Child emotion5/26/2023 ![]() ![]() Healthy emotion regulation abilities are critical, because they affect a child’s cognitive abilities, as well as the quality of his or her interpersonal relationships (Calkins, 1994 Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000).Īlthough children are born with different emotional temperaments, the ability to appropriately manage difficult emotions is not an innate ability that some children are born with and some are not (Goldsmith & Davidson, 2004 Kiff, Lengua, & Zalewski, 2011 Mirabile, Scaramella, Sohr-Preston, & Robison, 2009). In other words, emotion regulation is the process by which individuals influence which emotions they have, when they have them, and how they experience and express them (Gross, 2013).įor example, a child’s emotion regulation skills can be observed by what a child does when he or she feels sad – whether he or she can express that sadness in a constructive way, or suppresses and hides the sadness. Emotion regulation can be defined as “the ability to respond to the ongoing demands of experience with the range of emotions in a manner that is socially tolerable and sufficiently flexible to permit spontaneous reactions as well as the ability to delay spontaneous reactions as needed” (Cole, Michel, & Teti, 1994, p.76). This emotional environment influences children’s brain development and their ability to regulate their emotions (Cassidy, 1994 Perry, 2002 Shonkoff & Phillips, 2000). The tenor of the emotional environment in which children are raised has life-lasting effects for them (Valliant, 2012 Waldinger & Schulz, 2016). ![]() The Importance of Responding Well to Children’s Emotional Distress The experiences children have in this regard are largely influenced by how their parents or caregivers respond to them in such moments of distress (Cunningham, Kliewer, & Garner, 2009). What children learn from these experiences will either support constructive ways of dealing with their emotions, or hinder their ability to manage their emotions in healthy ways. More specifically, it is in the accumulation of these moments that children learn about their emotions and how to deal with them (Sroufe, 2000). These types of emotional moments in children’s lives shape their ongoing development and future well-being. A 3-year-old girl begins yelling in a grocery store because her mother said she cannot have the cereal she wants.Īn 8-year-old boy comes home from school crying about how a friend said he did not want to be the boy’s friend anymore.Ī 14-year-old girl’s grandmother just passed away and she hasn’t come out of her room for three days.Ī 16-year-old boy argues with his parents about not letting him stay out later with his friends.
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