Developing Socio-Emotional
Skills at Low School Age
Alexe Luminița Erna1
Abstract: The success of adapting to the requirements of the environment with the level of development of intellectual abilities has been recently associated, separating the rationality of emotions. Although the skills are very important, emotions are a source of vital information for survival. Emotional intelligence in adult life has its origins in the development of socio-emotional skills in the small school age, a period of fundamental acquisition in emotional, social and cognitive terms. Emotional awareness is the basic ability to purchase the other components. Children learn about emotions and how they can be properly managed in the context of social interactions. Their experiences in relationships with others help them learn about the rules of expressing emotions, about their recognition, about emotional adjustment.
Keywords: recognition emotion; social; children; behavior; abilities; competent; game
We would all like a pleasant, peaceful life, with successes and accomplishments. Thus, the period of small schooling is a significant stage in establishing the bases of psychic activity and the personality traits of children. As they grow they have more and more opportunities to develop their behavior. Therefore, besides the intellectual abilities that are very important, emotions are a source of information essential to survival. They circumscribe those complex psychic experiences that imprint multidimensionally a person's functioning.
Emotions are our way of adapting to the environment. The first factors that can act as regulators in this process are the family and the school environment. Using emotions in different contexts is a way to teach children to recognize and name their emotions or others as a model and a coach for developing emotional and social skills. Children learn what emotions are and how to react to them by observing the adult behavior. The teacher can support the emotional development of the child through different behaviors. Children’s reaction to day-to-day situations differs according to the temperament they have.
In the same situation, two children can react differently in terms of intensity of emotion, duration of activation threshold and duration of restoration of the state of calm. Beyond the behaviors that children exhibit when experiencing a certain emotion, there are a number of temperamental differences that are harder to observe, depending on how the body and mind of children react when they are exposed to certain situations and which represent the invisible face of emotional reactivity.
Emotions are our way of adapting to the environment. Depending on the type of emotion experienced in a particular situation, the child learns to recognize his or her emotional and mental needs and to act accordingly. When the child experiences an emotion, it is important to teach him three aspects: - How to identify and recognize their lived emotions? - What is the need for adaptation that the emotion signals? - How to change his behavior or how to perceive the situation in such a way as to adapt to the situation?
The first factors that can regulate this process are the family and the school environment. Parents’ attitudes towards their children range from excessive tolerance to harsh attitudes towards inappropriate behavior of children. The source of these attitudes is represented by the parents' expectations, which may be inappropriate in relation to the age and the abilities of the children. To this is added the style of parents to express their emotions.
Teachers’ reactions to emotional manifestations of children are an important source of learning about emotions. Using emotions in different contexts is a way to teach children to recognize and name their own emotions or others as a model, but also a coach for developing emotional and social skills. Children learn what emotions are and how to react to them by observing adult behavior. When the educator observes and gives attention to the emotions of the child, he conveys the message to him that emotions are healthy and that they are an important source of adaptation to the environment. When the teacher and parents express emotions and manage their emotions well, the child learns how to respond to emotions. The child begins by identifying the excitement of others by facial expression or voice tone. Later the kid learns to link the emotion to a behavior or situation, such as: the child is sad because he has lost his toy.
The main source of learning about relationships with others at pre-school and small school age is the game. Involvement of children in a game facilitates the development of the ability to initiate interactions. These positive interactions with other colleagues lead to the formation of friendship relations, to the development of cooperation skills.
Friends are emotional resources for spending leisure time. Researchers show that the period of time when a person laughs, smiles, talks with others is much larger between friends than among people who know less themselves.
In these moments of relaxation, certain chemicals called “endorphins” that strengthen the immune system are discharged into the body. Also, friends are a buffer against the negative effects of events such as family conflicts, divorce, school problems. In these situations, children are a little distant from the family and call friends to get the necessary emotional support.
Thus, they are a learning resource in situations that a child does not know how to solve them. Children can mimic the behavior of their friend when he does not know what to do or can ask directly for help (e.g. How to build the castle?).
Studies show that sharing information and skills is more effective among friends than between children who are not known because they have more trust in each other and feel less vulnerable when expressing difficulties in a field. Because emotional and social skills have such an important role in our lives, parents and other people involved in educating children need to be informed about the issue of gender differences and the need to capitalize or compensate for these differences during the little school life, the period of best time from the socio-emotional acquisitions point of view.
Parents and educators, through their activities, can support and give children opportunities to help develop socio-emotional skills adequately without being limited by gender stereotypes. From where do we start when we want to improve children's emotional abilities? If we want to improve children’s emotional abilities, it's important that we first see what their strengths are and what kind of behaviors can be developed. In this regard, we can look for answers to the following questions: How does the child behave like? Is he separated from parents without difficulty? Is it too clinging to adults? Does he manifest enthusiasm when doing good things for him?
Are they letting others calm him when he goes through stressful moments? Eat, sleep, go to the toilet without problems when he is away from home? Does he easily adapt to sudden changes in the environment? Does he express anger in words rather than in actions? Does he accept adult redirection when the child exhibits aggressive behaviors? Does not it withdraw excessively from the community? Does it show interest in school activities? Smiles and looks happy most of the time? Where do we start when we want to improve children's social skills? If we want to improve children's social skills, it's important that we first see what their strengths points are and what kind of behaviors can be developed.
1. Development of Emotional Skills
The optimal emotional development is one of the key components of adaptation. It is necessary to maintain the state of mental health and it influences the development and maintenance of social relations. THE IMPORTANCE OF THE SUFFICIENT EXPRESSION OF EMOTIONS
Proper expression of emotions is very important in social interactions because contributes to their maintenance.
Inappropriate expression of negative emotions (e.g. anger, fear, sadness) by physical or verbal aggressiveness leads to the appearance of children's isolation behavior. If these children with frequent positive emotions have more friends and they are more loved by others, children who behave aggressively have difficulty recognizing and understanding the emotions expressed by others in a specific situation.
HOW DOES THE CHILD DEVELOP EMOTIONAL ABILITIES? Adults (parents, teachers) are those who contribute to the development of children's emotional abilities in three ways:
1. Adult reactions to emotions expressed by children. The way adults react to emotional expression of children determines the expression or inhibition of their future emotions.
2. Expression of their own emotions by adults
The emotional expressiveness of adults becomes a model for children in terms of emotional expression.
3. Discussions about emotions
Experiencing different emotional situations and talking with parents helps children understand emotional situations and respond appropriately to such situations. The way adults talk about emotional issues can convey their support and acceptance, and can contribute to the child's awareness of the different emotional states they are experiencing.
* Example number 1: children raised by parents who promote discussions about emotional experiences are more likely to communicate their own emotions and show a better understanding of the emotions of others.
* Example number 2: Children raised by parents who follow the idea that emotions, especially negative ones, should not be discussed openly, they can induce children the idea that emotions should not be expressed, which affects their emotional regulation capacity.
* Example number 3: If the adult frequently expresses negative emotions, the child will also express these emotions, due to his repeated exposure to them.
Emotional skills are divided into 3 categories:
1. Feeling and expressing emotions
awareness of your own emotional experiences
adequate transmission of messages with emotional load
the manifestation of empathy
2. Understanding and Recognizing Emotions
identification of emotions based on non-verbal indices
name of emotions (“I'm glad,” “I’m sad”)
understanding the causes and consequences of emotions
3. Emotional adjustment
using the age-appropriate emotional adjustment strategies
WHY DO WE DEVELOP EMOTIONAL COMPETENCE? It allows children to acquire the prerequisites needed to become aware of their own emotional experiences. It helps children acquire appropriate strategies for emotional regulation and then optimal relationships with others.
If in the first years of life the discussion only refers to the emotions of the children, the parents will gradually bring into question those of other people as well, the number and variety of emotions increases as the child develops. The frequency with which children have been involved in emotional language has long-term influence, favoring the development of emotional understanding skills. Attracting children's attention to the particular aspects of human behavior makes it possible to develop a sensitivity to various emotional expressions, knowing the causes and consequences of emotional behavior being much richer. Therefore, the attention paid to the emotional side can greatly contribute to the harmonious development of the child, thus favoring better social adaptation. Let's not forget that the emotional intelligence in adult life has its origins in the development of emotional and social abilities from the pre-school age, which is the period of fundamental acquisitions in emotional, social and cognitive terms. Thus, the emotional intelligence can be educated and developed from parenthood and by important people around the child, both in an explicit manner (including the child in emotional intelligence development programs, parental transmission of principles and values) and implicit (the child takes over how family members and other people manage difficult situations). So we have to teach the children how to deal with the feelings they live to express them in ways that do not harm others. The emotional and social development of the child are essential in his evolution.
Consequently, emotional skills develop to a large extent through socializing practices used by parents and teachers (emotional discussions, attitudes to conflicts, expression/inhibition of emotional manifestations, etc.) Moreover, emotional skills influence the development of social competences, because in their lack can not speak of initiating and maintaining relationships with others. For example, empathy is the basis for developing cooperative skills, helping or sharing toys, these behaviors being needed for the group integration.
2. The Development of Social Abilities
Social development consists of acquiring the ability to interact with other people (adults and children). Adult relationships refer to the child's ability to express trust and to interact easily with them, to recognize their different roles, and to perceive them as guides, support in what they do, think, feel. By interacting with other children, they exercise the ability to maintain friendship, ask and help others, belong to a group. Emotional development aims especially at forming the self-concept of the child by the way it is perceived as a single being, reacting, accepting, interpreting the reactions, emotional experiences of others in the interactions they set with them. Also, emotional development aims at developing the self-regulation ability of their own emotional experiences, as well as the child's ability to recognize, express and understand emotional experiences both of his and others and to respond them adequately.
Social skills are the ones that allow us to integrate into the kindergarten, school, service or group of friends. Social development involves acquiring behaviors that make us effective in interacting with others so that we reach the established personal goal. Any social behavior is the result of a process of learning what is valued by society. For example, the fact that we greet or present to unknown people are considered polite ways to initiate an interaction. Because such behaviors are perceived as appropriate, their manifestation will be encouraged and repeated as such in similar contexts. In addition, these behaviors help us achieve certain goals, as they allow us to initiate and establish a relationship with someone else. The basic social skills that each person should develop are divided into two categories:
1. Interpersonal abilities
a) Social networking
interact with other children through age-appropriate games
Initiates interactions with other children
splits toys
offers and asks for help
He's waiting for his turn
uses polite addressing formulas
b) Solving social problems
resolves conflicts through age-appropriate strategies
2. Intra-personal abilities
follow the rules
tolerates the situations that cause frustration
WHY DO WE DEVELOP THE SOCIAL COMPETENCE?
It allows children to develop appropriate inter-relationship skills. It helps children to acquire the behaviors necessary to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships. Social competences involve a component related to interpersonal skills as well as a component related to intra-personal behavioral control skills. In the absence of behavioral inhibition capacity, we cannot talk about the ability of children to wait for their turn, just as the inability to adhere to the rules affects their ability to integrate into the group. Intra-personal social skills are closely related to emotional skills. Achieving emotional regulation strategies favors the ability to exercise control over one's own behavior. In addition, the abilities to understand one's own emotions and others and to express them are essential for establishing and maintaining relationships with others.
Bibliography
Goleman, Daniel (2004). Emotional Intelligence the key success in life. Editura Alfa.
Catrinel, Ştefan A. & Kallay, Eva (2007). Development of emotional and social skills to preschoolers. Cluj Napoca: Editura ASCR.
Vernon, A. (2006). Development of emotional intelligence through rational-emotional behavior education. Cluj Napoca: Editura ASCR.
Waters, V. (2003). Rational Stories for the children. Cluj Napoca: Editura ASCR.
1 PhD Student, Secondary School Maresal Averescu, Romania, Address: Adjud, Vrancea, Romania, Tel.: 0766516587, Corresponding author: luminitaalexe@yahoo.com.
New Trends in Psychology, Vol. 1, no 1/2019, pp. 111-118