How to Foster Healthy Emotional Development in Young Children
In March, we posted about the essential developmental task of emotion regulation(link this to that blog). Parents and primary caregivers are one of the most influential forces of emotion regulation development (Morris et al., 2017) so this week, we will give you some information on how to help facilitate the healthy development of your young child’s emotional competency.
Emotional Competency Includes:
● An understanding of one's own and others' emotions
● The tendency to display emotion in a situationally and culturally appropriate manner
● The ability to inhibit or modulate experienced and expressed emotion and emotionally derived behaviour as needed to achieve goals in a socially acceptable manner (Eisenberg et al., 1998).
In psychology, the term ‘parental socialization of emotion’ refers to the ways that primary caregivers influence the development of their children’s emotional competency.
Primary caregiver’s socalize their children’s emotions in three ways:
1. Emotion-Related Parenting Practices: the ways that parents react to the child's emotions and emotion coaching.
2. Observation: the ways that parents express and regulate their own emotions
3. The emotional climate of the family: parenting styles, attachment styles, family relationships (Eisenberg et al., 1998).
In this blog, we will focus on the first socailization mechanism, “Emotion-Related Parenting Practices.” which includes both emotion coaching, and the ways that primary caregivers react to their child’s emotions. The two infographics below depict relevant research findings on this topic and an evidence-based Do’s and Don't list respectively.
See the following links for more information on how parents and caregivers can facilitate healthy emotional development!
Promoting Young Children’s Social and Emotional Health by the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC)
https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/mar2018/promoting-social-and-emotional-health
● This includes a list of children's books that can help teach social and emotional skills
Emotion Coaching by Parenting Science https://parentingscience.com/emotion-coaching/
15 Coping Strategies for Kids by Very Well Family https://www.verywellfamily.com/coping-skills-for-kids-458687
References
Eisenberg, N., Cumberland, A., & Spinrad, T. L., (1998). Parental socialization of emotion. Psychological Inquiry, 9(4), 241-273. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli0904_1
Ersay, E., (2014). Parental socialization of emotion: how mothers respond to their children’s emotions in Turkey. The International Journal of Emotional Education, 6(1), 33-46. https://www.proquest.com/docview/1526112392?accountid=14656&pq-origsite=summon
Morris, A. S., Criss, M. M., Silk, J. S., & Houltber, B. J., (2017). The impact of parenting on emotion regulation during childhood and adolescence. Child Development Perspectives, 11(4), 233-238. doi: 10.1111/cdep.12238