Whether you’re a parent, grandparent, babysitter — or practically anyone, for that matter — you’ve seen and heard it countless times.

A child doesn’t get his or her way. Tears flow. Screaming erupts. Small fists and feet flail away at the adult who said no.

You’re likely to blame the youngster for lack of control, but think back to when you were that age and learning how to cope with all kinds of feelings. On occasion, you may find yourself still waging that battle.

“Cai & Kate” is here to help.

The series of short programs, featuring a kid-friendly chameleon puppet and his pal of a person, debuted last year on YouTube as an initiative of the AHN Chill Project to enhance its mission of promoting emotional well-being.

Hosting the show is North Hills High School graduate Katlyn Kohne, a clinical supervisor with AHN Behavioral Health.

“I think ‘mental health’ and buzzwords around emotions, they’re very popular now,” she said. “But still, people don’t know always how to talk about it. A big goal of ours is just to make it easier to talk about feelings and coping skills, and how to bridge that gap, because it’s hard.”

Her chameleon co-star, selected as an appealing character for the target 3-to-8 age range, changes colors to correspond with shifts in emotions.

“Kate is his helpful human friend who helps get him through it,” Chill Project founder and director William Davies said. “Sometimes we flip the script, though, and Kate’s the one with the big emotions. Cai actually says to her, ‘Hey, let’s work through this.’”

The first episode of “Cai & Kate” is titled, appropriately enough, “Emotions” and sets the stage for subsequent installments addressing variations on the theme, along with providing other educational aspects.

While the first season takes place in a studio setting, the show is hitting the road for the second.

“We’re actually going out into the community and sharing what’s it like,” Kohne said, “so kids and parents can feel prepared and talk about things they might face if they go to the zoo,” for example. “Our first episode is going to the doctor’s office for our first wellness visit.”

A state-licensed professional counselor with certification in trauma-focused cognitive behavioral therapy, Kohne serves as a program supervisor for the Chill Project, which Davies and colleagues launched in 2019 to address issues faced by students in kindergarten through 12th grade.

Midway through the school year, of course, came covid-19. Then came the aftermath.

“What we noticed in particular is that kids were coming back to school from the pandemic in a way where their behaviors were quite escalated. They did not understand how to communicate with one another as well as they used to. Their emotional regulation was not where it needed to be,” Davies said.

“It really created a profoundly negative impact on the emotional development of young kids,” he continued. “So the idea behind ‘Cai & Kate’ is to help with those concerns, and it’s really for caregivers and the kids.”

Cai’s creator is Matt Acheson, a nationally known puppeteer whose company works with the likes of Amazon Studios, Radio City Music Hall and Cirque Du Soleil. And he happens to live near Davies in Mt. Lebanon.

“I ended up meeting him through my kid’s birthday party, because we were in the same classroom,” Davies said.

Working closely with Acheson — Cai generally requires two people — is another local puppeteer, Jamie Agnello. Highmark Health senior video producer-editor David Flora directs the show.

As the woman in front of the camera, Kohne enjoys playing Kate.

“When our leadership team was kind of deciding who to place in this space, they reached out to me because I don’t shy away from stage. I was in high school theater and a cappella in college,” she said. “So it was kind of a natural transition, and I just love to make people feel comfortable and don’t mind filling that gap when a performance needs to be put on, whether it’s a one-to-one conversation or a whole room.”

Off the air, she portrays Kate at promotional events, where people may greet her with comments such as:

“Oh, I know you. My nephew learned how to spell because of your show.”

“Cai & Kate” is funded by the A.J. and Sigismunda Palumbo Charitable Trust, which also supports on-site Chill Project services at schools across Western Pennsylvania.

“They’ve been amazing and been with us since Day One, and understand the value of this changing the lives of kids,” Davies acknowledged. “The Chill Project is really about prevention, and if you can get skills that we know are really effective to kids on the front end and build their toolbox, it actually helps prevent issues down the road.”

Kohne agreed.

“We’re really trying to be that preventative measure,” she said, “and not just be another show on YouTube, with all the rest of them.”

To view “Cai & Kate,” visit www.youtube.com/@CaiandKate.

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