91. Aileen Mathyssen - Teaching Kids to Understand Their Brains

"She landed in a remote mining town for a four-month contract and never left. Now Aileen is helping kids across the Pilbara learn to understand their own emotions."Aileen, originally from Waterford, came to Australia in 2011 for a working holiday. A short stint in Sydney left her cold, so she took a four-month occupational therapy contract in Paraburdoo, a remote mining town in the Pilbara. She fell in love with the community, met her husband there, and built a life and a career around a region that most people only fly over.In this episode, we talk about:🇮🇪 Swapping corporate Sydney for a four-month contract in the Pilbara, and staying for good👶 What years of paediatric OT work in a remote community taught her about kids' emotional development📈 The growing wait list of seven to ten year olds struggling with focus, confidence and emotional regulation, and the local gap in services that pushed her to start her own practice🎮 Building Busy Brains, an online program that teaches kids how their brain and body work through six voiceovered, game-style modules🧠 Why the program is designed to be dripped out weekly instead of binged, and the real conversations parents say it's sparked at home👨‍💻 How her husband taught himself to code to help build it, and where the program is headed nextThis is a conversation about remote life, spotting a gap nobody else was filling, and building something from scratch to help kids talk about what's going on inside their heads.Whether you're raising kids, working in health, or just curious how a four-month contract turns into a whole new life, there's a lot here worth taking in.🎧 Now live on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube.🌐 www.busy-brains.com.au