Emotional Development

Emotional development involves feelings about others and yourself. Along with the intense progress intellectual, motor, and social development, emotional development is also very important.

During their middle childhood, toddlers become much better at understanding a wide range of their emotional reactions and can accurately recognize and understand other people’s feelings and emotions. The preschool age is also characterised  by the development of imagination, and with it, there are specific fears of imaginary witches, dragons, and monsters. Younger preschoolers can properly judge the causes of underlying emotional responses. With age, toddlers learn that a given emotional state largely depends on their well-being and mental state, not the environment. Pre-school children can also accurately read non-verbal signals and, based on external expressions of emotions (facial expressions, speech, gestures), predict the behaviour of their peers during play. There are also differences in the way we experience and express emotions. In addition to physiological signs, such as redness or sweating, many motor signs of emotion are observed, such as clapping, jumping. Under the influence of educational interactions, the expression of negative emotions, especially fear and anger, is limited. Around the age of  2-3years old emotions such as shame, guilt, pride, jealousy, and embarrassment arise. Each of these emotions is reflected in the child’s attitude, for example, when he is proud of himself, he tucks his chest forward, and when he feels guilty, he tucks his head down.

New emotions arise as a result of contacts with the environment that are important for the child’s self-esteem and the assessment made by others. The development of a child’s self-image, and especially of a child’s ideas, influences the development of a sense of shame. From the age of 2, there is a marked increase in the ability and tendency to talk about emotions, name them and reflect on them. Thanks to this, children can share their experiences and remain intimate with other people. Young children are capable of helping and sharing experiences when they see others in trouble. Empathy improves with intellectual development and the ability to take other people’s perspectives into account.The pre-school period is also a time of specific development of fears, related to the wide imagination of children, which suggests pictures, creating visions of monsters hidden under the bed or ghosts being around the house. There may also experience a fear of the dark, storm, animals, or separation anxiety in the event of separation from the mother.