What is Autonomy-Supportive Parenting? Autonomy-supportive parenting (ASP) is a style of caregiving that emphasizes the nurturing of a child’s ability to make their own choices, be self-reliant, and develop their own values and interests which guide their...
Emotion recognition can be thought of as the ability to identify and understand emotions in other people. This skill has been referred to by some researchers as ‘cognitive empathy’ (as contrasted with ‘affective’ empathy – with the latter being the ability ‘feel’ or...
As mental health professionals working with children and young people, our primary focus is of course on the mental and emotional well-being of the young humans we have the privilege of supporting. However, anyone who has worked in child/adolescent mental health for...
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...
Depending on how it is defined and assessed, between 5% and 15% of children have significant difficulties with what might be called “challenging behaviours” – for example, those such as following instructions from adults, verbal or physical aggression, impulsivity,...
Children (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...
