Learning and Development I

Esther Asensio Castillo

24/10/2014

CHILD DEVELOPMENT:
*Emotional development: Zac (2 months) is more quite in front of different people he
doesnt know, whereas Brenda and Emily (13 and 23 months) are more wary about the
unknown people -when the writer give to Emily a toy, she first give it to her mum and
when she encourage her to play with it, she do it. Its like her mum has given to her
because she knows it is a safe thing which she can touch and play with-.
Emotional development is a fast expanding area of research. This discussion is
about the functions of emotions in the daily human life, and how the emotional
expression changes through years. It is also important the individual differences as the
temperament and personality and the biological and environmental contributions that
have created all those differences and how it will develop.
Emotions and cognitive processing: emotional reactions are essential for survival.
Thats why children have to learn them by experience; they have to fall or to have a
shock to be conscious that there are dangers and that you have to listen and be aware
of what the adults are saying to you to avoid them. It is also important the power that
emotions have over the memory, a children who has had a sad situation for example in
one fieldtrip will remember better this day that one who spend a current day in the trip.
Emotions and social behavior: as it is known, the emotional signals (smiling, crying,
shouting) effect on the others behavior, making them change their temper. Through
different studies has been clear that even the younger children response to a face-toface interaction (it means it has to be a human face, it cant be a doll or a mask). But
with age the expressions changes; the babies use the emotional expressions to make
the others know their intentions and needs whereas the infants start to communicate
through them. Moreover, in front of unfamiliar people, objects or events, the older
infants pay close attention to their babysitters response, it is because they use her as
a guide to know how to act when they dont know the situation. This is called social
referencing and its a way that children use in order to learn how to act in front of new
or different situations.
Emotions and health: emotions influence the physical well-being of the children. For
example, having periods of stress makes your blood pressure, elevate heart rate,
reduce digestive processes so we can see that the emotions play a really important
paper in our social life but also in our physics. Thats why the children who have had a
difficult life (stress periods, families depressions) or have been less attendance by
adults (have had less humans warm) tend to have more physical problems or more
diseases. One of the most daily relation between the emotions and the health on the
children life is the parental depression, which always show an effect on the child
development. Because of the marriage or the child births the parents can feel some
kind of sadness or decontrol of their own life, it makes them to change their mood and
be less effective with the child, adding the stress it creates. It clearly effect on the
children development because s/he is growing up in a family which has a lack of good
emotions and sensations, it is not a good environment for a children to develop. Thats
why a lot of those children have serious problems linked in violent antisocial behavior.

Development of Emotional Expression: children dont know how to explain how they
are feeling, it is a challenge for them and its a skill that has to be developed through
the years.
*Basic emotions: happiness, interest, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, disgust. All
of them are universal and promotes survival. The question is when those
emotions appear, well in my opinion they are innate, and according to the text it
is. The babies already put a sad face when they cant take an object or a happy
face when you give it to them.
Happiness is expressed through smiles and laughs and it really contributes in a
lot of parts of the development, as it is encouraging and motivating. Anger and
sadness are used for the kids in the unpleasant experiences and this
expression increases with age, because old children are more capable to know
what they want or who is removing them a toy. Fear also increases with age,
specially the fear to the unknown adults; stranger anxiety.
*Self-conscious emotions: but there are also some more emotions which
appears lately (over 18 to 24 month) when the child starts to be conscious of
their sense of self. For example when you know you have hurt somebody you
are feeling bad with yourself.
*Emotional self-regulation: although it is a wider range of emotions, children
learn to manage some emotional experiences. It is referred to the strategies we
use to adjust our emotional state to a comfortable level of intensity so we can
accomplish our goals. As we all know, the emotions mature with the age as the
person also do it. In the first stage; the infancy, the kids have a little control on
their emotional states. It means that they have facility on being overwhelmed by
their own emotions. Then, during the early childhood (from 2 to 4 years) the
children start talking about what they feel and try to manage all those emotions
they have inside. It means that they start managing the emotional selfregulation strategies. Finally, in the middle childhood and adolescence, this
emotional self-regulation is developed very fast. Moreover those strategies are
more specificity, flexible and varied.
Acquiring Emotional Display Rules: but it is not only important to manage the internal
emotions, in a society is very important how to communicate to the others what you
want them to know. This aspect have to be learned during the development of the
child, as in every culture exist different emotional display rules that tells you how, when
and where you have to express the emotions. It is an important knowledge, because in
my opinion, when you know how to express to the others your thoughts is when you
really understand your emotions and feelings and it is really wonderful and rewarding
for oneself.