Calm Kid Central
Helping anxious, frustrated and “tricky” kids
feel calm, confident and co-operative.
Does any of this sound familiar?
You are a teacher, school counsellor, youth worker, SSO, allied health worker or psychologist who works with kids.
- *You work with a few children who particularly struggle with worry, frustration and managing emotions - and they take up a lot of your time, energy and concern.
- *These children struggle with managing impulses, changes in routine, having BIG reactions, worry, friendships or perfectionism
- *Some of these children might have been given a diagnosis of an anxiety disorder, ASD, ADHD, ODD, sensory processing problems or global delay.
- *The usual ways you work with children don't seem to work for these kids
- *They get bored or restless with your explanations or activities - or struggle to understand them
- *You would like new ideas , resources and ways of working with them - and don't have time to come up with them yourself
- *Some days you worry that you are not helping them or seeing improvement at all
- *You'd like to have quick and easy access to a child psychologist to ask them questions about some of your most challenging professional situations
As child psychologists, we have been working with tricky kids and their parents, for more than 20 years.
We can help.
Calm Kid Central helps professionals working with children in THREE important ways.
1. We give you resources you can use with children to help them understand and manage their feelings
We have put together 2-4 minute entertaining and animated videos for children to watch with you in the therapy/classroom/small group room to help them understand worry, cope with stress, act more calmly and behave in positive ways.
Calm Down Tricks
Why do I get so mad?
Finding Helpful Thoughts
Calming My Body
Acting Confidently
Danger Checkers; Why we worry
Kids in our therapy rooms love these videos.
Each video is accompanied by a "important questions guide" for professionals and handout for the kids.
This means you can watch the short video with children (on a desktop/ipad/tablet) and then ask them the questions listed in the guide. Watching the video and asking the questions will take between 8 and 30 minutes, depending on how much conversation you'd like to generate. But even if you only have 5 minutes - as I'm sure you know - it's amazing the things that come out when we ask kids the right questions.
2. We give you ideas about how to teach, talk to and work with "tricky" children (and you can share these with parents too)
We have created a library of 3-10 minute videos, printables and handouts for adults (parents and professionals) to give them fast, practical tips and ideas about how to support, work with and talk to kids struggling with worry, stress, frustration or tricky behaviour. Videos can be watched on your mobile /device anytime, anywhere.
Video titles include:
The Real Reasons Children "Misbehave" (8 mins)
Making Praise more Powerful in Changing Behaviour (8 mins)
The skills and knowledge children need/how to coach this (8 mins)
The Real Reasons Children "Misbehave" (8 mins)
Making Praise more Powerful in Changing Behaviour (8 mins)
The skills and knowledge children need/how to coach this (8 mins)
How we accidentally encourage tricky behaviour (4 mins)
A simple way to increase instruction following (6 mins)
Question Asking Mistakes we make (6 mins)
These videos help professionals learn skills in dealing with "tricky" children. They can also be watched with parents themselves in your counselling/classroom and even be shown at parent nights/in small group parent settings. Each video includes:
A "real life" section with an audio recorded conversation with real parent/child
A full Transcript of the text to print out
Downloadables/printables for classroom noticeboard/school newsletters/parent handouts with points to remember, questions to ask and strategies to use and remember the ideas in the videos
3. We Answer your Professional Questions
All professionals need supervision, help and fresh ideas at times. It is not always easy to get face to face supervision due to time constraints, costs and availability of support.
At Calm Kid Central, we provide this supervision and support online via our "Professionals Only" discussion centre. The centre is accessible wherever you are online - via your phone, computer or tablet at work or home.
Our panel of experienced and fully qualified child psychologists (from the Developing Minds Clinics in South Australia) will carefully read and answer your questions as soon as possible.
We guarantee to respond to all questions within 48 hours - for 48 weeks of the year.
Kirrilie
Taryn
You can also read through questions posted by other professionals like you. You will see our past answers to those questions. If you wish, you will get the opportunity to connect with other professionals working with children who are often struggling with the same things as you do. By the way - be aware you don't have to personally identify yourself in our community. And these questions and answers are only open to our paid members in the private, secure, closed forum. So you can ask questions without feeling embarrassed or worried about being judged or evaluated.
There are no stupid questions.
No questions too big.
No questions too small.
A child I’m working with has major oppositional defiant problems, and is also on the spectrum. He disrupts my class constantly. We’ve done reward charts and behaviour charts and he just doesn’t care. I’m at my wits end.
Do you have any advice for managing girls’ conflict in my Year 5 class. They are always having arguments which end in tears. They are always pairing off, and talking about each other behind backs. There is one girl who is very dominant, and all the others want to be her friend. She picks and chooses who she wants to play with and the others get very upset.
I'm a psychologist and a child I am working with has severe OCD. I'm looking for resources to help her understand her anxiety. Any ideas?
A few kids in my Year 1 class don't seem to respond to the usual consquences I use. What is the best way to use consequences with this age group?
As a social worker I have an 8 year old I'm working with has separation anxiety, and feels very anxious about leaving Mum. This is partially grounded in reality - her Mum has a serious illness and she doesn't want to leave her in case she gets sick. Any ideas?
Do you know any groups for kids who need social skills training?
What is the latest thinking on using rewards with children?
How do you work with children who have experienced trauma?
What assessment tools do you use?
How do you work with children refusing to see a parent?
Testimonials about Calm Kid Central educational services
Please note that Calm Kid Central is an educational service (not a therapy service) and the testimonials below are about this program, and not about Developing Minds therapy services.
Claude Dametto ParentThese posts are, in a word, priceless. They are an absolute game changer. Keep it up. Hats off.
R. Fairlie Community CarerCalm Kid Central is interactive, up to date and helps students, parents and children. It has helped me really help the students I work with. I'm enjoying using the videos to help children learn social skills...I would recommend it to any school well being staff.
K. BeaumontI am so glad I signed up to Calm Kid Central. I started with a month just to see if I would use the site and have found that I’m using it every day for kids, parents, and/or teachers. The video’s are great, and the kids love them, and the extra resources to I’m using all the time too. Thanks so much for providing an excellent resource, I will be subscribing for a year when my month runs out!!
S. Evans ParentI am always excited to get the Calm Kid Central emails with the "video of the week". They always contain pearls of wisdom. Your work is my "go to" when something new pops up for my kids..
Frequently Asked Questions
Yes, all of our existing videos and resources are instantly available after you sign up and log in. And yes, there will be new videos and resources are released each month. These will be listed as "coming soon".
As child psychologists who have been working with families and professionals for 20 years, we have designed our videos and resources very carefully to make sure they are useful, reassuring and helpful. We will be very upset if you disagree! But if you do - that's completely fine. We have a 30 day money back guarantee. Just email us at calmkidcentral@developingminds.net.au within 30 days of signing up and let us know you haven't found the resources helpful and we will refund your money, no questions asked.
You can cancel your membership at any time by simply clicking on "cancel" in your dashboard. You can also just "pause" your membership if you would like to take a break for a month or two.
You pay using either your credit card or a paypal account. Your credit card or paypal will be charged every 30 days (or once a year, if you sign up for the annual membership) for the amount advertised, with no extra charges applied
If you are a health/educational professional and would like your employer/professional body to pay for your membership, we can send an invoice to them and grant membership to you when they have paid. Email us to arrange this at calmkidcentral@developingminds.net.au. Please note this option is available for the annual professional membership only.
Usually yes. Clearly I'm not an accountant (old maths teachers rejoice :)) but normally if you can show that professional membership has enhanced your professional knowledge, you can claim it. You will be emailed a paypal or credit card receipt each month (or year if you have signed up for annual subscription) to can use to back up your expense.
Yes. We work with hundreds of children each year with these diagnoses, and in Australia see children under the National Disability Insurance scheme. We are very familiar with the particular issues that these children have and are conscious of making sure our adult and child resources have information that applies directly to this group of families.
No, there is no downloading of programs or software. Provided you have an internet connection everything is streamed directly to your phone or computer. Everything is optimised for mobile phones too - so you can watch/listen while you are out of the house.
My name is Kirrilie Smout. I'm a child psychologist from Adelaide, Australia. I've spent more than 20 years working with families and now direct the Developing Minds team. Our team consists of 12 child psychologists (many of whom also provide resources and answer questions here at Calm Kid Central) who see more than 150 families each week, and provide training and supervision to other professionals who work with kids.
I've also presented seminars and training to more than 50 thousand students (and their teachers and parents) in schools across Australia to help them learn to manage their difficult emotions and challenges in life. All these experiences have been a privilege for me. I've learnt an amazing amount about families, and this has helped me write several books about and for children.
In mid 2015 I worked with a family in a rural area via skype. We discovered that private health cover didn't allow them to claim their sessions and I was really disappointed for them. I started thinking that there must be a better way - and the idea of Calm Kid Central was born. I was hoping that we could start to help families and professionals who not only live in rural areas; but who can't afford to get to make an appointment; work full time and are time poor; work fly in/fly out jobs - or for whatever reason can't attend our clinics in an ongoing basis. This means we can provide support, answers, supervision and education to many more people.
Our team of psychologists really do care about the young people they work with, and I have all my fingers and toes crossed that Calm Kid Central helps us ultimately reach and support hundreds of kids to feel calmer, more confident and act in more positive ways.
We are real people here and answer our phone and emails! If you have any questions about Calm Kid Central, then you can contact us anytime at calmkidcentral@
You can also call us during business hours 9-5pm AEST on 08 8357 1711
Simple Pricing
- * Billed monthly - cancel anytime
- * Learning Centre for Professionals/Parents
- * Learning Centre for Kids
- * Professionals Only Question/Discussion Centre (ask questions of our child psychologists)
- *Transcripts of all Parent/Professional Videos
- *Tip/Cheat Sheets for Classroom/parents
- *Essential Questions Guide for each video (start important discussions with kids)
- *Permission to use videos in classrooms/therapy sessions/seminars and all other professional settings
- *Tax invoice sent monthly for you to claim as professional development expense
Cancel Anytime - no questions asked.
- * Same membership but billed annually (save $240.50)
- * Learning Centre for Parents/Professionals
- * Learning Centre for Kids
- * Professionals Only Question/Discussion Centre (ask questions of our child psychologists)
- *Transcripts of all Parent/Professionals Videos
- *Tip/Cheat Sheets for Classroom/Parents
- *Essential Questions Guide for each video (start important discussions with kids)
- *Permission to use videos in classrooms/therapy sessions/seminars and all other professional settings
- *Tax receipt sent annually in order for you to claim as professional development expense
Cancel Anytime - no questions asked.
Whole School or Organisation Pricing:
If you would like all the staff at your school or organisation to access all of the video, article and professional supervision on Calm Kid Central, then you might be interested in our "Whole School" pricing which is as follows:
*2-10 logins - $685 annually
*11-15 logins - $895 annually
Please note, that Australian schools who sign up for these packages are eligible for a free staff and parent presentation on "Working with Children with Emotional/Behavioural health difficulties" by Kirrilie Smout (some conditions apply - email us at kirriliesmout@developingminds.net.au for details on how to sign up as a school and eligibility for the free presentation)
Are you a parent or carer wanting to support children in your home?
The program and pricing listed above is for professionals who support kids at work.
But don't worry - we have a special Calm Kid Central program just for you.
Click on the button below to find out more.