Key Takeaways
- Babies, toddlers, and preschoolers can experience mental health challenges, even when they do not yet have the words to explain what they are feeling.
- WellPower’s Right Start for Infant Mental Health program supports pregnant people and families with children from birth through age 5 through therapy, parenting support, groups, and care tailored to each family.
- Therapy for young children often includes caregivers because strong relationships, co-regulation, and repair help children manage stress, behavior, and emotions.
- Individualized support can help families understand what a child is communicating, adapt parenting strategies to their real-life needs, and build confidence over time.
When people think about therapy, they may picture someone sitting across from a therapist, talking through thoughts, feelings, and experiences. But therapy looks different when the person receiving support is a baby, toddler, or preschooler. Young children may not have the words to explain what they are feeling, but they still communicate through sleep, feeding, play, mood, behavior, physical symptoms, and the way they connect with caregivers.
That is where Right Start for Infant Mental Health comes in. Right Start supports pregnant people and families with children from birth through age 5 when there are concerns about a child’s emotions, behavior, or development, or when parenting feels difficult. Families in Denver County, or those who can attend services at Dahlia Campus for Health & Well-Being, can connect with a team that works specifically with infants, toddlers, preschoolers, and their caregivers.
Right Start’s services are trauma-informed, relationship-based, and designed around each family’s needs. The team offers child and family therapy, Child-Parent Psychotherapy, Parent Child Interaction Therapy, Circle of Security Parenting, parent-child groups, case management for enrolled families, psychiatric evaluation, and, when needed, services in the home or community.
For Dr. Michelle Roy, PhD, IECMH-E, program manager of WellPower’s Right Start for Infant Mental Health program, one of the biggest misconceptions is that babies and young children do not have mental health. “Young children can and do have mental health, as well as challenges with their mental health,” Dr. Roy said.
What therapy looks like for young children and their families
Therapy for very young children does not usually look like a child sitting alone in a room with a therapist and explaining what is wrong. Infants and young children are still building the skills they need to name feelings, understand experiences, and manage stress. Their most important support system is their relationship with a caregiver.
“With young children, even though they may not have the words to tell us, they’re telling us what’s going on with their behaviors, moods, and play,” Dr. Roy said. “We don’t just work with children by themselves. We facilitate a healthy relationship with their caregiver to support them through what may be challenging for the family system.”
In practice, therapy often includes the child and caregiver together. A therapist may observe how a parent and child respond to each other, help the caregiver notice what the child may be communicating, and support the family in building skills that make daily life feel more manageable. Right Start also supports families during pregnancy and the postpartum period, which can be an important time to prepare for parenting, build support, and address mental health concerns early.
What to understand about mental health in young children
One helpful way to understand early childhood mental health is to think about how young children grow, connect, and learn to manage feelings with trusted adults. Dr. Roy describes good mental health for a young child as being able “to grow well and love well.” That includes development across different areas of life, connection with a caregiver, and learning emotion regulation in the context of relationship.
That does not mean every tantrum, sleep struggle, or hard day is a sign that something is wrong. The years from birth to 5 are full of rapid change. Many behaviors can be developmentally typical and still feel overwhelming for the family. “Just because we say something is expected in a child’s development doesn’t mean it’s easy,” Dr. Roy said.
Families may benefit from support when symptoms or behaviors seem outside what is expected for a child’s age, after a frightening or traumatic event, or when a caregiver feels exhausted, overwhelmed, or unsure how to help. For babies who do not yet have words, therapists pay attention to other forms of communication, including crying, sleep, feeding, physical symptoms, behavior, and, as children grow, play.
Caregiver regulation is another central part of early childhood mental health. Young children do not learn to calm down in isolation. They learn through co-regulation, which happens when a trusted adult helps them manage big feelings and gradually build their own skills.
Of course, every caregiver loses their cool sometimes. Right Start does not approach parenting as a test someone must pass perfectly. Instead, the program can help families understand repair: coming back together after an incident, naming what happened, apologizing, acknowledging how it affected the child, and making a plan to do something differently next time.
Why individualized support can make a difference
Many caregivers today are surrounded by parenting advice from social media, books, videos, and online courses. Some of that advice can be helpful, especially when it is grounded in child development. But even strong advice can fall short when it is presented as a one-size-fits-all solution.
According to Dr. Roy, individualized, family-specific mental health support creates space to ask a different question: What does this look like for you?
Families have different housing situations, work schedules, cultural values, support systems, stressors, histories, and needs. A strategy that works well for one family may not fit another family’s reality.
“We want to be able to think with you about what are those unique structural situations that you’re in, social situations that you’re in, challenges that you have personally and within your family system, and how can we adapt what we know is effective to you,” Dr. Roy said.
That individualized approach can be especially helpful for parents who are trying to parent differently than they were parented. Right Start can help caregivers find a balance that supports children’s emotions while also helping them meet expectations at home, school, and in the community.
It can also help families stay with change long enough to see what is working. Many families reach out after struggling for some time, and it is understandable to want a quick fix. But lasting change usually takes time. Right Start clinicians can help families look beneath symptoms, practice new tools, troubleshoot what feels hard, and notice strengths that are already present.
Over time, that work can change how families experience one another. Dr. Roy said Right Start often sees caregivers reporting greater confidence, children’s symptoms decreasing, and relationships growing stronger.
“What we really want to see is that the family system feels strong enough to manage the challenges as they come,” she said.
For families, that can mean more confidence, more understanding, and more joy in everyday interactions. Right Start helps families build on what is already working, address what feels hard, and strengthen the relationships that help young children grow.
To schedule a first-time appointment for yourself, your child, or a loved one, contact us by calling (303) 504-7700 or visit wellpower.org/appointment.
Join Our Email List
Sign up to receive our monthly newsletter, invitations to events and opportunities to support our mission.