Promoting infant and child mental health through support for parenting

Abstract

Mental health in the early years is underpinned by the capacity of young children for emotion regulation, and the child’s early relational context (i.e. the parenting that they receive) has been identified as being key to the development of this ability. However, many children show signs of regulatory difficulties including sleeping and crying difficulties, and emotional and behavioural problems in the early years; this is as such an important window of opportunity to intervene to optimize parenting, and prevent early parent–child relationship problems using a range of primary and secondary preventive approaches. This chapter provides an overview of the nature and prevalence of early regulatory problems, and some of the main universal and targeted intervention approaches that have been developed to address such problems, alongside the evidence about their effectiveness in improving outcomes for both parents and children.