Those of us who work in child and youth mental health meet *parents* (for brevity I’ll use ‘parents’ throughout this article, but I’m referring of course to all primary caregivers, biological parents or not) every week who are struggling with parenting related negative emotions and experiences such as parental stress, guilt, fatigue, frustration, anxiety and overwhelm. There is also a plethora of academic and research literature documenting the existence of these experiences for parents…

Depending on how it is defined and assessed, between 5% and 15% of children and young people have significant difficulties with what might be called “challenging behaviours” – for example, those such as following instructions from adults, verbal or physical aggression, impulsivity, high levels of conflict with peers or siblings, being deceitful, rule breaking and chronic irritability.

Although many private practitioners in Australia choose to not formally diagnose these children and young people with the DSM-5 disorders which have challenging behaviours as some of their primary symptoms (the reasons for this, and the risks and benefits of these diagnoses is outside the scope of this article), there are a number of these disorders which may be useful for us to be aware of when thinking about these young people, including the following…

Children/young people acting in ways which are (at least as perceived by adults) argumentative, aggressive, non-co-operative or deceitful has been labelled in many different ways by psychologists over the last 50 years - “externalizing behaviours”, behaviours of concern and challenging behaviours, to name a few.

Although all children and young people (and adults!) act in these ways sometimes and in some situations, these behaviours typically reduce (or are replaced by more socially acceptable methods of aggression!) gradually as children and young people mature…

Children and teens (like adults) often report thoughts, images and beliefs (internal experiences) which they find distressing (for example: “I’m horrible”; “people think I’m boring”; picturing themselves doing badly on a test).

There are multiple strategies and approaches for supporting young people to manage this type of distressing internal content.  For example, a cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) approach suggests we help young people understand that these thoughts/beliefs contain errors (thinking mistakes), support them to test or evaluate them and to develop alternative, more helpful or accurate thoughts and beliefs…

Therapy homework (or home practice) has long been a part of mental health treatment for children and families.  It has been understood a variety of ways but can be defined as ‘tasks assigned to clients to promote skill acquisition between treatment sessions’ (Dozois, 2010). 

Homework completion/adherence has also been often studied - either as a standalone behaviour, or part of a group of ‘adherence’ or ‘engagement’ behaviours.  Most of these studies find that higher levels of homework completed – both by parents (parent management training/parent therapeutic interventions) and by children results in better outcomes, as well as lower drop out and higher treatment satisfaction…

What is Behavioural Activation?

Behavioural activation (BA) is a psychological treatment (or treatment component) which aims to help people understand the positive impact of particular activities on their mood, and to increase the frequency with which they engage in these activities. BA also ensures that these activities are valued, rewarding, and are completed even in the face of barriers - as therefore the protocol includes psycho-education, activity monitoring, values assessment, contingency management and problem solving skills…

One of the joys and privileges for mental health professionals working with children and young people is meeting a new young person/family for the first time and having them share their “story” with us.

However, there are also significant challenges for us in this first meeting (or assessment/session). We need to:

1. Undertake an appropriately thorough informed consent process (ensuring families know what we and our services do/don’t do, understand records, confidentiality, rights and responsibilities, including complexities with permissions/confidentiality with separated families). This can be a complex process so this will be covered in another article…

Most professionals, or at least those trained in CBT approaches, are aware of the concept of exposure in treating children with anxiety. However, community studies suggest even those of us who are familiar with exposure, under-utilise it in practice. This article provides a quick review of the concepts, evidence and practical applications for using exposure when working with children with anxiety…

The importance of parents and caregivers acting in warm, loving, caring and interested ways towards their children might seem obvious towards us as health/education professionals today, but it has only been in the last 50 or 60 years that these concepts have been discussed by researchers interested in child development in any depth.

This article examines the concepts of warm and responsive parenting and loving, “securely attached” child/parent relationships, how they have developed over time and the research behind with them…

How long are you able to read something or think carefully about a topic without being distracted by something else? Do you feel satisfied with the length of time you can do this? Does it depend on the time of day or what you are doing? Has it changed over the years for you?

The questions above are about “attentional control” – in other words, our ability to keep our attention and thoughts focused on a chosen task, object or idea for a set period of time…

Have you looked directly into someone’s eyes today when you spoke with them? Did it help you understand them? Or connect with them? Or did it make you feel uncomfortable? And (perhaps more interestingly) have you consciously thought about using this eye contact or have you just done so automatically?

As health and educational professionals we may spend more a little more time thinking about eye contact (usually in relation to young people we are working with) than others in the general population, but even for us, it is a concept which doesn’t occupy much of our thinking. Most of us use appropriate eye contact without much thought and it also may be very far down the list of topics we discuss with our clients, given the other significant needs they present to us with…

Imagine you have been unwell for several months - intermittent, low level but unpleasant symptoms – stomach pain, headaches and dizziness. A GP can’t find anything wrong with you and so you try diet changes, vitamins and getting more sleep – none of which makes a difference. You start to worry about whether you have a serious illness, - and feel frustrated about having to take time off work/social activities.

Eventually a specialist diagnoses you with a particular medical condition. Unfortunately it can’t be “cured” – but you now know how to manage it, what triggers it and how to make symptoms less severe. Almost immediately, even though you still don’t feel well, your overall suffering eases. Knowing causes of problems often makes us feel significantly better and helps us manage them more effectively - even if the problems themselves don’t disappear...

Many children and young people we will work with have grief and loss experiences. One data source estimates 1 in 15 children experience the death of a parent or sibling by the age of 16, and another study found 80% of 11-16 year olds say they have experienced the death of a “close” family member or friend. Many children also experience other significant losses – for instance the “loss” of the family unit through parental separation, sudden loss of a family home (house fire/disaster), the death of a pet, loss of some aspect of health/mobility, or the loss of a favourite or treasured activity or possession.

Given bereavement is such a common experience for young people and as professionals it is helpful to be aware of how we can support children and teens through grief and loss experiences.