Children's Empathetic Response Paper

A child who utilizes his/her affect as a coping mechanism is relying upon the ability to express or ventilate through emotion. He/she will require opportunities to share anxieties, fears, anger, sorrow, and grief, and have those emotions validated by the adults in his/her life.”

Science released an article entitled “Facial Expressions—Including Fear—May Not Be as Universal as We Thought”, written by Michael Pierce on October 17, 2016. In this article Pierce discusses how 50 years ago it was assumed that facial expressions were universal. However, it has been found that in the present day, this may not be the case. Expressions such as happiness, anger, sadness, fear, disgust, or hunger, were all assumed to be expressed the same way as well as interpreted the same way. A study was conducted in the Trobriand Islands, were Trobrianders were shown as series of photos with facial expressions. They were asked to describe the emotions they interpreted from the photos, the results were intriguing. Pierce (2016) describes how

Children are very complex, unique and varied individuals whose genetics, connections and backgrounds all perform significant roles in their emotional development (Wilson, 2003). The genetic blueprint a child inherits from its parents may plot a course for development but the environment and the influences within can affect how the child is shaped, how they connect with and are perceived by others and how their emotions are or are not expressed. Wilson (2003) points out emotions as an experience that is linked to cognitive interpretation, context, subjective feeling, physical reaction and behavioural expression. Campos, Campos, and Barrett (1989) suggest emotions are processes of establishing, maintaining, or disrupting the relations between the person and the internal or external environment, when such relations are significant to the individual.

Babies are born with two important skills to prepare them for empathy – the ability to begin to imitate facial gestures and the automatic responses in which the cries of other infants causes another infant to cry (Szalavitz & Perry, 2010). From the first hour after birth, babies can imitate several

The regulation of emotions within adults is considerably more complex than within an infant. However, this does not mean that infants do not share the same feelings as adults do. Infant emotion regulation is evidently derived from their primary carers. Empirical research supports idea as stated by Diener (et al, 2002) whereby the study conducted involved infants completing a strange situations procedure, this explored the connection between mother-infant relationship and the behavioural strategies used by infants for emotion regulation. Therefore, behavioural strategies used by infants including self-soothing, withdrawal and self-distraction with objects is when it is clear that infants have the ability to control and monitor their emotions (Martins, 2012; Diener et al., 2002). These strategies are supported through various studies conducted by Martins (2012) as they explore infants who are able to cope with their emotions obtain certain strategies which contribute to their ability to regulate their behaviour for example using distractions. Evidently, this shows the development of infant emotion regulation skills (Diener et al, 2002). Moreover, infants experience a range of emotions in numerous frustrating situations, including some as simple as waiting to be fed or sitting in a car seat waiting to go out. It is from this that infants become more aware of their emotions and begin to find ways of coping

The Child Study data I have gathered comes from the observation I have completed at Mission Bell Elementary School. Mission Bell Elementary School is a local school in Riverside. In the P.M preschool class there are 24 students, one teacher, and one assistant. The child I decided to observe is names Zoe. Zoe is 4 years and 10 months old. I immediately was drawn to Zoe because she had such a big personality, was very social, and smart. I am glad that I choose to observe Zoe because she was able to make my observation process smooth and easy. While observing her I had to pay close attention to her biosocial development, motor skills, cognitive skills, communication skills,

Observing a child is a fascinating and eye opening experience. It is amazing to see how children view certain things differently than adults. Things that some adults take for granted, children see as a miracle. I recently observed a little girl. For the purposes of confidentiality, the name of the little girl has been changed to Katy. She is five years old and has two older sisters. She will start kindergarten this year. I observed Katy on June 20, 2016 at twelve in the afternoon at the park with her mother present. It was nearly 100 degrees outside. There were a couple other children at the park as well.

Thank you for sharing your on-site issue. I am expressive with my facial expressions quite often and until your post, I am not sure if I viewed this as a major problem. You are spot on with being concerned with. Anyone that has been on the received end of a disapproving facial expression understands how it can sting. I was thinking about how Thelma from Love’s Executioner and she would have reacted to Dr. Yalom (1989) if he lost that poker face. There were times we can infer that he might have let his face communicate a judgement and it impacted the session. Navarro (2011) states, “...there are over 215 behaviors associated with psychological discomfort and most of those are not in the face (para.14).” Yikes!!! I would

Empathy is extraordinarily important for children to understand and eventually put into practice, as it exercises their ability to feel and respect the emotions of other people. Empathy also plays a big role in trust and support- both of which are very important aspects of any relationship, and is necessary for living a healthy, functional life in today’s society. In her article, Dovey describes “A 2011 study published in the Annual Review of Psychology […] showed that, when people read about an experience, they display stimulation within the same neurological regions as when they go through that experience themselves.” (Dovey par. 11). This means that when people, or in this case, children, read stories, their brains react as if they were going through the same situations and emotions that they read about. This is a great way for kids to learn about empathy, why it’s important, and how to apply it to their own lives. One may argue that, while reading may trigger empathetic feelings in the majority of people, those who enjoy reading have greater empathetic tendencies than others, making reading to teach empathy only applicable to those who like to read and have these higher-than-average tendencies. Dovey also addresses this, stating that “other studies published in 2006 and 2009 showed […] that people who read a lot of fiction [tended] to be better at empathizing with others (even after the researchers had accounted for the potential bias that people with greater empathetic

Young children are in a dyadic dance with their caregiver, taking cues, mirroring emotion and behavior and constructing reciprocity, therefore they are greatly affected by parental stress (Hughes 2012). Parental stress is troubling and the child will work to mitigate it. By seven or eight months of age, an infant will send purposeful signals bidding caregiver’s attendance to their need, to be picked up and communicate comfort needs (Sroufe, 2011). They will also be looking for coregulation signals from their caregiver as the infant’s neural networks are not yet scaffolded to this task therefore the infant is not skilled in regulating their own emotions (cite).

Observation of an infant in the family setting 'provides the observer with an opportunity to encounter primitive emotional states in the infant and his family...' (Rustin in Miller, 1989, 7). According to Rustin infant observation allows to 'explore the emotional events between infant and mother' and 'the aim is to describe the development of the relationship between infant and others (...) and try to understand the unconscious aspects of behaviour and patterns of communication' (Rustin in Miller, 1989, 7). Early infant observation plays a vital role in the psychodynamic training and it gives a thesis of how early emotional development is being influenced by subconscious family dynamics.

In the book, “Raising An Emotional Intelligent Child” author John Gottman guide’s parent’s toward raising an intelligent child by teaching them about the awareness of their emotions. Parents are known to be emotional coaches, parents who get involved with their child’s feelings. They accept negative emotions as a fact of life and use emotional moments as opportunities for teaching their kids important life lessons and building closer relationships with them. Emotional intelligence controls impulses, delays gratification, motivate themselves, reading others social cues, coping with life’s ups and downs. Parenting requires intellect, but most importantly empathy. In parent- child interactions, most parents fall into two categories: parents who give their children guidance about the world of emotion and those who do not. There are 3 types of parents who fail to teach emotional intelligence: the dismissing parent, disapproving, and Laissez-Faire. Dismissing parents tend to disregard and ignore children’s negative emotions. Disapproving parents are critical of their children’s displays of negative feelings and may punish them for emotional expression. Lastly, Laissez-Faire parents, accept their children’s emotions and empathize with them, but fail to offer guidance or set limits on their children’s behavior.

Now that the child is school age, it has many different learned experiences with facial expressions from parents, siblings, friends, and teachers. A child will be reprimanded for doing something against the parents’ wishes and will be told to stop. Children will often test the parents’ limits and continue with the action and when the parent combines the verbal action along with the stern facial expression, the child understand it has reached the parent’s limit. Verbal communication combined with facial expressions provides more meaning to the conversation than just words alone.

A person’s childhood has an enormous impact on the person they become when they grow up. Because of this, it is essential that do our best to give our children the best childhood that they can have in order to nurture successful adults. One way we can do this is by giving children the attention they need. In 2010 the average amount of time that parents spent with their children each week was 13.7 hours (Schulte). This must change because paying attention to children is essential for a number of reasons.

child asks for a piece of toast. You serve him one and he bursts into