The emotional development of children makes them aware of the origin and management of emotions, begin to read emotions in other people’s facial expressions and interpret them according to the social context (1).
Thus, the change and growth expected of them emotionally arise from the experiences that occur, on the one hand, in their context and, on the other, in their maturation.
- Therefore.
- In their emotional development.
- Certain emotional goals related to themselves and others begin to emerge.
- Taking into account the context.
The way children express different types of emotions varies considerably depending on their previous repertoire and also has a lot to do with their learning history. This leads to important achievements in understanding, emotional regulation and empathetic response (3).
Next, we share three aspects of children’s emotional development that allow them to know their emotional competence in a more specific way.
Understanding is particularly important in children’s emotional development. On the one hand, we have an understanding of their emotions and, on the other hand, an understanding of emotional ambivalence and rules of expression.
Understanding emotions and adopting an emotional perspective begins to develop at a very young age, preschoolers and children are linked to increasingly diverse situations that generate different emotions (2).
An important advance in understanding emotions occurs when children begin to see themselves as having their own desires and needs.
On the other hand, the emotional perspectives and level of understanding they come to establish are related to the culture in which they grow, while they are also related to the reaction of the parents.
Ultimately, what children believe and expect is related to contextual factors and their personal composition.
Culture provides different rules for the expression of emotions; In this way, children gain an understanding of emotions through modeling and learning through, so the cultural component definitively imposes limits and rules on emotional expression.
Understanding these rules of emotional expression involves things like:
On the other hand, it is worth mentioning the understanding of emotional ambivalence, understood as the ability to understand, know and discriminate the presence of several opposing emotions.
The ability to understand this is a critical point for children to gain dexterity when dealing with stable relationships with high emotional load (5).
Emotions are a means of contact with reality, so to achieve this goal they must be flexible and in line with the situation as well as with the objectives.
The use of different strategies to achieve levels of emotional self-realization is varied, as it depends on the situation, gradually children learn that certain strategies are effective in certain situations and that depend on the type of goal they are looking for.
Flexibility in handling and developing internalization levels shows the usefulness of regulation for adaptive behavioral adjustment and socio-emotional adjustment (6).
Empathy is seen as one person’s ability to understand another’s emotional situation and give answers related to that person’s feelings (2), so empathy is an emotional component that can only be achieved when the child reaches three previous aspects (2):
These three aspects relate to social situations that allow the child to perform objective analysis, highlight emotional actions, and understand why he or she feels different emotions (7).
Therefore, we can consider many factors in a child’s emotional development.
However, it is worth saying that for these aforementioned strategies to develop, their family and social environment must be conducive to their emotional development.