Have you ever felt lost and anxious because of not understanding what your child really wants to express? Then you definitely should know that even at an early age, children experience a range of emotions and do not know how to show them properly due to unformed emotional intelligence. Throughout the article, we’ll get closer to understanding why it is crucial to get acquainted with every child’s emotional development process. Simply put, emotional development is an integral part of a healthy life. Emotions accompany us during life, helping to experience a baby’s ups and downs. Due to the strong codependence of emotional development with social growth, some authors substitute “emotional development” with “social-emotional”.

Coping with emotions is not that easy, especially when you’re a toddler that can’t talk and express emotions appropriately yet. So, the burning issue here becomes the following question: in what exact ways may parents help to facilitate an emotional development of a child? This article is an overview of the stages of early emotional development of a child.

Before going deeper into the emotional development theories provided by different authors, it should be noted here that every child is unique. Therefore, the process of emotional development may vary from case to case; still, overall, there are common tendencies found for a major part.

We’re going to look at the theory named “Human development socialization process”, the work provided by Erik Erikson, the developmental psychologist. The theory’s distinguishing feature is that its stages are divided by age.

The first three stages focus on building autonomy and gaining trust.

Stage 1

Time period: from birth to age 1

A key focus of the phase: is facial expressions, voices, touches, and smells.

Throughout stage 1, a child learns to read the external world’s information, including positive facial expressions, such as smiles, voices, touches, and smells. Moreover, the child themselves learns to express a range of emotions, such as happiness, anger, or fear.

This stage is one of the most important because, according to Erik Erickson, children whose parents are aware of the specific features of this stage emphasize the development of hope, security, and trust.

Usually, parents support infants using positive triggers, for example, nice facial expressions (smiles), gentle touches, soft soothing intonations, and smells. Some of the children learn self-soothing techniques: specific head or limb movements and usage of a pacifier. Reaching 6 months, a child can show basic facial expressions, including joy, anger, and fear. The infants maintain those skills through regular interactions with parents, receiving reactions and feedback to a certain action or event.

Ways to support emotional development at this stage:

• Talk, sing read with babies on the regular basis
• Create a comfortable environment
• Express and show your love and affection
• Set fair rules calmly and firmly
• Follow your daily routine
• Communicate with a child using positive words and tone of a speech

Stage 2: Toddlerhood

Time period: from 1 to 2 years

A key focus of the phase: interactive games and activities, empathy.

The key word of this stage is definitely interaction. During this stage, a child explores the world by communicating with it. Toddlers start to use some of the gestures to enhance expressed emotions, for example, waving goodbye or pointing to surrounding objects. Also, children at this age truly enjoy participating in interactive activities, such as “Hokey-Pokey” or “Simon Says” games.

Another significant feature of the stage is empathy development. Toddlers learn to empathize with a person feeling sad. Along with that, a child playfully learns about the social world. Children try different social roles on, playing “pretend play” like being a truck driver or a cook. Moreover, 2-year-olds get involved in parallel games, which lead to the development of such things as language skills, fine motor skills, and the ability to free expression of thoughts and desires.

Most parents call this period of growth “terrible twos,” and there are certain reasons for that. At the age of 2, children realize their emotions, trying to fully express them to the world, at the same time, not understanding the proper way of doing that. It’s that very moment when the child needs the person they may rely on and trust the most.

Moreover, at this stage, children start to look at their parents as role models in the sense of learning specific behavioral traits and examples of social behavior.

According to Erik Erikson, the second stage may last till a child reaches 3 years. In his theory, support plays a key role in the formation of healthy behavioral traits of a toddler.

Ways to support emotional development at this stage:

• Encourage social interactions such as games
• Express and teach a child to express empathy for others
• Encourage positive behavioral traits: independence, empathy, curiosity
• Regular talks about your child and their feelings (name the feelings)
• Understand that there are no bad emotions; all of them are valid, including anger
• Stay calm even in critical situations, such as children’s outbursts

Stage 3: preschooler

Time period: from 3 to 5 years.

A key focus of the phase: is emotional control and socialization.

Throughout the third stage, a child starts testing acceptable limits in terms of social behavior while trying to control their emotions to fit in the socially acceptable standards.

Moreover, preschoolers learn cooperation through cooperative games, like building blocks together. According to the theory’s author, other goals of this stage include the development of the imagination and understanding the key roles in society.

Ways to support emotional development at this stage:

• Pay full attention during the talk with your child
• Talk about the feelings of others
• Encourage a child to express feelings appropriately
• Encourage group activities with other children
• Teach a child to be initiative
• Keep a permanent interaction with a child that should include regular talks and feelings expression from both sides (parenting and children)