Emotional Development of Children in Preschool Period
- February 26, 2024
The emotional development of children in the preschool period is very important. During this period, children grow emotionally in parallel with their physical, emotional and cognitive development. Here are some important points about the process of emotional development in preschool children:
1. Expressing Emotions: It begins with the child revealing his or her own feelings. With increasing language development, emotions are named. At this stage, children learn to express their own emotions.
2. Recognizing Others' Emotions: In the preschool period, children begin to notice the emotions of others. Their empathy skills develop and they try to understand how other people feel.
3. Emotional Regulation Ability: After this process, the ability to regulate one's own emotions develops. Children become better at coping with the negative emotions they experience.
4. Language Development and Emotional Awareness: The vocabulary that preschoolers use to talk about emotions expands rapidly. While a 2-year-old child may express that another child is upset, by age 4-5 they can make accurate judgments about the cause of many basic emotions.
5. Understanding Internal Factors: After age 4, children understand that their behavior is motivated by both their desires and their beliefs. Once this understanding is established, children's understanding of how internal factors can trigger emotions expands.
During this process, parents and educators can guide children to support their emotional development and help them go through this important period in a healthier way.
The Role of Empathy and Parental Approach
Preschoolers can predict the next move of their friend who expresses a particular emotion. 4-year-olds know that an angry child might hit someone, or that a happy child probably won't share what they have. They recognize other people's negative emotions and create effective ways to comfort them. The approach of parents strongly affects children's emotional competence.
The more parents name and explain emotions and also add expressions of excitement when talking to preschool children, the more emotion words children use and the better their understanding of emotions develops. Parents' guidance in understanding the child's emotions through expressions that reveal the emotions of the situations they see increases children's use of emotional expression.
As adults, we must support children's emotional development by recognizing their emotional reactions and talking to them about various emotions. Noticing children's emotional reactions and talking to them about various emotions will help them become individuals who understand the emotions of others in the future. In this way, children will feel that their emotions are accepted and they will become more successful in managing their emotions day by day.
