Historically, a major difficulty in providing quality psychiatric care for children has been poor recognition of their special needs. The purpose of this chapter will be to underscore the uniqueness of child psychiatric emergencies. Much of crisis theory has been based on work with adults. Children present special needs and difficulties. Demographic data will be presented in order to familiarize the reader with the field. Clinical data from the author's study at the University of Colorado Medical Center will be presented. A theoretical formulation of child psychiatric emergencies also will be presented.