Supporting Infant, Children & Adolescent in a Changing World

INFANT, CHILD & ADOLESCENT MENTAL HEALTH DAY - 23 April 2026 - Support for KIDS & PARENTS

World Infant, Child and Adolescent Mental Health Day is an international event on 23rd April each year that is dedicated to advocating for and promoting the importance of infant, child and adolescent mental health and wellbeing.

There is growing consensus across the psychological and developmental research that attests to the importance of one’s childhood in being able to foster healthy emotional wellbeing that can support you and stay with you throughout your life. That is, parents/primary caregivers’ capacity to be attuned to one’s child is of the utmost importance; ensuring that children develop a capacity to develop healthy emotional capacities to regulate shame, fear, anger, guilt and sadness.

Yet, it is also important to recognize how sensitively attuned children are. Specifically, despite on the on the surface the child may appear as dysregulated and aggressive, psychologists and developmental researchers alike agree that the child when distressed is often disoriented and is searching for a safe, stable, emotional container to feel their feelings in a healthy way. That is, in times of increased emotional distress even seeking connection and having a need for connection can lead to feelings of shame if this is not well tended to.

Yet the demands on parents have arguably never been higher. Globally, there are several stressors and challenges that are making it harder to be emotionally present including: the cost of living crisis, the middle eastern conflict, possibility of a looming economic recession, social media usage, job demands, and bullying/e-bullying issues. All in all, as stress rises for parents, it makes it far more challenging to provide an emotionally responsive and attuned environment that is optimal for a child’s emotional wellbeing.

In other words, you cannot regulate someone else, if you feel dysregulated yourself. However, with the growing stress that is occurring nationwide for all people, it can be hard to even determine when you are regulated and when you are not. All parents need and deserve support so that they can be the values oriented parents that they are seeking to be.

In line with this, all clinicians at Treat Yourself Well Sydney in Balmain are committed and dedicated to promoting and advocating to find avenues to assist children and young people to experience positive mental health and wellbeing.

We offer a range of mental health services including in person and telehealth individual therapy, family therapy, family assessment, cognitive assessments, intellectual assessments and couples therapy.

Based on the excellent triage process as led by senior practice managers and the principal psychologist, we are able to ensure that you are matched with the appropriate treatment intervention that is most conducive to assist infants, young people and/or parents/primary caregivers to attain positive mental health and wellbeing.

If you have questions, feel free to contact TYW on (02) 9555 4810 or email info@treatyourselfwell.com.au — Karen, Julia, and Jenny will be very happy to help. 💛