The Effects Of Emotional Regulation On Children

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.”

Bronfenbrenner and Evans (2000) signify that environment is a dominate factor with child development and as emotions are central to all humans; a child’s environment produces significant influence on emotion development and emotion expression. The base emotions (happiness, sadness, fear, anger, disgust, interest and surprise) are considered universal as they appear across all cultures, are present from

Children learn multiple emotion-regulating strategies, from their own experiences and from the observation of adults. For example, when a toddler seeks comfort she crawls up on to the lap of her caregiver, while Connie covers her eyes with her hands during an unpleasant part of a movie to avoid the emotionally arousing situation (Kostelnik et al. 2015, p.135). Adults can help children learn how to better cope with their emotions in a number of ways. Effective ways of responding to emotions include talking about emotions and using affective reflections. Affective reflections involve recognizing the emotions a child is facing and then using a reflective statement to help identify the child’s emotions (Kostelnik et al. 2015, p.144). For example, a reflective statement could be as simple as: “It’s frustrating to be interrupted” (Kostelnik et al. 2015, p.144). Verbally identifying emotions helps children distinguish their emotions and gives adults the opportunity to show their care and understanding towards the child, which plays an important role in the building of strong adult-child

Emotion regulation involves intrinsic and extrinsic processing of monitoring and modifying emotional reactions in both positive or negative situations (Martins, 2012). In order for individuals to have the ability to regulate emotions, they must beware of their emotions. Although infants are unaware and lack the ability to regulate their emotions, it then becomes the role of a primary carer to nurture the infant, thus acting as a model for regulating emotions. Evidently, infants grow to reflect the ways in which their carers control and modify their emotions as well as social boundaries. Furthermore, emotion regulation is considered an important aspect of an individuals life as it 'can moderate emotions and keep them in a manageable range

found previously. Being a psychology major who wants to be a children's counselor, this topic

Lewis (2013) explains the ability to control your emotions does not begin until a child nears the age of six (as cited in Berger, 2014, p. 276). The need to maintain control of feelings and emotions remains important throughout adulthood. It would not be normal for a 38-year-old lawyer to throw a temper tantrum in the courtroom because they did not win a case. Not everyone is great at controlling their emotions, but there is always room for improvement (Berger, 2014). A child is not born with this control, nor can one learn it on their own. Morris et al. (2007) discussed the importance of parents, teachers and other adults that may be in a child?s life to instruct and inform children of appropriate ways to manage their feelings for them to learn or develop over time (as cited in Berger, 2014, p. 276). It is the same aspect as manners. A child does not come out of the womb saying ?please? and ?thank you,? but must be taught to use such mannerisms. Eric Erikson explained that children believe they can achieve any goal just as long as they keep trying because their view of their abilities is not yet within reason (Berger, 2014). A child may see a fish breath underwater and believe they too can breathe while swimming

Firstly, the meaning of emotional regulation and Erik Erikson's theory of eight stages of development are depicted, with special emphasis on early childhood. This is done for the purpose of underlining the importance of regular emotional development as opposed to one impaired by abuse.

. • Effective expression and modulation are taught to help children and parents identify and cope with a range of emotions

Emotions, thoughts, and behaviors share a communal correlation; thoughts can produce emotional responses; emotional responses can then produce positive and negative behaviors. As a result, a student’s emotions and behaviors have a direct correlation to their thoughts and vice versa (Stonecipher, 2012). In instances where a student is unable to self-manage their behaviors while presented with an issue, a probable outcome would be that the student will then act out inappropriately. As a result, cognitive behavioral interventions often encompass problem solving and anger management strategies (Robinson, 2007). Conducive to effectually self-managing behavior, students must be trained to exercise constructive thinking and reduce the pervasiveness of participating in destructive behavior acquired from an emotional response. Students may obtain this by acknowledging the problem, defining it, producing and assessing resolutions, applying a plan and lastly observing the resolution (Yell, Meadows, Drasgow, & Shriner, 2009). Students should also learn to recognize specific elements including triggers, reminders, and reducers, while trying to self-manage. Teachers must retain patience during this process as students must build these skills up before positive results transpire (Yell, Meadows, Drasgow, & Shriner, 2009).

Emotion is essential in order for individuals to respond to arousing stimuli. In part, managing the emotion is through a complex process called emotion regulation, which involves being aware of the relationship between emotion, cognition, and behavior (Shiota & Kalat, 2012). In addition, it involves modulating various factors such as the intensity, duration, and type of emotion, in order to assess one’s goals (Thompson, 1994). During development, one acquires the

Emotional development is a complex task that begins in infancy and continues into adulthood. The first emotions that can be recognised in babies include joy, anger, sadness and fear. Later, as children begin to develop a sense of self, more complex emotions like shyness, surprise, elation, embarrassment, shame, guilt, pride and empathy emerge. Primary school children are still learning to identify emotions, to understand why they happen and how to manage them appropriately. As children develop, the things that provoke their emotional responses change, as do the strategies they use to manage them.

1. Chapter 4 “The First Two Years: The Social World” section “Emotional Development” discusses the significance of variety of early emotions that humans have the experience in their life. The most common and basic forms of emotions that infants present as their age is pain and pleasure. Throughout their life, they develop mentally and physically, as well as learning more emotions that enable them to show expressions, reactions, and reasons that trigger those reactions (Berger, 130) During toddlerhood, between the ages of two and up, emotions are strengthened, for example, toddlers’ laughter and cries are more apparent and amplified. Together with their anger and fear becoming less frequent but directed towards experiences that are terrifying and infuriating. In addition, toddlers often have temper tantrums, “when something angers them, they might yell, scream, cry, hit, and throw themselves on the floor” (Berger, 130) Toddlers’ temper tantrums can even cause more tantrums or worsen the situation if a response from an adult or is negative, like out of anger or teasing the child.

Our emotions, whether it is momentary or long term such as fear for birds, can be controlled through “Emotion Regulation” (ER). ER has been defined in all sorts of ways, one definition that this text draws attention to is Calkins (2007), stating ER as the behaviours, skills and strategies regardless of it being automatic or effortful, that modulates affective arousal that facilitates adaptive functioning. ER is a dynamic system categorized into two main maladaptive styles, one recognised as over regulation which relates to internalised behaviours from regulation through self-control (Martins, Soares, C.Martins, Tereno and Osorio, 2012) and under regulation that involves uncontrollable negative emotion outbursts during engagement of goal-directed behaviours (Roberton, Daffern, & Bucks., 2012). What has been made evident through research, is that this dynamic process of self-regulation, begins early in infancy and continues on through the later years in life (Miller, McDonough, Rosenblum., 2002; Martins et al., 2012). The whole dynamic nature of emotions is derived from infancy and the interactions that are shared during those stages. The construction of ER within Martins et al, 2012 has been labelled in two processes, one being intrinsic and the other being extrinsic. This text studies the maladaptive styles of emotion regulating, in particular, the cause of over regulating in infants. Related to ER, this text also highlights the association between infant emotion

I work as a behavioral interventionist. The child I am working with is learning how to regulate her emotions. She tends to screams, elope, or engage in self-harm when she is frustrated. These episodes can be the results of placing a demand, wanting an item, or been told no by a peer or adult. To prevent these behavior she is being taught to mand for access, termination, and attention properly. The strategies that are being taught to her will help her “understand that [she] directs [her] own action and [is] autonomous being”. It is important for her to learn how to ease emotional discomfort because self-regulation may affect her school achievement and popularity with peers.

In John Gottman’s, Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, it is found that teaching children to regulate and understand their emotions is important in order to create an emotionally healthy generation. Emotional intelligence, which is referred to as an “IQ” of people and the world of feelings (Gottman 17), contributes to the success of life emotionally, socially, and mentally of oneself. According to Gottman, there are multiple contributing factors that influence a child’s emotional intelligence which are parents and their parenting style, parent’s emotional expression, a parent’s interest or relationship with the child specifically between father and child, and the influences of the parent’s relationship on the child. The