Category: Parenting

Every parent has had one of those days. The meltdown at pickup that comes out of nowhere. The morning battle over getting dressed that somehow happens every single day. The moment you catch yourself wondering whether this is just a phase, or something more.

Most of the time it is just a phase. Children test limits, have big feelings they do not yet know how to manage, and act out in ways that would worry any parent if they happened in isolation. But challenging behaviour in children can sometimes stop feeling like a phase and start feeling like a pattern you cannot find your way out of, no matter what you try. Knowing the difference is hard, and that uncertainty is often the heaviest part to carry.

What is normal, and what is a signal

Tantrums, defiance, the occasional meltdown over something that seems small to an adult: these are a normal part of growing up. Children are still learning to name their emotions, tolerate frustration and ask for what they need. Behaviour is often the only language they have while those skills are still forming.

The question is not whether your child ever struggles. It is whether the struggle is getting harder to manage over time rather than easier, and whether it has started to affect the rest of their life.

It also helps to know how common this is. Australia’s national child and adolescent mental health survey found that around 1 in 10 children scored in the ‘of concern’ range on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire, a widely used measure of social and emotional wellbeing. If this is where your family sits right now, you are not the only one, and you are not overreacting by paying attention to it.

Signs the behaviour may need more support

A few patterns tend to show up when a family has reached the point where extra support would help:

• The behaviour is happening more often, or more intensely, than it used to, rather than settling with time.

• It is affecting your child’s friendships, their ability to stay in class, or their part in everyday family life.

• It involves aggression, self-harm, or behaviour that puts your child or someone else at risk.

• Strategies that used to work, whether a sticker chart, a calm down corner or simply talking it through, have stopped making a difference.

• You and your co-parent, teachers, or carers are exhausted, pulling in different directions, or genuinely unsure what to try next.

None of these mean you have done something wrong as a parent. They mean the behaviour has outgrown the tools most families have on hand, which is a completely reasonable point at which to bring in outside help.

Why the “why” matters more than the reaction

It is tempting to focus entirely on stopping a behaviour: get through the tantrum, survive the school run, reach bedtime without a blow up. But behaviour is almost always communicating something, even when it does not feel that way at the time. A child who refuses to start their homework may be avoiding a task that feels too hard. A child who lashes out at a sibling may be seeking attention they are not getting elsewhere. A child who goes quiet and withdraws may be overwhelmed by a room that is too loud or too bright.

This is the thinking behind positive behaviour support, an evidence based approach used across Australian disability, health and education settings. Rather than guessing what to try next, a practitioner starts by asking why the behaviour is happening: what sets it off, and what it helps the child achieve. From there they build a plan the whole family and school can follow consistently, so the response stays much the same whether your child is at home, at school, or at their grandparents’ place.

What professional support actually looks like

For families who have not been down this path, it helps to know what to expect. Support usually starts with an assessment: observing your child, talking with you and their teachers, and identifying the patterns behind the behaviour rather than just its surface. From there, a written plan sets out practical, specific strategies tailored to your child and the situations they actually encounter, not general advice you have already read online.

Just as important is coaching for the adults around your child. Parents, teachers and carers all learn the same approach, so your child meets consistency wherever they are, instead of one set of rules at home and another at school. That consistency is often what makes the biggest difference, because children learn fastest when the expectations around them stop shifting.

How Australian families access this support

If your child has a disability or developmental delay, behaviour support may be funded through their NDIS plan as part of a Positive Behaviour Support program. This is how many Australian families access it. Some families also access support through their GP, who can refer a child to a psychologist or another allied mental health professional if there is a diagnosed mental health condition alongside the disability. Schools and community health services sometimes run free parent programs as well, including programs specifically designed for families of children with disability. Providers such as Allied Health 2U deliver behaviour support in person across parts of New South Wales and South Australia, and by telehealth to families elsewhere in the country.

What can help while you are waiting

Waiting lists are a reality, and the weeks in between can feel long. A few things tend to make that stretch easier. Keeping a short note of what happened before each incident, what your child did, and what happened afterwards will give any practitioner a far better starting point than trying to recall it later, and it often reveals a trigger you had not spotted. Agreeing on two or three responses that every adult in the house will use, and using only those, gives your child something predictable to lean on. And protecting the parts of the day that still go well, whether that is reading together or a walk after dinner, matters more than it sounds, because those moments are what the rest of the work eventually builds on.

Practical first steps for parents

If you are noticing some of these signs but are not sure it is serious enough to act on, a good starting point is raising it with your GP or paediatrician, who can point you toward the right kind of support. It is also worth talking to your child’s teacher or school counsellor, since they may be seeing patterns you do not see at home, or the reverse.

If getting to appointments is difficult, a lot of this support is now delivered by telehealth, which can make it far easier to fit around school pickups and work without adding another commute to your week.

Most of all, try not to wait until things feel like a crisis before reaching out. Support tends to work best, and take less time, when it begins while a family still has some flexibility left, rather than after everyone is running on empty.

About the author

This article was contributed by Allied Health 2U, an NDIS registered allied health provider that has supported Australian families since 2015. Their positive behaviour support practitioners work with children, families and schools across Greater Sydney, the Illawarra, the Central Coast and Adelaide, and by telehealth Australia wide.

Your teen’s first job is about more than earning a paycheck. It’s also a chance for them to learn how to make smart choices about spending, saving and managing money. By helping them build good budgeting habits now, you can give them the confidence to make smart financial decisions and avoid common money mistakes later on.

Rather than giving your teen a long lecture about finances, use each paycheck as a hands-on lesson. When money is actually in their account, budgeting becomes something they can practice, adjust and understand.

Start With What They Actually Earn

Managing money is a vital life skill, but many teens are not well prepared to do so. Twenty percent of U.S. high school students lack basic financial literacy, which is why your teen’s first paycheck is a great opportunity to explain that the amount they earn and the amount they take home can differ.

Review your teen’s pay stub together. Show them their gross pay — the total earnings before deductions — and take-home pay — the amount deposited in their bank account. Explain how taxes, benefits and other deductions reduce their final pay. Ask your teen to compare what they thought they’d get to their actual pay, and help them identify where the difference went. Explain the purpose of each deduction. Once they understand their real take-home pay, they can budget based on the amount they actually receive.

Let Them Make Real Choices

Budgeting becomes more meaningful when your teen faces real choices. After their first paycheck, they might want to spend it on clothes, entertainment or something they’ve been saving for. Instead of telling them what to buy, ask questions. What do you want most? Is there something you’d prefer to save for? If you spend money now, will you have enough for future needs or wants?

You can also encourage your teen to divide each paycheck into different categories, such as spending, saving and other responsibilities. The right balance will depend on their situation, but the goal is to help them think about where their money is going before they spend it all. Teaching your teen about money early on fosters positive financial habits that they can carry with them throughout life.

Make Saving Part of Payday

Saving is easier to learn when it becomes a routine rather than something your teen does only when money happens to be left over. You can encourage them to choose a specific amount or percentage to save from every paycheck. If possible, help them set up an automatic transfer to a savings account shortly after payday. This makes saving a regular part of managing their money.

Give the savings goal a purpose. Your teen might be saving for a car, college expenses like rent or tuition, a concert, a trip or simply an emergency fund. A concrete goal can make it easier to understand why setting aside money now matters.

Teach the Difference Between Wants and Needs

Getting a first job often gives teens more freedom to decide how they want to spend their own money. It’s a great time to help them understand the difference between needs and wants.

Needs are things they have to pay for, such as transportation to work or school-related expenses. Wants are things they enjoy but can live without, such as eating out, entertainment or buying the latest video game.

You should help them understand that every spending choice comes with a trade-off. If they spend more on one want, they may have less money available for another purchase or for their savings. Learning to balance both needs and wants can help them feel more confident about managing their money and making smarter choices with their paycheck.

Let Mistakes Become Lessons

Your teen will probably make budgeting mistakes, and that’s normal. These experiences can be valuable learning opportunities. If they overspend early in the month and run short later, resist fixing the problem for them. You can discuss what happened, what choices led to the situation and what they could do differently next time.

These smaller, lower-stakes mistakes can help your teen understand the consequences of financial decisions while they still have your guidance. You are not trying to create a perfect budget. You are helping them learn how to adjust when real life does not go according to plan.

Keep the Conversation Going

A single conversation about money won’t teach your teen everything, which is why you can make budgeting a regular part of daily life. Periodically ask what’s working, what’s challenging and if their goals have changed. As their income or responsibilities grow, discuss new topics like credit, major purchases and long-term savings. Early exposure to financial education builds knowledge, confidence and helps set young people on a more secure financial path.

Help Make a Strong Financial Foundation

Your teen’s first job is an exciting step toward independence. By turning those first paychecks into opportunities to practice budgeting, you can help them develop more than spending rules. You can help them build the confidence to make thoughtful financial decisions. The habits they practice today can give them a stronger foundation for the financial choices they will face tomorrow.

Tessa Dodson is the Senior Writer at Classrooms.com and a former career coach dedicated to supporting teachers and students with practical and accessible educational resources.

When she’s not writing, you can find her diving into research or catching up with her latest read.

A kid’s room can go from tidy to disaster in about the time it takes to eat dinner. Toys migrate under the bed, clean laundry mixes with dirty, and art projects from three grades ago somehow still cover the desk.  Most parents know the drill: announce cleanup time, watch a small war break out, and end up doing half the work themselves just to make it stop.

The good news is that a room this chaotic usually isn’t a sign that a child can’t handle responsibility. It’s a sign that the system around the room never got built in the first place.  A few adjustments to how a family approaches the process, rather than how hard everyone pushes through it, can turn clearing a kid’s room from a recurring standoff into something closer to routine maintenance.

Why the Room Fills Up Faster Than Anyone Notices

Researchers who tracked how families accumulate belongings found that a household’s inventory of possessions grows by roughly 30 percent for every new child during the preschool years alone, and that mothers in particular showed measurable stress responses tied to how cluttered their homes felt. Kids’ spaces absorb an outsized share of that growth because toys, clothing, and school papers arrive constantly while very little leaves on its own. A room doesn’t get messy because a child is careless. It gets messy because things keep coming in and nothing has been assigned a way out.

Recognizing that the volume of stuff, not the child’s habits, is usually the root problem changes how a parent approaches the cleanup. The goal isn’t to lecture. It’s to build an exit route for things the room no longer needs.

Give the Overflow Somewhere to Go

Before touching a single toy bin, it helps to decide where the excess is actually headed. Some of it is trash, some is a donation drop-off, and some is genuinely worth keeping but doesn’t need to live in a child’s bedroom right now: seasonal clothing two sizes away, sports gear between seasons, or keepsakes a family isn’t ready to part with but doesn’t need underfoot.

For that last category, a family sorting through years of accumulated stuff often finds it useful to look at a size chart comparing small, medium, and large units before deciding how much space the overflow actually needs. A closet-sized space handles seasonal bins and off-year clothing without requiring anyone to make a permanent decision about sentimental items on the spot, which takes a lot of the pressure off a first big sort.

Having a real destination for the maybe pile, instead of just pushing it back into the closet, is often what separates a cleanup that sticks from one that unravels within a week.

Build a System the Room Can Hold Onto

A single deep clean rarely lasts because most kids’ rooms were never set up to make tidying easy. If putting something away requires more effort than leaving it on the floor, it ends up on the floor, every time.

Labeled bins and low, open shelving make a real difference here. When every category of toy or supply has one obvious home, a child can put things away without needing a parent to direct traffic. Clear bins work better than opaque ones for younger kids who sort by sight rather than by reading labels, and a shelf a child can actually reach beats a closet rod they need a chair to access.

The point isn’t to make the room look like a catalog photo. It’s to remove the friction between a messy floor and a tidy one, so cleanup takes minutes instead of becoming a production.

Set the Tone Before the Sorting Starts

Meltdowns during a big cleanup usually aren’t about the mess itself. They’re about a child suddenly facing dozens of small decisions, keep or toss, mine or shared, needed or not, with a parent standing over them expecting speed. Slowing down the decision-making helps more than speeding up the sorting.

Working in short bursts on one category at a time, all the stuffed animals, then all the art supplies, keeps the choices manageable. Letting a child make the final call on borderline items, even when a parent disagrees, also matters. A room a child had a say in tends to stay organized longer than one that was reorganized around them while they watched.

Turn Cleanup Into a Habit, Not a Battle

Age-appropriate chore guidelines from pediatric experts point to consistency and praise for effort, not perfection, as the two habits that keep kids engaged in maintaining their own space over time. A five-year-old can put toys in a bin and make a bed with help. An eleven-year-old can handle laundry and a full room reset without much supervision at all. Matching expectations to a child’s actual stage, rather than to how tidy a parent wants the room to look, avoids a lot of the resistance that turns cleanup into a fight.

A short daily reset, five minutes before bed to put loose items back where they belong, prevents the kind of buildup that eventually requires a full-scale intervention. It’s a much smaller ask than the marathon cleanups most families dread, and it’s the habit that actually keeps a room from sliding back into chaos.

Reset the Room a Few Times a Year

Even with good systems, a kid’s room benefits from a seasonal reset. This is a natural moment to rotate out-of-season clothing, swap toys a child has outgrown, and check whether the bins and shelves still match what’s actually being stored. Small updates that reset a cluttered room don’t require a full redecorating budget. Rearranging furniture, swapping which shelf holds which category, or simply clearing surfaces that have collected clutter again can make a room feel functional without a major purchase.

These resets also double as a checkpoint for the family’s storage plan. Bins that were labeled last year might need new categories. Items that got set aside for later might be ready to donate, sell, or simply toss once nobody’s asked about them in months.

A Calmer Way Through

Clearing a kid’s room without a meltdown rarely comes down to willpower on cleanup day. It comes down to decisions made well before that day: where the overflow goes, how easy the system is to use, how much say a child gets, and how often small resets happen instead of one dreaded overhaul. Families who build those pieces in tend to find that the room stays livable most of the time, and the occasional deep clean becomes a lot less dramatic when it does happen.

Nobody plans to hand their baby a screen. It creeps in through a frantic nappy change or a dinner that’s going cold, and before long those five-minute rescues have turned into a habit.

The reassuring bit is that babies under two are remarkably easy to entertain without one, and the hands-on stuff will do far more for their development than any app ever could. Better still, most of it costs pennies.

Here’s a breakdown by age, so you can pick whatever matches where your baby is right now.

Up to Three Months: Tummy Time and First Senses

Everything is brand new at this stage, and your baby will be working hard just to focus their eyes, follow movement and lift that wobbly head. Tummy time will do more for them than anything else you can offer, and it needs nothing fancier than a blanket on the floor and a few minutes at a stretch.

While they’re down there, prop a high-contrast card in front of them, because bold black-and-white patterns will hold a newborn’s attention far longer than anything pastel. Or skip the props altogether and lie on the floor facing them while you chat or sing, since your face will beat any toy going at this age.

Between feeds, gentle touch play will earn its keep too. Stroke their arms with a muslin, a soft brush or a flannel, and let them register how each one differs. That early sensory input will help wire up nerve connections while their brain is at its busiest.

Three to Eight Months: Sensory Baskets and Reaching Play

Once your baby can sit with support and grab at things, a sensory basket will become the hardest-working item in the house. Load a small basket with safe bits from around the kitchen, so a wooden spoon, a silicone spatula, a clean sponge and a metal whisk, then swap a couple of items every few days so it stays interesting.

Movement will probably start to kick in around three months as well, and you can use that. Pop a toy just out of reach during floor time and let them graft for it, because the stretching and shuffling will build core strength and coordination without them noticing.

You’ll also spot them bearing weight on their legs when you hold them upright, usually with a lot of delighted bouncing thrown in. Pushing down through their feet is a completely natural stage of development, and sustainable wooden alternatives to plastic baby gear, like a wooden baby bouncer, will let them bounce freely and build up those leg muscles without you having to hold them upright the whole time. Keep sessions short at first, because they’ll tire out faster than you’d expect.

Eight to Twelve Months: Water Play and Sound

Crawlers and early cruisers will touch, taste and bang anything they can get to, which makes this the perfect window for water play. Forget the paddling pool, because a washing-up bowl on a towel with a few cups and spoons will keep most babies busy for a surprisingly long time.

Sound goes down well now too. A wooden spoon on an upturned pot will teach them rhythm in the noisiest way possible, and a sealed container of dried pasta gives them their first proper lesson in cause and effect. They’ll shake it, hear the rattle, then shake it again about four hundred times.

Twelve to Eighteen Months: Messy Play and Movement

Toddlers at this age will climb, post things through holes and generate mess with impressive efficiency, so you might as well work with it. A cardboard box with a hole cut in the lid and a handful of wooden pegs will make a brilliant posting game, and they’ll happily puzzle it out on their own.

Messy play really comes into its own here as well. Cooked spaghetti in a tray, a bowl of jelly or some damp sand will give them plenty to squish and investigate. Outdoor time counts just as much, so let them walk barefoot on the grass and splash through puddles whenever the weather allows.

Eighteen to Twenty-Four Months: Pretend Play and Simple Games

Somewhere around eighteen months, toddlers will start copying whatever you do. Hand them a cloth and they’ll wipe the table, or give them a toy phone and they’ll hold it to their ear mid-babble. This pretend play marks a huge cognitive leap, and you can feed it with almost nothing:

• Real pots and some plastic food for kitchen play
• Dolls with a blanket for “bedtime”
• A small broom they can push around
• Empty boxes that will become cars, boats or houses

Rolling a ball back and forth deserves a mention too, because it teaches early turn-taking. Your toddler will start to grasp that interaction runs both ways, and that’s the groundwork for sharing and conversation further down the line.

A Screen-Free Routine That Actually Sticks

You won’t need an elaborate plan every day, just a few go-to activities slotted into the rhythm you’ve already got. That might mean sensory baskets after the morning feed, water play after lunch and something calmer before naps.

Babies thrive on repetition, so there’s no pressure to serve up novelty all the time. Consistency, your attention and a safe space to explore will cover almost everything they need at this age, and the screens can wait.