22q Minded

22q Minded Supporting 22q families worldwide 💙
Clinical psychologists specialising in 22q-related syndromes and related conditions. Dr Linda Campbell & Dr Sasja Duijff

Coaching, training & resources for families & professionals. Local services in Australia & the Netherlands
www.22qminded.com

This week's newsletter comes from Lindsey, a parent carer and long-term member of the 22q community. She writes about t...
10/06/2026

This week's newsletter comes from Lindsey, a parent carer and long-term member of the 22q community.

She writes about the years of saying "I'm fine." About the gap between what people saw — someone coping, always managing, always on top of it — and what was actually happening underneath.

About advocating fiercely for her son. And almost never for herself.

It is a very honest account, and it ends with something worth sitting with.

The full letter is in this week's newsletter. Link in the comment section to subscribe if you're not already.

Self-care has an image problem.When you post a photo from a yoga class, people say you're a great example of looking aft...
09/06/2026

Self-care has an image problem.

When you post a photo from a yoga class, people say you're a great example of looking after yourself. When you admit you're struggling, ask for help, or step back from something, then the narrative changes.

But self-care for parents of children with 22q often looks nothing like yoga. It looks like cancelling something you said yes to when you had more in the tank. It looks like asking for help even when it feels awkward. It looks like taking medication, or talking to someone, or simply saying, not right now.

Tending to your own wellbeing is one of the most generous things you can do for your child. That's not a platitude. It's physiology.

Our on-demand webinar 'Beat Parent Burnout' goes deeper into what the research tells us about stress, energy, and what actually helps. You can find the webinar on our website with all our other resources or follow the link in the comment section. You might also want to check out our 'Care4Parents' program.

This week is Carers Week.Parenting a child with 22q asks a lot. That's not in question.But alongside the hard parts, and...
08/06/2026

This week is Carers Week.

Parenting a child with 22q asks a lot. That's not in question.

But alongside the hard parts, and often woven right through them, there is also room for curiosity. For noticing what makes your child, specifically them. For the moments that catch you off guard in the best way.

This isn't about looking on the bright side. It's about holding both at once. The weight and the wonder.

Some of the most experienced 22q parents we know have told us that curiosity, staying genuinely interested in who their child is becoming, has been one of the things that has kept them going.

This week, we see you. And we mean that.

Eight weeks and a follow-up session. Your own nervous system is the starting point.Care4Parents was built for parents of...
06/06/2026

Eight weeks and a follow-up session.

Your own nervous system is the starting point.

Care4Parents was built for parents of children with 22q specifically, not for parents in general. It covers the stress, the self-compassion, the grief that doesn't have a name, and the parenting relationship itself.

If this week's posts have resonated, this is where you go deeper. Interested in joining the next live round? We are gathering expressions of interest now.

05/06/2026

Before you open the door, just stop for a second.
Feel your feet on the ground. Take one breath. Whatever happened today doesn’t have to follow you inside. Not all of it, anyway.

You get to decide what you carry in.

This one is for the pause before you walk back into your home and your people.

In 22q, cognitive ability is rarely one number. It's a profile, with real strengths in some areas and real difficulties ...
03/06/2026

In 22q, cognitive ability is rarely one number. It's a profile, with real strengths in some areas and real difficulties in others. And the strengths can make the difficulties very easy to miss.

Understanding what that profile actually looks like is one of the most useful things a parent can have. It changes what you ask for, what you advocate for, and how you explain your child or young person to the people around them.

Our on-demand webinar Testing Made Simple covers this in detail — what assessments measure, how to read the results, and what to do with them.

Link in comments.

02/06/2026

Many children with 22q had complex early starts. NICU stays. Surgeries. Procedures before they had words for any of it.

What the body goes through before language exists doesn’t disappear. It gets stored differently. And it can show up years later, in ways that are hard to explain.

In this webinar, Sasja and Laura Maats-Klein walk you through what preverbal trauma actually looks like in children with 22q, and what helps.

Watch on demand, in your own time. Subtitles available in 12 languages.

Today is Brothers and Sisters Day in Europe (but I think we can celebrate globally).In 22q families, siblings grow up al...
30/05/2026

Today is Brothers and Sisters Day in Europe (but I think we can celebrate globally).

In 22q families, siblings grow up alongside something most of their friends will never know. They develop their own relationship with it, shaped by their age, their personality, their place in the family, and what they've been told or not told along the way.

Some are fierce advocates. Some are quietly protective. Some are still working out how they feel about all of it. All of those are valid.

What the research tells us is that siblings notice more than we expect. And that small moments of connection — a question asked, a feeling named, a bit of time that belongs just to them — make more difference than we might think.

Today is as good a day as any to wonder how they're doing.

Our on-demand webinar, Siblings and 22q, is available if you'd like to go deeper. Link in comment section.

Some behaviour in 22q doesn't come from 22q alone.There's a lens that many parents find changes something, not in their ...
29/05/2026

Some behaviour in 22q doesn't come from 22q alone.

There's a lens that many parents find changes something, not in their child's behaviour straight away, but in how they understand what they're seeing. And when things make sense, how you respond changes, too.

We've put together a free guide on this. It's called 'What if you looked at it differently?'. It's a trauma-sensitive lens for parents of children and adults with 22q. It covers what this can look like, how to ask different questions, and where to go if you want to understand it more deeply.

Free. Four pages. Written for parents, useful for professionals too.

Find the link in the comments.

28/05/2026

It is midweek. Time to take a breath. A pause.

Sasja has recorded a short sensory practice about looking, and actually seeing.

A few minutes to come back into your body, before everything starts up again.

Press play when you have a moment to yourself.

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