Understanding Emotion in Children

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Emotions are defined as a specific reaction to particular events that usually last a fairly short
duration. Emotions are related to, but different from mood. Mood is a general feeling such
as sadness, frustration, or happiness that lasts for a longer time. Emotion is the subjective,
internal experience of biological reactions arising out of a response to some situation.
Although difficult to define, the general consensus is that emotions are defined as a feeling
that involves physiological arousal (e.g. increase heart rate) and expressive behaviour (e.g.
smile) (Santrock, 2005).

Emotions comprise of both primary and secondary types. Primary emotions are directly
related to the event that caused them. For example: Fear is a direct response to a visible
threat, distress is a direct result of pain, and joy is a direct result of seeing a primary
caregiver. Primary emotions include happiness, anger, fear and sadness. Secondary
emotions, also called social emotions depend on the child’s ability to be aware of, talk
about, and think about themselves in relation to other people (Lewis, 2001; Barrett, 1995).

As a consequence, secondary emotions are reflective and indirect involving a degree of

self-consciousness that allows them opportunity to think about themselves in relation to
other people. As an example, a child may feel angry toward their mother, but rather than
screaming at her, may respond indirectly to her (e.g., the child may start crying or embark in
rebellious behaviour). To feel the secondary emotion of shame, also a self-conscious
emotion, a child must be able to assess their own behaviour and judge whether it is
acceptable in the eyes of others. When a toddler hangs their head, lowers their eyes,
covers their face with their hands, or hides after disobeying, they are expressing shame
(Berk, 2007).

Emotional Development

Emotional development involves learning what feelings and emotions mean, understand
how and why they happen, recognising one’s own feelings and those of others, and
developing effective ways of managing them and responding to them (Sigelman & Rider,
2003). As children grow and are exposed to different situations their emotional lives also
become more complex. Developing skills for managing a range of emotions is therefore
very important for the child’s current and future emotional wellbeing.

Infants cannot vocally describe their emotions. Therefore, the way infants express their
emotions is through facial expressions (Berk, 2007). A baby’s earliest emotional expression
consists of two global stages of development. These are the stage of being attracted to
pleasant stimuli and the second is withdrawal from unpleasant stimuli. Emotions gradually
become clearer in their expression and more organized in their associated response as the
baby develops (Berk, 2007).

Emotional Competence

Emotional competence has been defined by Saarni (1990) as the demonstration of self-
efficacy in the context of emotion-eliciting social transactions. This definition embodies the
idea that while people respond emotionally, they also strategically apply their knowledge
about emotions to their relationships in order to successfully negotiate interpersonal
exchanges by regulating their emotional experience and emotional responses. Saarni
(1990) outlines the following 11 components and skills of emotional competence:

 Awareness of one’s emotional state.

 Ability to discern others’ emotions.
 Ability to use the vocabulary of emotion and expression.
 Capacity for empathic involvement in others’ emotional experiences.
 Ability to realize that inner emotional state need not correspond to outer expression.
 Awareness of cultural display rules.
 Ability to take into account unique personal information about individuals and apply it
when inferring their emotional state.
 Ability to understand that one’s emotional-expressive behaviour may affect another.
 Capacity for coping adaptively with aversive or distressing emotions by using self-
regulatory strategies.
 Awareness that the structure or nature of relationships is in part defined by both the
emotional immediacy and genuineness of expressive display.
 Capacity for emotional self-efficacy.
Emotional competence can be broken down into the following three general components: i)
the experiencing of emotion, ii) the expressing of emotion, and iii) the understanding of
emotion. Denham et al. (1998) presented these three interdependent areas, and further
proposed that emotional understanding is at the heart of emotional competence.

Emotional Understanding

For an individual to be emotionally competent, they must be able to understand emotions of

both their own and others. This includes the ability to recognise and label emotions and the
knowledge to identify causes and consequences of emotions (Denham, 1998; Leerkes,
Paradise, O’Brien, & Calkins, 2008). Emotional understanding aids in self control (Dunn &
Cutting, 1999; Saarni & Harris, 1989) by allowing children to communicate their own
emotional experiences accurately and considerately while responding appropriately to the
emotional signals of others thus enhancing self understanding and social competence
(Denham, 2003; Leerkes, Paradise, O’Brien, & Calkins, 2008). Emotional understanding
involves the following aspects described by Denham (1998):

 Labelling emotional expressions.

 Identifying emotion-eliciting situations.
 Inferring the causes and consequences of emotion-eliciting situations.
 Using emotion language to describe their own emotional experiences and clarify
those of others.
 Recognizing that their own emotional experiences can differ from others’ emotional
experiences.
 Awareness of emotional regulation strategies.
 Knowledge of emotion display rules.
 Knowledge that more than one emotion can be felt at the same time, even if they
conflict.
 Understanding complex social and self-conscious emotions such as guilt.

Psychological Factors

The regulation of emotions through cognitions is associated quite uniquely to human life
and helps people to manage their emotions effectively, particularly after emotionally
provocative experiences and stressful life events. In all stages of life, people have to deal
with a wide range of stressors and challenges to adapt to the world (Garnefski, Rieffe,
Jellesma, Terwogt & Kraaj, 2007). As children grow older, their emotional recognition
repertoire also increases. As their cognitive skills continue to grow, children begin to
understand why people feel as they do. For example, a kindergarten child will generally
understand that unpleasant events often make a person sad or angry (Levine, 1995).

Children at this age also know that they will often feel sad when they think about the
undesirable event itself. They can understand that remembering a past sad event can make
a person unhappy (Lagattuta, 1997). They shift from external behavioural emotions to more
internal cognitive based emotions (Garnefski et al., 2007). By the age of 8 or 9 years old
children can regulate their emotions through cognitions and thoughts. For example: when
experiencing a negative event, some children may have thoughts of blaming themselves,
while others may blame someone else (Garnefski et al., 2007). Cognitive developmental
theorists argue that the caregiver is essential in the child’s emotional understanding
whereby frequent coherent conversation is thought to lead to emotional understanding by
helping the child retrieve, organise and reflect upon emotionally charged episodes (Harris &
Pons, 2003).

Social Factors

A child’s earliest experiences with emotion most often occurs in the family setting.
Consequently, the family plays an important role in the development of emotional
understanding, particularly interactions between parents and children. For example, children
who possess secure attachments with their parents show greater emotional understanding
than those children who do not possess secure attachments (Laible & Thompson, 1998).

Denham, Zoller, and Couchoud (1994) examined family relationships and the discourse
they hold around emotions. It was found that maternal emotional discourse is especially
salient in a child’s development of emotional understanding. Specifically, mothers who
explain their emotions to their children help to promote proficiency in their child’s emotional
understanding. Furthermore, children who are exposed to negative maternal emotions, such
as anger, appear to be at a disadvantage in understanding the emotions of others and their
own.

Peers also have a significant influence on the child’s emotional development. As children
interact with their peers, they create peer cultures in which to carry out the complex
processes of making friends, gaining access to play groups, and facilitating shared action
(Cosaro & Eder, 1990). Because of the intimate nature of friendship, emotional competence
is attained in the context of peers sharing their emotions with each another (Denham et al.,
1994). Dunn and Cutting (1999) also found that four-year-olds who showed emotional
understanding had a more positive interaction with their friends, including cooperative
shared pretend play, low frequency of conflict, and successful communication when
compared to those who did not exhibit emotional understanding.

Other studies confirm that friends who engage and share in conversation about emotion
they experienced more cooperative interactions with each other (Brown, Donelan-McCall, &
Dunn, 1996). Conversely, children who miss important emotional messages or misinterpret
them are at a disadvantage in social situations. This leads to disrupted social interactions,
negative social relationships, and possibly inappropriate behaviour (Holder & Kirkpatrick,
1991).

Child rearing styles also contribute to the development of emotions in children. For
example, a child of authoritarian parents (i.e. a parenting style that tends to make most of
the decisions for the child and can appear cold and rejecting tend to be more anxious,
unhappy with low self esteem and tend to react with hostility when they are frustrated (Berk,
2007). Conversely, an authoritative parenting style (i.e. a parenting style that tends to be
warm, attentive and sensitive to the child’s needs) is more likely to encourage happier
children with high self esteem. Permissive parenting adopts a warm and accepting style yet
uninvolved. Such parents will tend to engage in very little control over their child’s
behaviour. As a consequence, the child of such an approach will tend to be
impulsive,disobedient and often rebellious (Berk, 2007).

Erickson described a psychosocial process of development across the lifespan that

examined the interplay between intrapersonal needs and interpersonal relationships and the
key emotional responses this interplay might typically evoke within the person at key
milestones of development throughout their life. For example, an infant's relationship with
their primary caregiver will influence their level of trust in others and the world. The more
established this sense of trust becomes the more hopeful a person will feel throughout their
life.

Another example can be seen in a preschooler who may be discouraged to take initiatives
in tasks and activities whereby they are made to feel guilty for trying things out but getting it
wrong or making mistakes. Such feelings of guilt, as opposed to feeling a sense of
motivation and pride in giving things a go, could inhibit the child from taking initiative
throughout their life. The examples of Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development above
offer an overview of how long term emotional dispositions can develop and impact the
individual throughout their entire life through important psychosocial interactions. Table 1
below offers further detail of Erikson’s stages of psychosocial development and the
emotions considered to be developed as a consequence of the interactions contained within
it.

Table 1. Erickson’s Psychosocial Developmental Stages

Stage Basic Important Outcome

Conflict Events

Infancy Trust vs. Feeding Children develop a sense of trust when

(birth to 18 Mistrust caregivers provide reliability, care, and
months) affection. A lack of this will lead to
mistrust.

Early Autonomy Toilet Children need to develop a sense of

Childhood vs. Shame Training personal control over physical skills and a
(2 to 3 and Doubt sense of independence. Success leads to
years) feelings of autonomy, failure results in
feelings of shame and doubt.

Initiative vs. Exploration Children need to begin asserting control

Preschool Guilt and power over the environment. Success
(3 to 5 in this stage leads to a sense of purpose.
years) Children who try to exert too much power
experience disapproval, resulting in a
sense of guilt.

School Age Industry vs. School Children need to cope with new social and
(6 to 11 Inferiority academic demands. Success leads to a
years) sense of competence, while failure results
in feelings of inferiority.

Adolescenc Identity vs. Social Teens need to develop a sense of self and
e Role Relationshi personal identity. Success leads to an
(12 to 18 Confusion ps ability to stay true to yourself, while failure
years) leads to role confusion and a weak sense
of self.

Young Intimacy vs. Relationshi Young adults need to form intimate, loving
Adulthood Isolation ps relationships with other people. Success
 (19 to 40 leads to strong relationships, while failure
years) results in loneliness and isolation.

Middle Generativity Work and Adults need to create or nurture things

Adulthood vs. Parenthood that will outlast them, often by having
(40 to 65 Stagnation children or creating a positive change that
years) benefits other people. Success leads to
feelings of usefulness and
accomplishment, while failure results in
shallow involvement in the world.

Maturity Ego Reflection Older adults need to look back on life and
(65 to Integrity vs. on Life feel a sense of fulfillment. Success at this
death) Despair stage leads to feelings of wisdom, while
failure results in regret, bitterness, and
despair.

Biological Factors

Feeling an emotion is dependent upon two factors: the physical changes (for example:
increased or decreased heart rate or heightened blood pressure) and cognitions. Cognitions
are used to interpret the meaning of physiological reactions to outside events. It is believed
that physiological changes occur first and then interpretation of those physical changes
through cognitive processes follow and together they create an emotion (Castelli, 2005).

Some of the first circuits the brain builds are those that govern emotions. Emotions are said
to originate from the limbic system of the brain. The limbic system consists of four main
parts of the brain namely the amygdala, hypothalamus, thalamus and the hippocampus. No
particular area of the limbic system is responsible for any specific emotion as they are all
interconnected in the triggering of emotions. However, researchers believe that the
amygdale is among the most important brain structure affecting emotions. The amygdala
interprets the primary emotions such as anger and it is essential for an individual’s ability to
feel certain emotions and to perceive them in other people. Thus, the left prefrontal cortex is
associated with positive emotions while the right prefrontal cortex seems to be implicated in
negative affect and withdrawal.

Understanding Emotion in Children

Chapter 2 - Emotional Development

Right from birth until about six months of age, infants display signs that indicate the
presence of all the basic emotions (Berk, 2007). In this period the social smile and laughter
appear. The infant seems happier when interacting with familiar people, and emotional
expressions are linked in to social events. In terms of understanding, the infant seems to
come into the world already receptive to the subjective states of other people whereby they
are able to match the feeling tone of caregivers in face-to-face communication (Peterson,
1996).

Between seven and twelve months, negative emotions such as fear and anger become
more prominent in parallel to an increasing fear of strangers. Concurrently, the infant begins
to use the primary caregiver as a secure base for exploration while becoming more able to
self-regulate his or her emotions. In this period social referencing develops, that is, the
infant checks the emotional display/reaction of the caregiver to obtain guidance on how to
act. In the second year of life, the self-conscious emotions (including pride, shame, guilt,
envy, and embarrassment) emerge.

As cognitive development accelerates between the ages of three and six, the child also
develops increasing linkages between cognition and emotion, which give rise to better
emotional self-regulation, to the extent that a positive emotional display can be achieved
without an associated positive feeling state. The increasing affective–cognitive links also
foster a better understanding and interpretation of the emotional displays of others. After
age six until about age eleven, emotional development involves the integration of self-
conscious emotions with a developing moral code. Emotional self-regulation becomes more
internalised and situation specific, and the ability to conform to the rules of emotional
display improves. Emotional understanding also expands to take in multiple sources of
information when interpreting the emotions of others and the realisation that emotional
display may be deceptive. Naturally, further development is a life time affair (Berk, 2007).

Facial Expression Recognition

The ability to recognise facial expressions is a basic aspect of emotion understanding. Two
theories have been proposed regarding the nature of the recognition of facial expressions.
One theory, supported by Universalists, proposes that facial expressions are innate and
universal. Specifically, Universalists believe that the same muscular movements are
associated with the same emotion in all people (Ekman, 1972, 1994; Izard, 1994).
Relativists, on the other hand, support the idea that facial expressions are linked to
language, are learned, and are specific to culture (Russell, 1994). Izard (1994) supports the
universal approach and proposes a primary set of emotions that can be easily conveyed
facially. However, conflicting findings have led researchers to question which emotions are
primary. Turner (2000) reviewed several different studies from many disciplines and found
the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, and anger, to be among the primary emotions.
Developmental professionals agree that babies experience six primary emotions. These are
joy, fear, anger, surprise, sadness, and disgust. Between 18 and 24 months of age, babies
begin to experience secondary emotions or self conscious emotions, including
embarrassment, pride, shame, guilt, and envy. These emotions are summarised in Figure 1.

In discussing the universal nature of recognising emotion, Harris and Saarni (1989)
suggested that a child’s early recognition of emotion may be based on facial expressions. In
fact, recent research documents that infants are able to both produce and recognise
emotional expressions (Campos, Barrett, Lamb, Goldsmith, & Stenberg, 1983; Izard &
Malatesta, 1987, Nelson, 1987). Some researchers suggest that these earliest recognitions
may begin with infants recognising the difference between positive and negative affective
tones (Camras & Allison, 1985; Berk, 2007). It is important to note that although the
recognition of facial expression develops at an early age, the meaning and significance of
these facial expressions develops as the infant grows (Harris & Saarni, 1989; Berk 2007).

Camras and Allison (1985) examined young children’s abilities to recognise facial
expressions of emotion. They found that children from preschool to second grade were
accurate in the recognition of happiness, surprise, anger, sadness, fear, and disgust in
adults. They also found differences between the emotions. For
example, happiness and sadnesswere recognised more easily than the other emotions.
Anger was easier to discern than scared; and disgust was the most difficult emotion to
recognise. In addition, Felleman et al. (1983) found that children have greater difficulty
discerning between anger and sadness than discerning between other primary emotions.
Despite the variance in the ease of recognition between emotions, the overall accuracy of
identification across all the emotions observed in these studies was high.

Primary Emotions

Age Emotion

3 Months Happiness
 Sadness

Disgust

2-6 months Anger

First 6 months Surprise

6 to 18 months Fear

Secondary Emotions

Age Emotions

1 ½ to 2 years Empathy

Jealousy

Embarrassment

2 ½ years Pride

Shame

Guilt

Figure 1. First Appearance of Different Emotion

Adapted from: (Santrock, 2005)

Primary Emotions

Happiness

Happiness is usually expressed as blissful smiles and exuberant laughter. Smiling is an

important communication medium of infants and occurs in two ways: the social smile and
the reflexive smile. The social smile refers to a smile that is in response to external stimuli.
The reflexive smile refers to a smile that is not a result of external stimuli. In infants, the
reflexive type of smile usually occurs in their sleep (Peterson, 1996). Happiness is
characterised by positive emotions like joy, delight, pleasure and laughter. Laughter, which
occurs around three to four months in infants, reflects faster processing of information as
compared to smiling (Berk, 2007). Laughter usually occurs as a response to very active
stimuli, for example tickling of the tummy.

Anger

Anger is the experience of extreme displeasure. It is a basic emotion that first appears when
infants are three to four months old. Anger among infants is characterised by a facial
expression involving eyebrows that are lowered and drawn together, eyes that are
narrowed, and a mouth that is opened and angular. Angry infants also engage in an angry
cry in which excess air is forced through the vocal cords. Anger during early infancy occurs
when parents fail to meet their infants' needs.

During the toddler period, anger arises from frustration over the child’s unsuccessful
attempts to control objects or events. Emotional regulation first begins in toddlerhood and
involves the suppression or appropriate expression of anger. Effective regulation of anger,
or anger management, is related to positive relationships with peers throughout childhood
and adolescence. Ineffective regulation of anger may result in poor peer relationships,
behaviour problems, bullying, and deviancy throughout childhood and adolescence.

Fear

Fear happens to all of us. It can be said to be nature's way of stopping us from doing things
that may hurt us, such as leaning out from a high cliff or trying to fight someone bigger than
us. Children begin to experience the emotion of fear during the second half of their first
year. The most frequent expression of fear is toward unfamiliar adults, a response called
stranger anxiety (Berk, 2007). Stranger anxiety occurs when infants or children feel
uncomfortable or frightened when approached by someone they do not know.

Stranger anxiety can occur even when the child is in a safe environment with a trusted care
giver. Most infants and toddlers are wary of strangers although the reaction doesn’t always
occur. Several factors including the child’s temperament (some babies are generally
fearful), past experiences with strangers and the current situation, can evoke stranger
anxiety (Berk, 2007). A stranger’s interaction can also impact on the child’s fear. For
example, a stranger who expresses warmth and is gradual rather than abrupt in their
approach to the child is more likely to reduce the baby’s fear (Berk, 2007; Santrock, 2005).
Understanding Emotion in Children
Chapter 3 - Working with Loss and Grief

The death of a loved one is always difficult. For children, the death of a loved one can affect
their sense of security. Like adults, children express loss by grieving and yet children may
not demonstrate their grief openly as adults. Grief may affect their behaviour, the way in
which they take in information, and their need for support. This will depend on the child,
their age, and their emotional maturity. It will also depend on who the child has lost to death.
A child's experience of grief varies depending on the type of loss and the developmental
stage of the child. For example, moving to a new town may precipitate a grief response that
is mild and transient, while grief from the loss of a parent most likely threaten the foundation
of the child's world. Young children express grief in vastly different ways from teens and
adults.

Like any person, children express their grief by their behaviour, thoughts, emotions and
physical reactions. The initial expressions of grief in children range from regression, temper
tantrums, and exaggerated fears in younger children to physical symptoms, lack of
concentration, and mood swings in older children. Grieving children may not dwell on the
person who died and may continue to carry on with activities (for example: they may be sad
one minute and be playful the next). A child’s grieving period may be shortened because
they will tend not to think through their own thoughts and feelings like adults (ruminate) and
also the child may have trouble putting their thoughts into words compared to adults, due to
their limited vocabulary. As a consequence, children will tend to favour their behaviour as a
primary means through which to portray their grief.

Children’s Grief and Developmental Stages

2 -3 years

Children at this age tend to have no understanding of death and are more likely to react to
separation from the significant person and changes in their world. Toddlers are generally
curious at this stage about where things go and gain delight in disappearance and
reappearance. The distress associated with changes in their environment due to the death
of a loved one may result in the following reactions:
  Crying
 Searching
 Change in sleep
 Change in eating habits
3-6 years

With language and learning comes an interest in the world. Children at this age tend to be
full of questions, often repeated. Children at this age tend to see death as a kind of sleep.
They cannot fully separate death from life. Being dead may mean for a child at this age, to
be living under different circumstances. For example, the child may continue to think that
the deceased is still living despite witnessing the burial. As a result the child may continue
to ask questions about the deceased and wondering over such things like why the
deceased is not getting hungry or how can the deceased eat when they are underground.
Children at this age may equate death with punishment. They will tend to communicate their
feelings and emotions through:

 Separation fears
 Tantrums
 Crying
 fighting
6-9 years

Children at this age have the mental capacity to comprehend simple concepts like germs
and disease. So they have a better capacity to understand the basic causes of death than
younger children. However, their emotional understanding can be incongruent whereby
there is less sophistication in their beliefs and thoughts about how bad things happen. So
they may tend to fabricate their basic comprehension of the cause of death with other less
realistic phenomena. Feelings of insecurity resulting from the death may be expressed in
the reluctance to separate from surviving caregivers. Children at this age will tend to
personify death and are likely to display the following:

 Anger
 Denial
 Irritability
 Withdrawal
9-12 years

Children at this age will tend to have acquired a mature understanding of death. They will
usually understand that death is final and have a better comprehension of the reality of
cause. It is more along the lines of an adult understanding of death and will therefore often
be accompanied by adult like behaviours such as feeling a sense of responsibility. They
may have a strong need to control their feelings and may have difficulty doing so. The most
common reactions are:

 Withdrawal
 Crying
 Isolation
 Sleep disturbance
 Longing
 aggression

Understanding Emotion in Children

Chapter 4 - Teaching Children to Deal with Emotions

For children to deal effectively with the experience of strong feelings, they must first know
how to identify their feelings. It is important to talk to children about their feelings and help
them see the link between their feelings and their behaviour. This will help them gain an
understanding of how their feelings can affect the choices they make, thus improving their
level of self control.

Identifying feelings activity

Young children can learn a variety of words to describe different feelings.

Directions:

1. Tell the child that you would like to talk about feelings and explain how we can get
messages about how wee feel from the way our body behaves. These messages tell
us how we feel about experiences. (e.g., If you win a game you might smile and
laugh. If someone says something mean you might cry.)
 2. Ask the child to provide examples of their own feelings. E.g. “Can you tell me about a
time you felt happy? Sad? Angry?” (Limit examples to three or four.)
3. Next, ask the child to name as many feelings as they can, and to decide if each is a
comfortable feeling (e.g. happy, excited, joyful, proud), or an uncomfortable feeling
(e.g., angry, sad, embarrassed). You can use a chalkboard or paper to list feelings in
two columns.
4. Ask, “How do you show you are happy, sad, angry, scared, etc.?”
5. Use the following situations to act out with the child (you can use puppets as above).
Ask the child to name the emotion that the situation is more likely to elicit from a list
provided.
o “Your class is going to receive an extra recess because they did a great job
on their spelling test! [artwork, music, reading, etc.]”
o “You made a drawing and your older brother (sister) tells you that “you can’t
draw.”
o “You just heard a friend say that anyone wearing a blue shirt is “stupid.”

Steps for teaching children to problem solve:

 Think about what happened. (Refer to a recent situation.)

 Think of how your body feels. (It will be necessary to review several basic feeling
words with young children to help them identify some ways our body tells us how we
are feeling.)
 Recognise the feeling.
 SAY, “I feel ______.”

Dealing with feelings of anger

Anger is a natural reaction to some of the experiences we encounter in everyday life.

Teaching children how to effectively manage their anger and choose pro-social actions to
resolve problems at an early age is an important task. This is because it will improve their
ability to cope with a range of life events and situations that can evoke anger while
improving their tolerance and choice of behaviours for dealing with such things in the most
constructive way. Below are some activities that can be used when guiding children on how
to deal with their anger.

Teach children these 4 steps for problem solving when angry

 1. RECOGNIZE you are feeling angry (face is red, hands are clenched, possibly
beginning to cry)
2. COUNT to 10.
3. THINK about your choices:
o Walk away for now.
o Relax and take some deep breaths.
o Tell the person in nice words using an inside/calm voice why you are angry.
4. ACT out your best choice.
Good Choice/Bad Choice Activity

Young children can learn to identify their choices for responding when they are in anger
provoking situations, through the acquisition of independent pro-social decision making
skills. This activity aims to facilitate the development of such decision making skills when
angry.

It requires paper (like butcher paper or poster board) and markers or crayons.

Directions:

1. Tell the child they have to practice very good listening skills, because they will have
to decide “what would you do?”
2. Make two columns on the paper, one titled “Good Choices” and the other “Bad
Choices”.
3. Read the first scenario provided in the list below.
4. After reading the scenario, ask the child to think of several actions they might have
seen someone do or they might have done themselves in response to similar
situations.
5. Then ask the child to decide whether the action/s explained in the step above was a
good choice or bad choice. IIt may be necessary to prompt the child to identify if it
was a bad or a good choice using questions such as, “What did the person’s face
do? What did the person’s body do? How do you think the person felt? How could
you tell? What happened?”.
6. At the end of the step above, place a big “X” over the bad choice column, and
transfer the “good choice” answers onto another sheet of poster/butcher paper that
can be hung up as a reminder in an appropriate location (child’s bedroom, kitchen,
computer room, etc.). Encourage your child to draw illustrations on the poster.
Sample situations:

 A neighbour child calls you a name that you don’t like.

 Your friend broke your new toy that you got for your birthday.
 Your mum won’t let you go to the movies with your friend’s family.

Conclusion

A child’s response to the different feelings they experience every day has a major impact on
their choices, their behaviour, and on how well they cope and enjoy life. Emotional
development involves learning what feelings and emotions are, how and why they happen,
recognising one’s own feelings, recognising the feelings of others and developing effective
ways of managing them.

As children grow and are exposed to different situations, their emotional lives also become
more complex. Developing skills to manage the complex array of emotions experienced
throughout life is an important goal to achieve for the sake of current and future
relationships and overall emotional wellbeing.

ongratulations!
You have completed the Understanding Emotion in Children course with 18 out of 18 (100%)
questions answered correctly.

In this course, you have learned:

 Aetiology of emotions
o Emotional Development
o Emotional Competence
o Emotion Understanding
o Psychological Factors
o Social Factors
o Biological Factors
 A closer look at emotion development in children
o Facial expression recognition
 o Primary Emotions
 Working with loss and Grief in children
 Manifestations of grief and developmental stages
 Teaching children how to deal with emotions
Understanding Emotion in Children
Chapter 5 - Assessment

Welcome to the course assessment. Please select the best answer for each of the multiple
choice options provided below. Once you have selected an answer, click the "Save
Progress" button to record it. Any answer you save will remain recorded (even if you logout)
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To complete this course and obtain your certificate of attainment, you must attain the
minimum 80% pass mark. If you have submitted your answers and have not attained this
mark, you will be able to return to your assessment, save new answers, and re-submit your
work. When you receive your assessment results, incorrect answers will be marked to
assist with your learning (or re-submission) process.
1.
Complete the following statement: "_________ is/are defined as a specific reaction to
particular events that usually last a fairly short duration."
A. Emotions
B. Mood
C. Feelings
D. Arousal
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2.
What is the definition of primary emotions?
A. Emotions that are more reflective and indirect
B. Emotions that are directly related to the event that caused them
C. Emotions that arise from traumatic experiences
D. None of the above
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3.
The skills for emotional competence include the following, except:
A. Ability to discern others' emotions
B. Ability to use the vocabulary of emotion and expression
C. Capacity for empathic involvement in others' emotional experiences
D. Knowledge of emotion display rules
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4.
What are the three components of emotional competence?
A. Experiencing of emotion
B. Expressing of emotion
C. Understanding of emotion
D. All of the above
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5.
Emotions are a mixture of:
A. Acute damage to the self and intentional damage
B. Physiological changes and cognitive processes
C. Conscious experience and unconscious experience
D. Physiological changes and universal processes
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Identify whether the following statements are true or false.

6a.
Children who possess secure attachments to their parents show greater understanding of
emotion than those children who do not possess secure attachments.
A. True
B. False
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6b.
Infants cannot vocally describe their feelings or their emotions.
A. True
B. False
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6c.
As children grow older, their emotional recognition repertoire also decreases.
A. True
B. False
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6d.
The quality of interactions between parents and children does not influence the
development of emotion understanding.
A. True
B. False
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6e.
Emotions are said to originate from the limbic system of the brain.
A. True
B. False
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7.
The following are an example of primary emotions, except:
A. Happiness
B. Fear
C. Anger
D. Shame
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8.
At what age do secondary emotions begin to emerge?
A. 2 months
B. 6 months
C. 12 months
D. 18 months
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9.
A smile is an example of which primary emotion?
A. Happiness
B. Excitement
C. Anger
D. Connectedness
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10.
Stranger anxiety is associated with which emotion?
A. Happiness
B. Fear
C. Anger
D. Shame
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11.
How do children generally express their grief?
A. Through thoughts
B. Through behaviours
C. Through emotions
D. Through all of the above
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12.
2 to 3 years old children are more likely to display their distress though the following,
except:
A. Tantrums
B. Crying
C. Changes in sleep and eating
D. Searching
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13.
At what age do children begin to view death as final?
A. 2-3 years
B. 6-9 years
C. 3-6 years
D. 9-12 years
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14.
At what age do children see death as a kind of sleep?
A. 2-3 years
B. 6-9 years
C. 3-6 years
D. 9-12 years’

Understanding Emotion in Children

Chapter 6 - References

 Berk, L. (2007). Development through the lifespan (4th ed.). Boston, MA: Pearson

 Brown, J. R., Donelan-McCall, N., & Dunn, J. (1996). Why talk about mental states?
The significance of children’s conversation with friends, siblings, and
mothers. Child Development, 67, 836-859.
 Camras, L., & Allison, K. (1985). Children’s understanding of emotional facial
expressions and verbal labels.Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 9, 84-94.

 Campos, J. J., Barrett, K. C., Lamb, M. E., Goldsmith, H. H., & Stenberg, C. (1983).
Socioemotional development. In P. Mussen, Handbook of Child Psychology: Vol. II:
Infancy and developmental psychobiology (pp. 783-915). New York: Wiley.

 Cosaro, W., & Eder, D. (1990). Children’s peer cultures. Annual Review of
Sociology, 16,197-220.

 Denham, S. (1998). Emotional development in young children. New York: Guilford

Press.

 Denham, S., Zoller, D., & Couchoud, E. A. (1994). Socialization of preschoolers’

emotion understanding.Developmental Psychology, 30, 928-936.

 Dunn, J., & Cutting, A. L. (1999). Understanding others, and individual differences in
friendship interactions in young children. Social Development, 8, 201-219.

 Ekman, P. (1972). Universals and cultural differences in facial expressions of

emotion. In J. R. Cole (Ed.), (pp 207-273). Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.

 Garnefski, N., Rieffe, A., Jellesma, F., Terwogt, M.M., & Kraaij,V. (2007). Cognitive
emotion regulation strategies and emotional problems in 9-11 year old
children. European Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 16, 1-9.

 Holder, H. B., & Kirkpatrick, S. W. (1991). Interpretations of emotion from facial

expressions in children with and without learning disabilities. Journal of
Learning Disabilities, 28, 170-177.
 Izard, C. E. (1994). Innate and universal facial expressions: Evidence from
developmental and cross-cultural research. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 288-299.

 Laible, D. J., & Thompson, R. A. (1998). Attachment and emotional understanding in

preschool children.Developmental Psychology, 34, 108-1045.

 Leerkes, E.M., Paradise, M., O’Brien, M., Calkins, S.D. (2008). Emotion and
cognition processes in preschool children. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly, 54, 102-124.

 Peterson, C (1996). Looking forward through the lifespan (3rd ed.).French Forest,
NSW: Prentice Hall.

 Saarni, C. (1990). Emotional competence: How emotions and relationships become

integrated. In R.A. Thompson (Ed.), Nebraska Symposium on Motivation: Vol
36. Socioemotional development (pp. 115-161). Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press.

 Santrock, H.W. (2005). A topical approach to life span development (2nd ed.). New
York. NY: McGraw Hill

 Sigelman, C.K. & Rider, E.A. (2003). Lifespan Human Development (4th ed.).
Belmont, CA: Wadsworth.