The Relevance of Emotions in Children’s Learning

In the emotional development of any child, emotions play an indispensable role. They start with their adaptive function in babies and their maturing process in relating to their surroundings and self-esteem. This is why, if you already are or you are going to be a mom, you should be concerned about the relevance of emotions in children’s learning.

How Can Emotions Influence a Baby’s Development?

From the first impulses and sensations, any baby will develop basic emotions that strongly influence their learning, such as fear, anger, curiosity, or joy.

That is why parents must learn to actively listen to the different behaviors that their children develop from a young age and follow them throughout their process of maturation and growth to understand their emotions at all times and promote healthy emotional parenting.

But What Are Emotions?

Emotions are the signs or states that we develop in the face of different stimuli from the environment around us. Their existence is of vital necessity in any development of adaptive capacities involved in affective, cognitive, and self-referential maturation.

In each type of emotion, in any life situation, there is a differential reaction or behavior and, of course, of the relationship of any being with the environment and for others.

We are used to dividing them into positive or negative emotions due to how they affect anyone’s behavior and, especially, their adaptation to what is socially acceptable.

Main Characteristics of Some of the Primary Emotions

Fear

One of the first emotions to be portrayed in any baby develops in unknown situations and is interpreted by the human brain as potentially harmful or dangerous.

The child’s discomfort of feeling hungry encourages the search for food and protection and is the first adaptive capacity that every baby develops thanks to the survival instinct. This emotion makes us equally cautious and curious, essential adaptive capacities involved in the feeling of fear.

Anger and Rage

Are linked emotions to the feeling of frustration, but with a different origin. Anger comes when the triggering stimulus makes us feel powerless, we want and believe we can achieve something, but we don’t, and frustration arises.

On the other hand, anger, and rage when what we feel is an injustice, that is, the nature of the emotion of anger is a deep feeling of injustice. To resolve powerlessness, we must put effort and perseverance together with the ability to overcome.

In the case of children, those who get angry will learn, in the same way, to make efforts, to know and accept their capacities and, later, to recognize the feeling of satisfaction and build healthy and secure self-esteem.

Joy

It is an emotion that we love to see living in the little ones. Therefore, it is essential to teach them to recognize this emotion and give it the value it has.

We must transmit the value of joy to children through everything that gives them pleasure through their senses, and also with everything that gives them satisfaction when they achieve something.

Likewise, it is not necessary to always be happy or joyful because if we get used to and adapt to this state, we can lose the capacity to develop resources and mature correctly.

Sadness

Unlike joy, it is one of the emotions that children are least likely to feel, but it is crucial to rescue the positive part and give it the value it has.

The nature of sadness is the feeling of emptiness that comes with the loss of a loved one or an object with which a strong emotional attachment has been established.

This emotion connects us with love and the feeling of gratitude since we feel it if we have been able to recognize before that we want and need what we are going to be able to lose.

In the case of babies, this emotion does not appear until they can recognize that their mother is a being different from them and that she can disappear and have her own life.

This feeling of helplessness and abandonment allows us to know that we need others, and hence the development of emotions such as gratitude and affection.

Surprise

The emotion of learning is based on the capacity for wonder that every child has when faced with an unexpected event. This emotion is closely linked to others, such as joy, but also with fear due to uncertainty.

It is very important to educate in amazement and learn to correctly manage the emotion of surprise because, from a very early age, a baby is capable of being amazed and reacting to the unexpected. Through surprise, the ability to be curious and learn is activated.