Emotional Development

The Development of Emotions

Emotions come from within an individual, but can be triggered from an external event
One should never discount anyone’s feelings, because to them, their feelings are real (ever had anyone say don’t be mad, or it isn’t that bad, don’t overreact)
A young child may be in distress over something that you consider minor, but to the child it is real and we need to acknowledge their emotions.

Newborns
Emotions are related to immediate experiences and sensations

Basic Emotions – happy, sad, anger, fear
1. Scientist often use infant’s facial expressions to judge when different emotional states emerge in 2. The earliest indicator of happiness is the social smile, which emerges @ 2 months
3. Laughter appears @ 4 months
4. Anger and fear are both evident @ 6 months
5. Fear first appears during infancy as stranger anxiety –when infants become wary in the presence of unfamiliar adults. Fears about different objects develop around age two. Be careful in dealing with fear to not say “don’t be afraid” because then not dealing with the child’s emotions and telling the child that his/her emotions are inappropriate.

Helping Infants/Toddlers Deal with Fears
1. Accept all fears as real and valid. Do not minimize the child’s feeling, even tho the incident that provoked it may seem insignificant to you. Acknowledge the fear.
2. Give the child support, and show confidence that he or she can find ways to cope
3. use forsight to prevent fearful situations when possible.
4. Prepare toddlers for potentially firgntening situations. Tell them what to expect.
5. Break frightening situations into manageable parts.
6. Couple the unfamiliar with the familiar. A comforting person or object can help a child cope with a new, potentially fightening situation
7. Give young children time adjust to something new.

Helping Infants/Toddlers Cope with Anger
1. Acknowledge child’s anger – do not discount or minimize child’s feelings
2. Allow child to express his/her anger, but in a constructive way
3. If possible, prevention. Don’t allow the infant to be involved in too many frustrating situations throughout the day

Self-Calming Techniques –
1. It is important that infants do not learn to rely solely on others to calm themselves.
2. The ability to calm themselves is called self-calming
3. Most commonly seen self-calming device is thumb sucking
4. Some self-calming techniques are learned others like thumb sucking appear innate
5. Seeing someone they trust nearby that they can check in with
6. Sharing important feelings

Developing a sense of self is somewhat controversial. Many feel that this does not occur until older, however more and more research indicates that children develop a sense of self around two years of age. The following film clip discusses this. (Links to an external site.) Links to an external site.

Maslow’s Levels of Needs

Only when people’s physical, emotional and intellectual needs are met.
Level 1 and Level 2 are of primary concern for infant/toddler caregiver programs.
The needs of those levels are usually regulated by licensing requirements.
Level 3,4, and 5 – are needs that must be met after the basic needs are met
Maslow feels that all children should have some level of stress – an optimum level (not too much and not too little), that this stress gives children an opportunity to try out their own powers, to develop their own strength and will by pushing against something.
Problems, obstacles, even pain and grief can be looked upon as beneficial for development of a sense of self-direction.
o Help children pay attention to what their perceptions, feelings and bodies tell them
o Don’t contradict their perceptions with statements like “that soup is not hot” or “that didn’t hurt, now did it?”
o Don’t interrupt when children are obviously deeply involved in something.
o Don’t push development
o Give choices, according to Maslow, if given choices, children will make the best choice for their growth
o Encourage children to develop independence and become self-sufficient.

Complex Emotions
*Complex emotions have an evaluation component and include guilt, embarrassment, and pride
*They appear between 18-24 months of age and require more sophisticated cognitive skills rather than basic emotions
*Complex emotions also depend on the cultural setting. Situations that evoke pride in one culture may evoke embarrassment in another culture

Recognizing and using others’ emotions
*By 6 months, infants have begun to recognize emotions associated with different facial expressions. This is called social referencing – when infants look at their mother or father as if searching for cues to help them interpret the situation.
*They use this info to help them evaluate unfamiliar situations. (Show Autism excerpt of kids reacting to mother’s facial expressions)
*Beyond infancy, children understand the causes and consequences of different emotions and that people can feel multiple emotions simultaneously.

Temperament – What is temperament?
*Temperament refers to stable patterns of behavior that are evident soon after birth
*The New York Longitudinal Study suggests three tempermental patterns
o Easy
o Difficult
o Slow-to-warm-up

Other research suggests that the dimensions of temperament are:
1. Emotionality – strength of infant’s emotional response to a situation
2. Activity – tempo and vigor of a child’s activity
3. Sociability – preference for being with other people

*The major theories of temperament include many of the same elements, organized differently
*The major theories agree that both heredity and environment contribute to temperament

Stability of Temperament
*Temperament is moderately stable from infancy to the preschool years and into childhood and adolescence.
*The correlations are not very strong, which means that, for many children, temperament does changes as they develop

Temperament and other aspects of development
*Many investigators have shown that temperament is related to other aspects of development
*Difficult babies are more likely to have behavioral problems by the time they are old enough to attend school.
*Persistent children are more successful in school
*Shy children sometimes have problems with peers
*Anxious children are more compliant with parents