It’s not just school stress. It’s nervous system stress. 

Sarahlynn Hodder - tutor, emotional literacy advocate, and creator of The Mindful Toolbox

This podcast is your Thursday breath of fresh air where academic pressure, emotional overload, and busy neurodivergent brains meet calm, clarity, and connection.

The Mindful Toolbox Podcast

Tools, Delivered

The Mindful Toolbox Podcast helps parents of 9–16 year olds navigate school stress, emotional ups and downs, and study struggles

The Mindful Toolbox Podcast is a bi-weekly parenting podcast that supports families navigating school anxiety, emotional regulation, neurodivergence, and academic overwhelm, all with a calm, practical, brain-based approach.

Hosted by Sarahlynn Hodder, an experienced tutor and emotional literacy advocate, the podcast helps parents of anxious, sensitive, or neurodivergent children understand the root of challenging behaviours and learn tools that truly work at home and at school.

Each episode blends:

  • Expert-backed strategies for managing meltdowns, improving executive function, and supporting school success

  • Real stories from families navigating autism, ADHD, anxiety, and academic pressure

  • Clear, actionable tools to build connection, boost confidence, and reduce stress, without shame or overwhelm

Whether you're looking to support your child’s learning, create more calm at home, or understand the nervous system behind school struggles, this podcast is for you.

🎧 Listen now on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube.

📝 Don’t miss our Downloadable Checklists, Guides and Reading Lists.
🌟 Loved an episode? Leave a quick review to help more families find the tools they need.

6 reasons Mindfulness
supports children’s mental wellbeing:

boy standing beside a timer

Improve focus and productivity

learning about self care

Increase self-worth and confidence

communicating between men and women

Develop communication skills

calm woman with coffee and plants

Create a sense of calm

girl meditating under a tree

Reduce anxiety, and worries

3 people showing progress and growth

Build resilience and a growth mindset

Incase you like research...

Higher levels of emotional control, optimism and empathy than students who were not instructed in the mindfulness span¹⁶

Fewer behavioural problems and aggression amongst students¹⁷

Improvement with metacognition and ability to maintain attention. These students also showed improvements in memory, planning and organisation¹⁸

Increased impulse control¹⁹

Mindfulness-based interventions have been linked with enhancements in well-being and self-regulation across a broad range of research and theory²⁰

Both meta-cognition and emotional well-being are highlighted as important learning themes within UK educational policy and curricula²¹, yet there are very few evidence-based school programs promoting meta-cognition which can be delivered by school teachers for younger children.²²

As we continue to learn that many adult diseases have their roots in childhood exposure to stress and trauma, it is essential to intervene with primary prevention strategies to reduce their negative effects among children and youth. This trial provides convincing evidence that high-quality school-based MBSR instruction for youth in urban public schools is feasible, acceptable, and leads to improvements in psychological symptoms, coping, and posttraumatic stress symptoms. Improvements in these domains may ultimately reduce the negative impact of stress and trauma experienced in childhood and adolescence and lead to significant positive shifts, when imagined over the life course.²³

Subscribe to learn about upcoming Episodes and get access to our Toolbox Resources

FAQs

My child is not preparing for an exam, but often experiences anxiety, will this still help?
Yes! This specific webinar will elaborate on Anxiety in the context of managing nerves around performance but the ideas will still be very relevant to anyone who lives with anxiety.

How long are the Podcast Episodes?
We try and keep them short and sweet as we know your time is valuable. 30-40 minutes is our goal.

How is the Podcast being presented?
We wanted to make it as accessible as possible so we have both audio and video podcast!

What if I have a question?
I'd be so happy to help connect you with resources and other experts if I can... send us a message via the Mindful Toolbox Podcast Instagram

I don't know what mindfulness is.
Mindfulness is a practise of connecting to the present moment. It helps the body to become calmer and the brain has more time to think and better process information. Check out our free webinar on the Power of Mindfulness here.

Will this sell me a product or service?
No these sessions are shared with you without any sales pitch!
At the end, Sarahlynn mentions how you can continue your journey by connecting with Bettering Youth's academic tutoring and emotional wellbeing coaching programme or watching the next months' Mindful Toolbox webinar; these are all suggestions that you can follow up with if you want to continue your journey to support your child's mental and emotional wellbeing.

FULLY SUPPORTED BY RESEARCH

Everything that we do at Bettering Youth is backed by evidence, which is why we wanted to share with
you the research for which we have based our highly successful programmes on.

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