¶ … difficult to ignore the various challenges that children face in the 21 century -- which can be largely attributed to the long list of difficult situations that children today have to deal with from a very young age; namely, high divorce rates, child abuse, bulling, and child pregnancies, just to name a few. The conventional focus on cognitive development is, of course, important. However, it is imperative for the emotional development of a child to go hand in hand with their intellectual and social development; particularly because a child's healthy emotional state largely depends on their interaction with adults on all three levels. Specifically, the main focus should be on the emotional development of a child because children's emotions are central to their lives, and they are the ones that will determine their preparedness and ability to deal with the obstacles they are bound to encounter in different stages of life.
By definition, emotional development is the growth in a child's ability to differentiate between emotions, express then in socially acceptable ways, and identify as well as comprehend emotional content from other people's communication, based on their interactions. According to Wilson (2003), children are varied, which makes it difficult to assess emotional development. Nevertheless, understanding children's emotional perspectives entails understanding their social experiences, then making inferences that will provide an emotional account of the child. Therefore, inferences that explain the emotional development of a child are largely influenced by their upbringing. To further understand the process of emotional development in both children and adults, this text takes a look at emotions in detail and evaluated how they develop. It then analyzes the mental systems that are involved in emotional development and determines the main drivers of the process.
Emotion
While emotion is hard to define because of its intertwinement with other mental processes, Wilson (2003) summarizes it as a state of feeling that comes about because of what an individual perceives, thinks, learns, remembers, what motivates them, or a combination of all these processes. Emotions result in psychological and physical changes that will influence the child's behavior - and it frequently involves cognition. In children, emotion is always influenced by the child's ability to understand and evaluate the worth of different emotions, based on how much they remember and the meaning they attach to the same. Therefore, emotion is heterogeneous and includes a wide variety of psychological phenomena (Berk, 2009)
What are the different ways in which emotions vary?
Emotions may vary by interpretation, intensity, duration, function, and expression (Wilson, 2003). Children and adolescents, therefore, interpret emotions differently, some being positive and pleasurable emotions and others, negative and unpleasant emotions. Berk (2009) claims it is not, however, easy to classify emotion as either positive or negative. A good example is that of a child on a rollercoaster, where fear, often a negative emotion, is viewed in a positive aspect. The intensity and strength may also vary according to their duration. Some emotions in children, such as shock, may occur over a short period of time, while others, such as jealousy, may extend over longer periods.
Emotions also vary in terms of how they are expressed, with intense emotions being expressed frequently and others being subtle. According to Wilson (2003), the ability to control how an emotion is expressed is acquired during childhood and it is essential for harmonious social relationships in adulthood. Wilson also states that emotion can be used to communicate inner feelings, promote a desire to learn and control the environment, so as to facilitate instant responses to emergencies.
Other mental systems that are involved
Emotions cannot be accurately defined without inference to other mental systems (Wilson, 2003). To attach meaning to emotion, therefore, it is imperative to consider how it is linked to other element of children and adolescents' functioning. The three main systems involved in emotional development are: physiological concomitants, a subjective feeling, and the expression of emotion.
Physiological concomitants
In regard to physiological concomitants, the main focus is on neurological, visceral and dermal aspects. The neurological aspect refers to the fact that emotional intelligence is related to cognition, which is influenced by the neocortex in the brain. Wilson (2003) asserts that this cortex is important in the subjective experience of emotion and in infants, the brain is not fully developed, hence emotion is quite spontaneous and reliant on emotional expressions. However, as children become adults, the upper limbic cortical system of the brain allows a more subjective experience of emotion, which allows them to exercise control over feelings....
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