that threaten a sense of autonomy. Whilst everyone experiences demand avoidance at times (e.g., refusing to complete homework or household chores), for individuals with PDA, everyday demands such as “put on your shoes” or “take a shower” can cause significant anxiety and evoke extreme emotional reactions (panic attacks or meltdowns). In fact, individuals with PDA may resist demands even if it’s something that they enjoy or want to do. It is the expectation, rather than the nature of demands, that leads to a perceived lack of control. Thus, demands that may trigger PDA include:

Direct Demands: Instructions e.g., Brush your teeth, put your shoes on, do your homework, corrections, or discipline.
Indirect Demands: Praise, discussions/comments about the future, transitions, social expectations.
Internal Demands: Hunger, thirst or needing to use the bathroom.
Wants/desires: Hobbies/interests, special occasions. ( Mind Matters ❤️)

Image Sunshine Support ❤️

11/04/2025

Researchers suspect that the reason mental fatigue is so prevalent in ADHD may be related to how cognitively demanding coping with ADHD is. While a neurotypical brain is wired to intuitively tune out environmental distractors, control impulses, and sustain attention, many of the mechanisms required to do those things are dysregulated in ADHD, including weak alpha wave modulation

The result is that someone with ADHD exerts more cognitive effort to achieve the same level of productivity that someone without ADHD can achieve almost effortlessly.

With mental fatigue, there’s really only one thing you can do: rest and allow your brain to restore its energy levels. With that said, resting with ADHD is easier said than done, especially if you have sleep difficulties. So here are a few tips to help you get the rest you need:

Choose an enjoyable physical activity. If you’re feeling too anxious or unproductive to sit still and rest, try going for a walk or bike ride. Physical exercise can help your brain recover from fatigue and potentially make falling asleep easier come bedtime.

f you’ve hit a wall, staring at the unfinished work isn’t going to change anything. Step away, switch activities, and get outside if you can. Don’t bring your phone with you. Try practicing mindfulness to focus on your present surroundings and your present feelings. Name what you see and what you’re feeling right now, physically and psychologically. (Verywell ❤️)

Image Coaching With Brooke ❤️

11/02/2025

Autistic meltdown or shutdown occurs when autistic people become overwhelmed by sensory input. For autistic people, meltdowns and shutdowns are not something they choose – they’re instinctive reactions to being overwhelmed. A meltdown might look like shouting, crying, or other intense outward expressions of distress.

A shutdown, on the other hand, can mean going quiet, dissociating, or completely withdrawing. These reactions may look very different on the outside, both are deeply felt responses to sensory overload, emotional pressure, or just too much going on at once. They’re ways the mind and body try to cope when things become too much.

When anxiety runs high or there’s too much sensory input to process, the brain can go into survival mode – triggering a fight, flight, or freeze response. For autistic people, this can sometimes lead to a meltdown, which is often misunderstood as ‘temper tantrums’.

Autism meltdowns might come out in different ways – through loud sounds like shouting or crying, through physical actions like kicking or flapping, or a mix of both. In these moments, the person isn’t being difficult – they’ve reached a point where everything feels too much, and they can’t communicate what they’re feeling in any other way.

An autistic shutdown refers to the state in which autistic person withdraws into themselves from the surrounding. Unlike meltdowns, autistic shutdown occurs when the person experiencing sensory overload disconnects from the world in order to protect themselves.

A shutdown is often the body’s way of coping when things become too much – whether it’s due to emotional overwhelm, emotional stress, or just sheer exhaustion from constantly processing everything going on.

It is a quieter, less visible reaction to intense stress or overload. When an autistic person experiences a shutdown, it’s their way of coping with everything becoming too much.

Care Group ❤️

10/30/2025

The world needs resilient kids. 💪
Not hardened ones. Not kids who shut down or toughen up to survive.
Kids who feel deeply, speak up, and stand tall for what’s right.

That’s why we’re hosting the Beyond Bullying Summit — a free virtual event to help parents and educators raise kids who make the world a little less cruel and a lot more kind. 🌍💛

Comment BEYOND below and we’ll DM you the link to the free & virtual Beyond Bullying summit (Nov 12–13)!

10/27/2025

What is interoception?

>>> https://www.kelly-mahler.com/what-is-interoception/

10/27/2025