Emotional Development in Childhood
Emotional Development - a gradual increase in the capacity to experience, express, and interpret the full range of emotions and in the ability to cope with them appropriately.
For example, infants begin to smile and frown around 8 weeks of age and to laugh around 3 or 4 months, and older children begin to learn that hitting others is not an acceptable way of dealing with anger.
Expressions of delight, fear, anger, and disgust are evident by 6 months of age, and fear of strangers from 8 months.
Expressions of affection and jealousy are seen between 1 and 2 years of age, and expressions of rage in the form of temper tantrums appear a year or so later.
Cortical control, imitation of others, hormonal influences, home atmosphere, and conditioning play major roles in emotional development.
Also called affective development.
It is nearly impossible to imagine emotional development as separate from changes in cognitive development that occur in the first 2 decades of life.
As memory and thinking become more complex and abstract, emotional development changes as well.
Similarly, markers of emotional development are intimately linked to a childās social experiences.
EXAMPLES. The following examples are major markers of change in emotional development as they occur within a social context.
Social Smile (2 to 3 months)
While breastfeeding, the infant shares a gaze with mom.
Mom responds with a smile using infant-directed speech.
āYou are a hungry little fellow!ā
The infant smiles in response (Pagano & Parnes, 2022).
Attachment (6 to 12 months)
Baby is distressed when mom is absent and is comforted with her return (Pagano & Parnes, 2022).
Social Referencing (8 to 10 months)
Baby looks to the caregiver to make a decision or know how to respond emotionally (Walle et al., 2017).
Theory of MindĀ (3 to 5 years)
Children progress in their understanding of the thoughts and emotions of others.
Progression occurs from understanding that two people (oneself and another) can have different desires and beliefs about the same thing to understanding hidden emotions; a person may look happy on their face and body but feel angry inside (Wellman et al., 2011).
Emotional Competence (7 to 10 years)
Emotion expressions are used to manage relationship dynamics, such as smiling at a new friend (Saarni & Camras, 2022).
Emotion Regulation (infancy through adulthood)
Emotion regulation strategies are processes used to monitor, evaluate, and modify our emotional reactions in order to achieve a goal.
Strategies become more sophisticated from extrinsically based regulation in infancy to more intrinsically based regulation from preschool-age through adulthood (Eisenberg et al., 2010; Thompson & Goodvin, 2007).
4 to 6 months: Infants shift their attention away from stressful stimuli.
1 to 2 years: Young toddlers crawl or walk away from stressful stimuli.
2 to 3 years: Older toddlers begin to show beginnings of self-regulation of emotion.
8 to 9 years: Cognitive emotion regulation strategies emerge, and children begin to use thoughts and feelings about themselves and others to control their emotions (Garnefski et al., 2007).
The ability to regulate our emotions is one of the most important skills for learning, social relationships, and mental health.
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