Emotional regulation

Emotional Self-Regulation in Early Childhood

• The prefrontal cortex is the part of the brain most involved in emotional self-regulation.
• The maturation of the prefrontal cortex is one key reason why emotional outbursts decline during early childhood.
• Talking about feelings to an adult is NOT mentioned as an effective strategy for regulating emotions in young children.
• Researchers call the process when children focus their attention on managing their emotions effortful control.
• Parents can help young children develop effortful control by providing a calm and predictable environment, responding to the child's emotions in a sensitive way, and teaching the child how to regulate their emotions.
• Children who have inadequately developed emotional self-regulation in early childhood are at risk of problems with peer relationships, school performance, and mental health.
• Excessive self-regulation of emotions can lead to problems such as anxiety, depression, and withdrawal in early childhood and beyond.
• Females are more commonly associated with internalizing problems throughout life.
• Males are more commonly associated with externalizing problems throughout life.
• Erikson proposed that emotional control is central to the development of a sense of autonomy in early childhood.
• Understanding that others can have emotions different from their own is an advance in emotional understanding during early childhood.
• Learning to regulate emotions is considered one of the major developmental tasks of early childhood.
• Past experiences are the basis of subsequent actions according to the text.
• Temper tantrums decrease from age 2 to 6 during early childhood.
• Emotional regulation is crucial to maintaining harmonious social relations.
• Children are usually accurate in explaining the emotions of a situation by age 4.
• Young children become more adept at understanding the emotions of others.
• The frequency of temper tantrums decreases across cultures during early childhood.
• Using words to express their feelings is one example of emotional self-regulation mentioned in the text.
• Studies with children cards depicting expressed emotions show that children can identify emotions in others by the age of 3.