Anxiety in Kids with Dr Louise Metcalf

In this conversation I speak with Dr Louise Metcalf, a psychologist for the past 30 years. We discuss all things anxiety; including how to best manage our own anxiety as parents and the anxiety of our children.

5 years ago, Louise had her son and after talking with early childhood educators, realised just how many children in Australia experience childhood anxiety. Once Louise conducted research and realised that Australia can’t create psychologists fast enough to support the anxious kids who need help, she came up with the idea to create an app so kids would always have someone to support them. And so Gheorg was born. Gheorg [pronounced “George”] is a friendly robot app that supports kids to build resilience and understand their mental wellbeing. Co-designed with kids, the app allows kids to perform a daily check-in as well as breathing exercises to calm themselves, and parents can see on overview of how much their kids are engaging with the app and how they're feeling.

Gheorg has been designed to be used for only a few minutes a day so kids experience long term positive brain benefits without being addicted to a screen. Louise has been awarded places in startup accelerator programs, government grants and additional support from leading medical institutions to develop Gheorg, but it’s still only the beginning of the journey. After a few years of development, the Gheorg app finally launched in September 2020 and now almost 3,000 families have already downloaded the app.

References

Website: https://www.gheorg.com/

Instagram: @gheorgtherobot

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