Resources
This space holds a collection of written reflections from Rain & Me. Children’s Therapy.
These pieces sit alongside the therapeutic work and are shaped by the same way of listening — to children, to relationship, to place, and to the wider living world we move within. They are offered as places to pause, to wander, and to sit with questions that arise in caring for children and families.
The writing here is not intended to teach, instruct, or offer answers. It moves slowly, staying close to lived experience and to what is noticed in practice — moments of connection, uncertainty, regulation, dysregulation, creativity, and care.
Across these reflections, you may find gentle threads around:
emotions as meaningful experiences rather than problems to fix
nervous system responses as adaptive and shaped by context
children’s behaviours as communication arising within relationship, place, and environment
art therapy as a way of making room for expression, presence, and meaning
the importance of feeling safe enough to be oneself
Some pieces are grounded more explicitly in research and theory; others are quieter and more reflective. All are written from within a relational, neuroaffirmative, and ecologically attentive practice.
These resources are here for parents, caregivers, educators, and practitioners who feel drawn to slower ways of thinking about children — ways that value listening over urgency, relationship over control, and care over correction.
You’re welcome to enter this space gently. To read what calls to you, to return when it feels right, or to simply let a piece sit with you for a while. Nothing here needs to be taken up or applied. It is enough to notice, reflect, and stay curious.
These reflections are not therapeutic interventions and are not a substitute for counselling or art therapy sessions.
Children's Therapy Is Not Neutral: On Practice in Times of Crisis
The therapy room is not separate from the world. Children absorb what is happening around them—crisis, grief, collective fear—even when it is never named. This piece reflects on what it means to practise when the world is unbearable, and why silence is not neutral.
"Regulate Yourself First" — Who Resources the Caregiver?
The message to "regulate yourself first" often lands on mothers, teachers, and carers already stretched beyond capacity. This piece explores what gets protected when the caregiver becomes the intervention—and what remains unexamined.
The Problem Isn't Your Nervous System
When distress is located in the individual, the systems that produced it go unexamined. This piece names the cycle: conditions that harm, responses that get pathologised, and solutions aimed at the person rather than the structure.
Being With Nature: Listening to the More-Than-Human World
Children arrive in relationship with nature long before it is explained to them. This reflection explores what it means to listen to the more-than-human world in therapeutic work — without rushing to interpret, instruct, or require care to appear.
When Co-Regulation Isn’t Possible: Parenting Without Capacity
When resources are scarce and stress is constant, co-regulation can become impossible — not because of lack of care, but because capacity has limits.
What does “okay” look like for a nervous system?
This post explores common myths about calm, resilience, and regulation, and offers a more grounded understanding of how nervous systems adapt across adulthood and childhood.
Why Some Children Avoid Demands
A relational, arts-based perspective on demand avoidance, exploring how capacity, nervous system state, autonomy, and context shape children’s responses to expectations, without labels or categorisation.
After Healing: Grief, Capacity, and the Lives We Reimagine - Part Two
What happens when healing has worked, insight is present, and yet life still does not settle? This two-part reflection considers grief after healing, the reality of capacity in a changed world, and how different forms of living can quietly emerge once old ideals fall away.
After Healing: Grief, Capacity, and the Lives We Reimagine - Part One
What happens when therapy has helped, insight is strong, and regulation is available — but life no longer fits old expectations? This piece reflects on grief, capacity, and the possibility of reimagining a life shaped by choice rather than survival.
The Nervous System That Grew Up Too Early
Some nervous systems were shaped in homes without reliable regulation or safe exit. What develops is not dysfunction, but adaptation — carried forward into adult life.
When Experience Becomes Evidence: On Judgment, Worth, and Surveillance
Many people live under an internalised judge — one that reads feelings, responses, and outcomes as proof of worth. This piece names how experience becomes evidence, and what it means to live under that gaze.
Weaving Ecology into Therapeutic Spaces
This reflection explores how ecology can be held in therapeutic spaces as connection, belonging, and care—emerging through relationship rather than instruction or outcome.
Safe Enough to Be Yourself
Therapy doesn’t have to be about fixing or becoming someone else. Sometimes, the most meaningful shift happens when a person realises there is nothing wrong with them — and feels safe enough to simply be.
When Therapy Is Asked to Fix Children
When therapy is used to make children compliant or calm, distress can be misunderstood. This article explores relational, ecological perspectives on children’s wellbeing.
Art Therapy, Ecology, and the Body of the Earth
A reflective piece exploring art therapy, ecology, and wellbeing as relational — held between the body, the earth, and the living world.
Why Place Matters: Children, Connection, and a Sense of Belonging
Inspired by Reggio Emilia, this piece explores place as the third teacher and how connection to land, nature, and community supports children’s wellbeing.
Pause and Reflect: Supporting Children Through Big Feelings
A gentle invitation to pause, notice, and respond with care when children are experiencing big feelings.
At-Home Art Therapy-inspired Ideas for the Christmas School Holidays
Creative, low-pressure art therapy ideas for the school holidays that support big feelings, connection, and meaningful family time.
The Wisdom of the Nervous System: Seeing the Adaptive Nature of Dorsal and Sympathetic States
A compassionate look at nervous system states through polyvagal theory — and why activation and shutdown are adaptive, not dysfunctional.
Rain & Me. Children’s Therapy Has a New Location at Footscray Community Arts Centre
Rain & Me Children’s Therapy has moved to a new space within the Footscray Community Arts Centre. This creative, welcoming location continues to support children, families, and adults through art therapy, counselling, parenting support, and nervous system–informed care in Melbourne’s Inner West.