EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

WHAT IS EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT?

• Emotional development is the beginning of a child's experience,
understanding, expression, and management of emotions from
birth to late adolescence.
• These questions play an important part in child emotional
development;
– How do children start to understand;
– Who they are?
– What they are feeling?
– What they expect to receive from others?
• Children’s social-emotional development influences all other areas
of development:
– Cognitive, motor, and language development
– All are greatly affected by how a child feels about himself and how he is able
to express ideas and emotions.
 Healthy Social-Emotional Development
Healthy social-emotional development includes
the ability to:
•Form and sustain positive relationships
•Experience, manage, and express emotions
•Explore and engage with the environment
•Children having well-developed social-emotional
skills are also able to:
•Express their ideas and feelings
•Show empathy towards others
•Manage their feelings of frustration and
displeasure more easily
•Feel self-confident
•More easily make and develop friendships
•Succeed in school
 Why Emotional Development is Important?

• Emotional development is vital in helping children grow into well

adjusted adults.
• Being able to identify different feelings, express them and process
the difficult emotions enables children to be
healthy emotionally and psychologically.
• Infant and toddlers whose families and other caregivers focus on
building trust and healthy relationship set the stage for the life time
learning.
Emotional development involves:
• Understanding how and why emotions appear
• Recognizing one’s own feelings and those of others
• Developing effective ways of managing them
 Aspects of Social Emotional Development
i Caring environment
• Developing kind, trusting, relationships with responsive
caregivers in early childhood settings are essential
ii. Emotional knowledge and emotional regulation
• Children at very early age are capable of recognizing basic
emotions particularly happy and sad
• The act of labeling an emotion helps to move it to the
language/cognitive part of brain.
• This creates a space between feeling and action which
ultimately helps children to process feelings in a matter that is
more cognitive than reactive.
 ASPECTS OF SOCIAL EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

iii. Social Understanding

•At the age of four children begin to understand that others have internal
worlds where they keep feelings and thoughts, and that certain events/actions
are causes for certain emotional reactions.
iv. Relationship management
• The knowledge of social norms influences the interaction between children.
For example, it helps a child how to express emotions effectively or to
respond to problems.
v. Social responsibility
•The goal of social emotional education is to enable children to be internally
motivated to act kindly; and to develop a system of ethical values directed
toward feeling for others.
FACTORS AFFECTING EMOTIONAL DEVELOPMENT

There are many factors, both internal and external, which impact
a child's level of emotional development.
Internal (the genetic part of an individual's personality)
•Children who have more tolerant and relaxed temperaments
incline towards easier learning of emotional management
•Children who have difficult temperaments have a tendency to
make efforts in order to regulate their own emotions.
External
•The environment and role models will also impact how children
react to the world emotionally.
 Erikson’s First Four Stages of Social-Emotional
Development
Erikson’s First Four Stages of Approximate Description
Social-Emotional Age
Development Stage
Basic trust vs. basic mistrust Birth to 12-18 Infants need loving and trusting relationships
An infant needs consistent caregivers months with parents and other caregivers to develop a
who provide for their basic needs in a sense of trust. Infants who do not receive
nurturing and caring environment. consistent and nurturing care nurturing care are
at risk for developing a sense of mistrust of
others.
Autonomy vs. Shame/Doubt 18 months to 3 During this stage the child becomes more
Toddlers need caring adults who provide years independent, learning to walk, run, climb, build,
a supervised, safe, environment that draw and talk. Toilet learning is a key skill for
provides the child with opportunities to this stage. Children who are supported and
learn new physical skills. supervised by adults as they develop new skills
and independence feel responsible and capable.
Children who receive negative messages from
parents and caregivers may begin to doubt their
abilities and lose self-confidence.
Erikson’s First Four Stages of Social-Emotional Development
Erikson’s First Four Stages of Approximat Description
Social-Emotional e Age
Development Stage
Initiative vs. Guilt 3 to 6 years At this age children become more
Preschool children need a safe independent, assertive and take more
environment that encourages initiative.
making choices. Teachers and other adults need to provide
an environment that supports the child’s
efforts but also helps guide their activities
to prevent “unhappy” endings that may
create feelings of guilt
Industry vs. Inferiority 6 to 12 years School age children are learning to develop
School age children need an more complex social and academic skills.
environment with encouraging Children who experience success discover
adults that provides opportunities to that being productive is satisfying. On the
develop and create their own ideas other hand, children who fail in school or
other settings may begin to feel inferior
and inadequate. Adult guidance that
deemphasizes mistakes and focuses on
problem solving helps focus the child on
accomplishments.
 EMOTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF LEARNERS AT
PRESCHOOL LEVEL

Emotions of preschool children are largely on surface.

They exhibit following characteristics:
•Laugh when adults laugh or on an odd event. It shows expansion
of humor
•Less negativism
•Commencement of phobias and fears that may prolong to age
five
•At four years intentional lying may begin
 Activities for Social and Emotional
Development
I Can Help
•Difficult for children of preschool age to fully grasp emotional
concepts, especially complex emotions.
•Teacher should focus on basic emotions such as happy, sad,
angry, and hurt.
•Materials:
– Large pieces of chart paper/poster board
– Markers
 Cont…
• What to do:
1. Draw a happy face on top of the chart paper and ask the child what he
sees and what it means.
2. Ask him to tell things that make him happy.
3. Ask what he can do to feel happy.
4. Draw an unhappy face and repeat the process. Also ask the child what
he can do if he sees a friend who is unhappy.
5. Draw an angry faces well as someone who is upset.
• Variation:
–Talking about emotions with a child can be made easier by using books.
–Find out some books in Urdu language or in mother tongue, which are
written and designed for children of this age.
 EMOTIONAL CHARACTERISTICS OF
LEARNERS AT KINDERGARTEN LEVEL

At age five children begin to control emotions and try to express

them in socially acceptable ways.
•Frequent quarrels among children but these quarrels are of short
duration.
•At six there is change in emotions and child seems to be in
emotional confusion. New kind of worries arise by joining school.
•Anger outburst (explosion; expression of anger) may appear
•Development of conscience (sense of right and wrong) at five starts
•At six acceptance of rules develops and often there is rigid
insistence on obeying the rules in all conditions.
 Activities to Develop Emotional Skills
• Making a Train
• Group projects useful to achieve some goal
• Materials:
– Cardboard boxes
– Paint Crayons
– Markers
• What to do:
– 1. Arrange cardboard boxes for the children to make a train together.
– 2. Ask children to decorate the boxes and then put them together like a train (or any
other object that might be interesting to them).
– 3. Have limited supplies available to support children in sharing the materials as they
make the train together.
– 4. Talk about sharing while the children are building and decorating the train.
– Give praise comments or acknowledgement when children share.
 CHARACTERISTICS OF LEARNERS AT
ELEMENTARY LEVEL
Learners at elementary level may exhibit the following
characteristics:
• Difficulty in starting things but will continue to end
•Worries related to school performance
•Beginning of empathy sees others view point
• Sense of humor expressed in riddles, practical jokes, and
nonsense words
• Discrimination between good and bad but still immature
• Is sensitive and gets hurt easily
• Has sense of possession and takes care of possession (makes
collections)
 Activities to Promote Emotional Health at
Elementary Level
• A teacher can promote social-emotional development in classroom if he is;
– Sensitive to children’s needs,
– Helps them feel secure and confident,
– Acts as a model for effective social behavior
• Tone of voice
Learning Objective: To help children recognize that how things are said can be
just as important as what is said:
Skill: Emotional communication, self-awareness: Ask the students what they
think “tone of voice” means .write down all of the ideas on board.
• Explain to the students: The tone of your voice— how you are actually saying
something—communicates what you feel.
• Often, your tone of voice can give stronger message than your words.
• Sometimes, how you say something can change the meaning of what you are
saying.
• It can even give the message that you don’t really mean what you are saying.
 Activity
• Ask the children to sit in a circle. Going around the circle, ask them
to give examples of voice tone that can change the meaning of
what’s being said or communicate the wrong feeling
• Example 1: The first child in the circle says,
– “I love ice cream” in a bored voice.
– The next child then says, “I love ice cream” as though she really does
love it.
• Example 2: The next child says,
– “I have to do so much homework!” in a happy voice.
– The next child says the same sentence in a tone he thinks appropriate,
such as unhappy or angry.
– Provide every child a chance to participate in the activity.