A child psychologist has shared signs parents can watch for that could indicate a child needs some emotional help. Professor Sam Wass has been speaking with The Mirror about telltale signs that your little one could use some support.
The professor, who is an expert in child stress and attention appeared on the Channel 4 show The Secret Life of 4 and 5 Year Olds. He says there are two different ways you can tell something is wrong with a young child.
Speaking in partnership with Virgin Media O2's Connected Playground, he said: "This varies a lot between children, but as psychologists, we tend to categorise that something is going wrong with a child in two very different ways.
"The first is something we call externalising behaviours and this is what happens when a child is feeling bad inside and then they take it out on the world, they'll go and punch their sister or act out, running around, breaking things and being very chaotic.
"So if you're seeing changes in your child's behaviour and if you have a child that has a tendency to externalise their bad mood and take it out on things, then it can be very easy to spot when something is wrong, they'll be playing out more and being more argumentative.
"That is one type of child and if you have that type of child, that is the way they'll always tend to manage their bad moods."
He added: "Internalising is the exact opposite pattern, so when a child is in a bad mood, they'll turn things in on themself and become less communicative. When they're not feeling good about themself, they'll do what we call rumination, so they'll have thoughts going round and round and round in their head but they won't tend to share them.
"It's something that often tends to run in the family, so you might have this tendency yourself where you store up worries and don't really talk about them. This can be difficult for parents to spot in a child, but when they're worried or they're struggling with something they will be less communicative, they will make less noise and often they'll take themself off by themselves. It can be hard to get them to open up."
He continued: "Two children can be struggling with something and respond in very different ways, so it depends on the child. Externalising behaviours can be very in your face, while internalising disorders tend to be harder to spot and you really need to know what you're watching out for with them."
According to the professor, the biggest mistake you could make is to tell your child not to act the way they are acting, or not to feel what they are feeling, regardless of whether they are internalising or externalising their behaviour.
"Even though the problems seem opposite, the most evidence-based solution is the same, which is that inhibiting emotions doesn't work, it doesn't work for adults and it definitely doesn't work on a child, you can't just tell someone to cancel an emotion," he explained.
"So for example in September you always see all these parents marching their children to their first day of school, dragging them by the hand and their child is in floods of tears and the parent is walking along and saying in a really cheerful voice, 'it's going to be fine, you're going to have a lovely time, don't be scared.'
"And that is exactly what just doesn't work."
The expert went on to say that instead of telling them what not to feel, you should try and explain to your child what their emotions are.
"What we think does work is just describing what a child might be feeling, we call this building metacognitive awareness and it's the awareness of the inner child and what they are feeling," Professor Wass explained. "It's something we never teach children in schools but it's something we have to learn.
"Children aren't aware of what they're feeling, they can't describe it and that's because they don't know it themselves. It's only by you describing to them what they are feeling that they gain that self-awareness of what it is."
He added: "Something about being self-aware of what we're feeling helps us to manage that emotion and helps it to reduce.
"What I would do as a parent is just to help my child gain self-awareness about what they are feeling, so putting it in non-judgemental terms, saying something like 'it seems to me you are feeling this' and putting a verbal label on it to help them understand better and learn what their own emotions are."
