"I believe that education is all about being excited about something. Seeing passion and enthusiasm helps push an educational message. "

In 2026, many parents, teachers and coaches are asking the same question. What is happening to our children?

Across schools and communities, we are seeing more aggression, faster escalation of conflict, online humiliation spilling into classrooms, and young people struggling to regulate strong emotions. At the same time, childhood is now lived through screens in fast, stimulating, comparison-driven digital environments that developing brains were never designed for.

In this episode, I sit down with Bryan, Head of Student Engagement, football coach, father and husband, who works with young people every day. We talk honestly about what he is seeing on the ground. Rising reactivity. Exposure to gambling culture through sport. Earlier access to drugs and alcohol. The growing pressure that boys and girls are facing in 2026. This is not a blame conversation.

What does constant stimulation do to a developing brain?

How does sleep loss affect impulse control?
Why are some conflicts escalating so quickly?
And what can parents, schools and communities actually do to help?

We explore the neuroscience of regulation, the difference between character and capacity, and why connection must come before correction. Most importantly, we focus on practical steps. Strengthening sleep, protecting childhood from screens, rebuilding community boundaries, and restoring the conditions that help children thrive.

Screens are not the only factor. But unregulated exposure in developing brains is not neutral. If we want safer communities, we must build stronger nervous systems. If we want resilient adults, we must protect childhood.

Based on the sources, physical activity is not viewed as a reward but as essential biology that supports the nervous system and builds the capacity for frustration tolerance. The following activities and approaches are highlighted as beneficial:

• Team-Based Sports with "Flow": Engaging in sports that emphasise team dynamics—like the New Zealand All Blacks’ "caterpillar" model—helps students move away from individual frustration and social comparison. When a team "flows" together, they learn to communicate and work together to "fix links" when someone fails, rather than a student feeling like a "loser" when they don't personally score.

• Outdoor Time: Restoring outdoor time is considered a high-leverage intervention to help regulate the nervous system. This provides a necessary break from the chronic load of digital stimulation and screens, which often depletes a student's ability to handle setbacks.

• Mindful Movement and Stretching: Incorporating daily stretching can help transition the brain from a reactive state to a centred one. These "tiny habits," when done consistently, help rewire the brain for better emotional control and less reactionary behaviour.

• Walking and Connection: Physical activities that facilitate conversation, such as group walks, can help students and adults alike "unpack" their day and process frustrations through connection rather than isolation.

• Competitive Play with Resilience Modelling: While competitive sports like football or rugby league can be sources of frustration, they serve as a training ground for resilience if adults model how to "bounce back" after a loss rather than blaming others.

Ultimately, these activities support frustration tolerance by strengthening human capacity—including social intelligence and emotional regulation and to keep

Support the show

Subscribe and support the podcast at
https://www.buzzsprout.com/367319/supporters/new
Learn more at www.profselenabartlett.com

This week on Thriving Minds, I’m joined by Associate Professor Tara Walker, Senior Research Associate at the Queensland Brain Institute (UQ) — and co-host of the trail running podcast Trail Tales with Tara and Bryce.

Tara and I are both neuroscientists, and we both love running. In this episode we explore the science and the joy of trail running — what it does for brain health, mental health, confidence, and connection. We talk about why running on trails feels so different to road running, how being in nature changes the experience, and why community is often the missing ingredient for people who think “I’m not a runner.”

We also dive into Tara’s research program investigating how lifestyle interventions like exercise and diet support brain health, including what we’re learning about hippocampal neurogenesis, exercise-related blood factors (exokines), and the emerging idea of exercise mimetics — ways to mimic some of the benefits of exercise for people who can’t run.

Along the way, Tara shares her personal trail-running journey — from her first 10–12km trail race to ultras and 100km events, and the mindset and training strategies that make endurance possible. We also discuss injuries, why trail running is booming, and how moving outdoors can help us feel more regulated, less stressed, and more connected.

If you’ve ever felt disconnected, stuck at a desk, or unsure how to start moving again, this is a practical and hopeful conversation — grounded in real neuroscience and real life.

Listen now — and if you’re in Brisbane, you might even want to join a community run (koalas included).

Support the show

Subscribe and support the podcast at
https://www.buzzsprout.com/367319/supporters/new
Learn more at www.profselenabartlett.com

What happens when we mistake compliance for strength?

In this episode of Thriving Minds, Professor Selena Bartlett explores a powerful and confronting conversation with a man who was proud of the physical punishment he received as a child. He believed it made him disciplined. He believed it taught him consequences. He believed it made him better.

But beneath that story lies a deeper question: when does discipline build character, and when does it condition helplessness?

Drawing on neuroscience, behavioural science, and parallels from the multi-billion-dollar horse industry, Selena unpacks the psychology of learned helplessness — the state that occurs when repeated stress teaches a nervous system that effort does not change outcomes. A quiet being is not always a regulated being. Sometimes it is a shut-down one.

From parenting to leadership, from classrooms shaped by industrial efficiency to the rise of AI-driven optimisation, this episode challenges us to rethink control, compliance, and the architecture of agency.

True resilience is not built through fear. It is built through co-regulation, relationship, and adults who can pause rather than react.

If we want thriving minds, communities, and countries, we must ask ourselves:

Are we building agency — or perfecting compliance?

#ThrivingMinds
#LearnedHelplessness
#IntergenerationalTrauma
#AgencyMatters
#Neuroscience
#Parenting
#Leadership
#Resilience
#EmotionalRegulation
#CoRegulation
#HumanDevelopment
#BeyondCompliance
#DontBreakTheirSpirit

Support the show

Subscribe and support the podcast at
https://www.buzzsprout.com/367319/supporters/new
Learn more at www.profselenabartlett.com