Emotional Development in Young Children

As children grow from young toddlers to preschoolers, their world opens up around them. By acting upon and engaging with their environment, they gradually learn that they are separate individuals with minds of their own. In fact, they are often eager to show us that they "can do it themselves." Before the age of 4 or 5, children do not fully understand that other people may have different thoughts, desires, or beliefs from themselves. Sometimes this "egocentrism" can be quite frustrating for parents, as when a 2 1/2 year old refuses to comply with a parent's demand.

The ability to take another's perspective is crucial for the development of self-control, empathy, and emotion regulation--all aspects of social-emotional competence.

The development of self-control begins at birth and continues over a lifetime. Through interactions with sensitive, caring adults, young children learn the critical skills of cooperation, coping with frustration, and conflict resolution. Infants are born with almost no self-control, but even at this young age parents can begin teaching these skills by comforting and soothing their babies. As children grow, parents continue to help support the development of self-control and emotion regulation by teaching appropriate behaviors, offering choices, and labeling and recognizing their children's feelings.

The development of empathy, or the ability to imagine how someone else is feeling in a particular situation and responding with care, begins at birth and continues over the first several years of life. To be empathic requires an understanding that the child is a separate individual with possibly different thoughts and feelings from others. To display empathy, a child must know and recognize and correctly label the common feelings that most people experience --happiness, surprise, anger, disappointment, sadness, fear. The child then must be able to imagine how someone else might be feeling and figure out an appropriate or comforting response.

All of this is no easy task for young children, but they can learn through the guidance of and interactions with their parents and other caregivers. Infants begin this process with the ability to imitate facial expressions. By 8 months, babies look to their parents' emotional reactions in order to help them interpret new or ambiguous situations. For example, when confronted with a new, odd looking toy an eight month old baby will look to her mother for reassurance that it is o.k. to approach the toy. At 18 months, children begin to recognize that others may have different likes and dislikes and can start to recognize themselves in the mirror. Finally, by around 2 years of age, children begin to display empathic responses such as hugging and looking worried when their parents or peers are distressed.

A child's early experiences with their parents and caregivers, then, have a profound impact on the child's ability to take another's perspective, respond appropriately, and regulate his/her own emotions. A socially/emotionally competent child feels secure and confident in the world, is more prepared to learn, and is better able to resolve conflicts.