An emotion regulation refers to the ability of a person to manage constructively and cope with his or her feelings. It can also be defined as means the process by which a person influence the emotions to have, when and how to experience the emotions. Individuals respond or express emotions in three ways. These ways are behavioural, experiential or physiological. Behavioural response means outward manifestation of emotions while experiential response implies internal reaction to an emotion. On the other hand, physiological response is body reaction to an emotion. Emotion regulation can occur prior to emotional response, antecedent focussed, or after emotional response, response focussed. Antecedent-focussed emotion regulation methods include situation modification, attention deployment and cognitive change. In situation modification, the affected person tries to adjust the situation with the intention of avoiding bad emotions. If the situation can not be changed, the person can use attention deployment that implies redirecting one’s attention from the situation. The person also has the option of changing how she or he thinks about the situation in a process called cognitive change. If a person has already initiated a response, he or she can use response modulation that is a response focussed emotion regulation method. This method is widely used to assist people with emotional regulation problems. Emotion regulation is part of emotional development. Consequently, no meaningful discussion on emotion regulation can be done without reference to emotion development. Most literature defines emotion and social development together.
Nonetheless, emotion development is defined as the increasing acquisition of the ability to manage emotions, know oneself, regulate feelings and experience emotions, and builds relationships. Just like adults, young children experience wide range of emotions that include joy, anger, fear, and anxiety. However, they must have self-awareness in order to experience self-conscious emotions that may include shame, guilt, embarrassment and pride. Guilt and pride are the most common emotions that children develop during early childhood. These emotions are influenced by how parents respond to their children behaviour. For instance, children experience pride when parents appreciate their actions. At the age of between 5 and 6 years, children talk about talk about their emotions, have increased understanding and ability to interpret emotions. They also begin to learn the causes and impacts of feelings. During middle childhood, majority of the children exhibit significant improvement in emotion regulation. However, they still have challenges in coping with emotions. At this stage of development, children have increased knowledge of complex emotions that become less tied to responses and reactions from other people. They also show improved ability to hide or suppress negative emotion responses. Besides, children in middle childhood between 8 and 12 years have show ability to redirect feelings. Emotion regulation is important to children because it help them to manage everyday stressors.
Children who are able to regulate their emotions resolve conflict better, work hard in school, and exhibit low psychological stress levels. To this end, many scholars are dedicating time and resources researching different aspects of emotion development. Kimberly Day and Cynthia Smith did research on the role private speech plays in children’s emotion regulation. They recruited 116 children, 54 girls and 62 boys, of age between 4.5 and 6 years to participate in the study. The children ethnic proportions were 95.5%, 1.7%, 0.9%, and 0.9%, Whites, Hispanics, Blacks and Native American respectively (Day & Smith, 2013). The researchers observed the participants complete a 4-min locked box frustration task adapted from Lab-TAB. The second study by Grace Onchwari and Jared Keengwe investigated relationship between children’s capacity to regulate emotions and show of appropriate behaviour. A total of 33 children aged between 3 and 5 years program were randomly selected to participate in the study. The children were sampled from Head Start Program and Early Childhood Development Center. The researchers used a 25-Item Emotion Regulation Checklist (ERC) developed by Fujiki and others to assess how children regulate emotion. The teacher and assistant teacher who knew the children well completed the ERC. Besides, the researchers videotaped children for 10 minutes three times a week to have good understanding of their appropriate and inappropriate behaviours (Onchwari & Keengwe, 2011). Each time a child showed a behaviour covered by the study; the researchers recorded it and made a tally. The third study by Janice Zeman, Diana Morelen, Ellen Anderson and Carisa Perry Parrish explored the difference in reported anger and sadness management across three nations; Ghana, Kenya, and United States. A total of 521 participants, 245 Ghanaians, 106 Kenyans and 170 Americans were recruited for the study. The children were from village, middle class urban and impoverished urban context. The researchers used Children’s Anger Management Scales and Children’s Sadness Management Scales to assess anger and sadness management in children. The CAMS and CSMS were restructured to 11-Item and 12-Item respectively to take into account the cultural contexts of the three countries. Another study by Laudan Jahroni, Sharman Ober-Reynods, and Shantel Meek examined emotion regulation in children with high functioning autism.
The study had 20 children participants of ages between 4 and 7 years. The children were sampled from university preschools and organizations serving children with autism. The researchers did ADI-R diagnosis on children in the autism group to confirm autism their condition. The researchers used Preschool language scale (PLS-4) to assess the children’s language and expressive skills. The cognitive abilities of the children were assessed using differential ability scales-II (DAS-II). Besides, the children undertook to LAB TAB frustration and unsolvable puzzle task. The fifth study by Elizabeth Hughes, Bruce Tonge, Eleonora Gullone and Nevile King examined emotion regulation strategies, cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression in children and adolescents. A total of 1,128 children and adolescents were recruited 15 elementary and 9 high schools in Melbourne Australia. The children were aged between 9 and 15 years. On gender, 44% were male while 56% were girls (Gullone, Hughes, King, Tonge, B. (2010). Majority, (90.6%) of the children were born in Australia. The researchers used a 10-Item Emotional Regulation Questionnaire for Children and Adolescents (ERQ-CA) to access the emotion regulation strategies used by the children. Six items targeted cognitive reappraisal while the remaining four items in the questionnaire targeted expressive suppression. The items had 7-point rating. Low rating indicated lower use of the strategy. The researchers and teachers supervised the filling of the questionnaires in school. The last study under review was conducted by Linda Jevine and Elizabeth Davis from the University of California in Irvine. This study explored the relationship between emotion regulation in children and academic achievement. It was intended to establish a link between specific emotion strategies and information processing and the role of individual differences in emotion regulation.
The researchers recruited 126 children aged between 6 and 13 years. Majority (54%) of the children were boys. The ethnic representations in the sample were 58% European American, 13% Asian Americans, 10% Latino, 3% African Americans and 2% Pacific Islander. The researchers subjected the children to emotion one of the four emotion regulation conditions that were randomly assigned to them. The watched a sad film, underwent emotion regulation restrictions and then watched educational film in a room. Children received trainings on how to rate their feelings of sadness or happiness. A researcher who was not aware of experimental condition and research objectives asked the children questions about the film to access their memory. The researchers also used Woodcock-Johnson Revised Test of Achievement to measure their verbal ability. Kimberly Day and Cynthia Smith established that children used private speech while undertaking the frustration task. The private speech was associated with expressed emotions and emotion regulation strategies. It was also related to anger and sadness. There was no relationship between anger and sadness. On the other hand, distraction and self-comforting had a positive relationship. Private speech was determined to be a predictor of both anger and sadness. Thus, indicating that self-regulation encompasses both emotional and cognitive components. The researchers through regression analysis established that age was positively associated with facilitative task-relevant and vocalizations showing that children with advanced ages mostly used the two types of private speech. The study expected that older children would show less emotion. This assumption was wrong as these children showed greater intensity of sadness because of awareness that the task had no solution. In addition, the study found that the distraction was a good predictor of anger than self-comforting. The second study by Grace Onchwari and Jared Keengwe established that there exist differences in abilities of boys and girls to regulate emotions.
The emotion regulation mean scores for boys and girls were 3.13 and 3.21 respectively. The researcher attributed this difference to disparities in age and socio-economic status of the two groups. The study further found out that girls (r=0.430) were using their verbal skills more inappropriately than boys (r=0.146). On the other hand, boys(r=.0227) uses their physical skills more inappropriately than girls (r=0.211). The research Janice Zeman, Diana Morelen, Ellen Anderson and Carisa Perry Parrish established that Ghanaian children were more emotionally reactive than American and Kenyan children. Kenyan children suppressed their anger more commonly that American and Ghanaians children. On the other hand America children had better control of sadness than Kenyan and Ghanaian children. The difference in sadness control in boys was noticeable across the continent according to the findings of this study. More often, African boys displayed their sadness under controlled ways (.Morelen, Zeman, Perry-Parrish & Anderson, 2012). The researchers attributed this observation to the fact that American boys were subjected to great pressure dampen their feelings of sadness. The fourth study Laudan Jahroni, Sharman Ober-Reynods, and Shantel produced important finding on emotion regulation in children with autism. The study established that children with autism showed higher level and duration of resignation when faced with frustration. The resignation becomes greater when the children have no adults to provide support to them (Jahromi, Meek & Ober-Reynolds, 2012). It was also found that these children greater avoidance strategies and fewer constructive strategies than their normal counterparts. The researchers attributed the higher levels and duration resignation in autistic children to the fact that most of them experience frequent failures. Therefore, they are less motivated. The fifth research under review by Elizabeth Hughes, Bruce Tonge, Eleonora Gullone and Nevile King established that younger children used expressive suppression more frequently than older children. The use of suppression emotion regulation strategy decreased over time in girls and not boys against the prediction of the researchers. The researchers’ explanation of this observation was that girls matured earlier than boys, so the suppression stabilized earlier in them. The study also found out that use of the reappraisal strategy was slightly more used by younger children than older children against the prediction. However, the difference in the use of reappraisal among between younger children and older children was not significant.
Therefore, the researchers concluded that variations unlikely to occur. The final study by Linda Jevine and Elizabeth Davis found out instruction on emotion regulation had no effect on memorization of central points. Meaning, children remembered key points even when under distress. However, instruction on reappraisal of the significance of sad events led to good memory of education film (Davis & Levine, 2013). Besides, the study established that reappraisal and ruminating had no significance differences on memory improvement. Moreover, memory was not predicted by individual difference of children practising emotional regulation. The six studies reviewed in this paper have significant implications on childhood professional practice. Their findings emphasise the role of emotion regulation in children’s wellbeing. The findings underscore the need for the parents and teachers to train children on emotion regulation strategies. Reappraisal strategies have been proven to improve memory. Professionals should teach students these strategies to enhance memorization and alleviate negative emotions. The studies have shown that children with good emotion regulation skills tend to have an academic advantage over their peers with poor emotion management. In addition, the study findings revealed that there are differences in emotional management strategies used by children across regions and cultures. Therefore, early childhood teachers should be aware of these differences and in order teach appropriate emotion regulation skills. Again, the researchers have found out that children express emotions in different ways. However, the management of these emotions must be socially appropriate. If this is not achieved, it could have a negative effect on children behaviour and academic achievement.
It is evident that emotion regulation is important for children psychological development. To this end various researchers have studied the effectiveness of different emotion regulation strategies that are helpful to children in the management of negative emotions that hampers learning process. There is consensus among researchers the strategies differ according to the age, gender, and regions. Consequently, the teachers should coach teachers on most appropriate based on these contextual factors. It has been proven that frustrations lead to prolonged resignation in children with autism. Besides, these children tend to use avoidance strategies more than instrumental strategies. This finding shows that besides medical problems, children with autism lack appropriate frustration copying strategies. Hence, attention and support should be provided to them at all times. Teachers should also look at the predictors of emotions in children and interpret them correctly in order to assist the affected child in an appropriate manner. For instance, private speech was found to be a predictor of anger and sadness.
References
Davis, E. L., & Levine, L. J. (2013). Emotion Regulation Strategies That Promote Learning: Reappraisal Enhances Children's Memory for Educational Information. Child Development, 84(1), 361-374.
Day, K. L., & Smith, C. L. (2013). Understanding the role of private speech in children's emotion regulation. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 28(2), 405-414.
Gullone, E., Hughes, E. K., King, N. J., & Tonge, B. (2010). The normative development of emotion regulation strategy use in children and adolescents: a 2-year follow-up study. Journal Of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 51(5), 567-574.
Jahromi, L. B., Meek, S. E., & Ober-Reynolds, S. (2012). Emotion regulation in the context of frustration in children with high functioning autism and their typical peers. Journal Of Child Psychology & Psychiatry, 53(12), 1250-1258.
Morelen, D., Zeman, J., Perry-Parrish, C., & Anderson, E. (2012). Children's emotion regulation across and within nations: A comparison of Ghanaian, Kenyan, and American youth. British Journal Of Developmental Psychology, 30(3), 415-431.
Onchwari, G., & Keengwe, J. (2011). Examining the Relationship of Children's Behavior to Emotion Regulation Ability. Early Childhood Education Journal, 39(4), 279-284.
