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 relate to emotions experienced by others).  We might also contrast ‘cognitive empathy’ or ‘emotion recognition’ with the concept of ‘emotional awareness’ (and there is variation in how all these terms are used) – which has often been used to refer to person’s ability to notice and understand their own emotions.  Finally, both emotion recognition and emotional awareness are of course precursors to the more complex skills often referred to of emotion regulation - effectively managing and responding to emotions (in ourselves or others)…

I’ve worked as a psychologist with our team to support children and young people for over 25 years and have over the last decade I’ve seen a significant increase in the number of parents who seek  mental health treatment for their children and young people.  While therapy is not a magic fix, I do believe it can be an important step towards improving young people’s emotional well-being.  

Unfortunately what many parents I’ve talked with do not always realize is that their involvement in their children's therapy may be just as important as the child or young people’s own attendance at therapy sessions…

As a psychologist working with children and young people, I 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…

Around 10% to 15% of young people experience difficulties with aggression, impulsivity, following instructions and other challenging or disruptive behaviors – well beyond what the average child or young person of their same age experiences.  What this looks like in their daily life varies considerably from child to child – but usually these kids and teens seem to get frustrated more easily than others, find it really tough to manage this frustration and often yell/scream/throw things.  Some might also have low motivation to follow instructions from adults, and some might consistently act deceitfully or frequently break school and home rules…

Many children and teens with mental, emotional, or social health challenges are engaged in some kind of therapeutic program – this might be a course of one-to-one therapy, a group program, online learning programs, or even self-help books or workbooks.

There are thousands of different therapeutic programs for young people, and these have many varied types of content.  These programs might cover topics such as understanding and managing their body and physiological tension, maintaining and repairing relationships, increasing their positive and confident self-talk, identifying their values and strengths, being compassionate towards themselves, social problem solving and almost countless other ideas…