How Emotions Influence Moral Development

There are two ways that emotions influence moral development. They are: First we feel guilt when we do something wrong or defy authority. For example, the first time a child cheats in school they feel guilty for cheating. They feel guilty because they know cheating is wrong and they've defied authority because they know the teacher and probably the parent will be mad and give out a consequence for cheating.

The second way that emotions influence moral development is we feel good when we've followed the rules and behaved in a socially approprate way. So, if a child's parent tells them not to go be part of the group after school that is going to cause a riot over a racial issue and the child goes home after school they feel good for following the rules and doing what the parent asked.

The emotion of guilt and being proud of oneself influence moral development as the child either feels good about themselves for following the rules or feels guilt over their poor choice. Other emotions such as happy, sad or frustrated also help develop moral development as children make choices and then deal with whatever emotion the choice leaves them feeling.

Four Components to Emotions

The primary emotions are joy, anger, sadness and fear and other emotions develop from these.Children's emotional self-awareness, their understanding of other people's feelings and their ability to manage what they feel is what emotional intelligence is. Feelings can be felt, expressed, acted on and thought about. Feelings are how we react to experiences and help us organize and make sense of our world.

There are four components to emotions. The first one is trigger events. An example of a trigger event is when a child bites. For example, I had a child in the first child care center I worked in who would bite every time she got enclosed or felt enclosed.The enclosure of other children or even if she felt enclosed triggered her to bite. As a result I kept an eye on her throughout the day and noticed how many children were around her at any given time. When a certain amount of children were around her I would either remover her from the situation and take her to a different area or I would remove a certain number of the other children from around her and give them a different activity to do. This helped her control her emotions and kept the emotion of feeling enclosed and the need to bite under control and in most cases stopped the biting.

The second component to emotions is physical response. An example of a physical response is to cringe at something unpleasant or frightening or to flinch in surprise or pain. We've all done this just probably not thought of it as expressing emotion. Where something can make us cringe, flinch or frighten us though, those are all emotions and the response to the emotion is the cringe or flinch.

The third component to emotion is the expressive way we respond. An expressive way to respond to an emotion is when someone smiles when a person brings them flowers or someone rolls their eyes when someone is dramatic. Again, we've all expressed our emotions this way but we tend to think of it as a reaction instead of an expression. However, just the action of bringing flowers is a way to show someone they love them or feel sad for the death of someone we then express the emotion we feel at this gesture by smiling, hugging or thanking the person.

The last way component of emotion is a cognitive response. A person has a cognitive response to an emotion when they engage in self-talk. For example, if a child has to give a presentation in class and they are telling themselves everything will be fine and there is no need to worry or be afraid, they're using cognitive abilities to determine what emotion to feel and to regulate their emotions.

As parents help children work through their emotions this is a good place to start. It helps a parent know what why the child is choosing to express their emotions and can then help them not only regulate their emotions but help them express that emotion in a healthy, non-violent way.

2 Types of Strategies For Coping With Stressful Situations

Self- regulation skills are critical in effectively dealing with stressors after they've occurred. There are two types of strategies for coping with stressful situations. They are emotion focused coping and problem focused coping. Emotion focused coping is a strategy that involves regulation or management of negative emotions such as fear or anger. For example, when my child was eight we moved from one state to another which meant she'd be going to a different school and wouldn't know anyone. So I helped her work on emotion focused coping by listening to the reasons she was fearful and then gave her suggestions of how to deal with the fear. I told her it was normal she felt the way she did so I didn't minimize or belittle the way she felt and then I told her to ask questions of people who sat beside her such as whether they liked the teacher or a particular subject. These questions were ice breaker questions she felt comfortable asking because they didn't ask any personal questions they were just general questions and it helped her find friends in her class.

Problem solving coping is strategies that involve setting goals that include behavioral and attention regulation strategies that resolve a stressful situation. An example of problem solving coping is when a child may feel stressed because of the amount of homework they have. When my child was feeling this I helped her deal with it by helping her prioritize. I asked her what assignments were due first, which ones required research before being able to do them and I helped her make a list and put the things due first at the top and on down so that she prioritized the assignments and had a list of everything she needed to due so she wouldn't forget anything and could cross them off as she did them which helped her feel less overwhelmed because she was trying to keep it all straight in her head. Once it was out of her head and on paper it helped her feel less stress. The example of the homework is a strategy that involves a goal, the effort to achieve the goal and resolved a stressful situation. The next time the child is in this situation they can do the same thing on their own without help or they may just need to talk it out out loud with the parent to make sure it all makes sense.

Both situations help build a child's self-regulation as they learn to deal with their emotions in a healthy way and learn to problem solve and be able to do both on their own.

Parents Influence In Developing Self-Regulation

Parents and caregivers influence the development of self-regulation in how warm they  respond to children in distress and the ways they model the expression of emotions. Parents who respond warmly when children are angry and talk to their children about emotions are promoting self-regulation skills. They promote self-regulations skills by helping the child work through the emotion they are feeling. For example, a parent can say, "I know you feel sad that you have to leave the toy in the store, but maybe we can come back and get it at a different time or put it on your birthday list." The parent has acknowledged how the child feels and helped them work through it which develops self-regulation because the parent has helped the child worked through the emotion of sadness not just dismissed it. The child may continue to feel sad but the child knows it's all right to feel sad and it has developed self-regulation as the child learns to deal with their emotions is a positive way.

Parents also play a critical role is developing self-regulation by providing social structure, teaching manners and social etiquette and modeling appropriate behavior.  Teaching manners and social etiquette teaches self-regulation as children learn how to behave in social situations and in public and they learn to have the self-regulation not to throw tantrums in social situations or say hurtful comments in social situations. Modeling appropriate behavior when handling disagreements and problems and providing guidance when they misbehave helps children learn not to yell in order to get their way or just take something that someone else is using because they need to use it and it teaches them the self-regulation skills they need to wait and be patient.

One last way a parent influences the development of self-regulation is supporting a child's independence. Parents can use hints and cues to help children gain independence. For example, if a child is learning to tie their shoes a parent can give the hint of pulling the loop through the hole. This gives the child the hint of what to do however, they are the ones who have to do the action of pulling the loop through the hole. A parent guides the child through how to do the task but allows the child to do it and can keep the child calm while the learn how to do the task and develops their self regulation because they keep the child calm instead of getting frustrated.

Self-Regulation and Volition

Self- regulation is influenced by a large component inside a person called volition. Volition of course is the freedom to make choices, on how what to think and how to act. This aspect of personality  drives a person to follow through and finish an activity which is why if parents leave a child alone they will in fact do what was asked instead of needing the parents to nag them about it. For example, if a child doesn't take the trash out right away when a parent asks them, the child will eventually get up and do it. If the child doesn't remember to take the trash out they feel bad about forgetting and then the consequence comes in because where they didn't do what was asked a consequence can be given.

However, most of the time if a parent will leave a child alone they will eventually make the choice to do what the parent asked. Just because they're not making it right then doesn't mean they'll not make it, they will eventually make it. Give children time to make the choice, give them the opportunity to learn. If they don't eventually make the choice to do what was asked, a parent may need to consider a consequence or the possibility that they are wrong. Volition helps explain persistence and why children ultimately make their own choices on how to act even though parents, teachers and friends can give a nudge in the right direction by modeling behavior that is appropriate for the social situation.

I helped develop volition in my daughter by giving her choices and respecting her choices. When she was little I picked out a pair of pants and let her pick out the shirt she wanted to wear. If she was reading or doing homework and I asked her to do something such as take out the trash, I let her finish the page she was reading or get to a place in her homework where she could stop and then take the trash out. It wasn't about her doing it right then and doing it immediately. I didn't care when she did it, I just cared that she did do it and then if she didn't a consequence was given. When she got older and was old enough to drive she would ask if she could take it when she left to go do something with friends or go to her volunteer assignment. I always told her that was fine and I was fine with her doing it then as long as she did do it then. It was when she didn't that a consequence was given. This taught her that her volition was important and something that would be respected and she respected mine in return. By doing this it also developed responsibility in my daughter as she became responsible to do what I asked her to do and for her to follow through on that request even if it wasn't done immediately.

Two Components of Self-Regulation

There are two key components of self-regulation. They are: executive function and effortful control. Executive function is defined as the ability to remember a rule and follow through to complete an action even when something in the environment says different. Executive function is the ability to hold back on impulses in order to respond to a request from someone else.

For example a parent teaches executive functions when they teach their children to clean their room. From a child's perspective they may not see the point of cleaning their room because they aren't done playing with the toys that are out or done reading the book laying on the bed. However, the rule may be that the child has to clean their room before having a friend over so the child has to remember and follow through with the rule of cleaning their room before having a friend over and when they do this successfully they have achieved an executive function. Where an executive function is also the ability to hold back on impulses in order to respond to a request from someone else, an example of this is when a parent is filling a pool in the backyard. A child's first reaction is to get in the pool. However, the parent may tell the child to wait until they have it filled. When the child waits until the parent is done filling the pool as asked they achieved executive function on this task and held off doing the activity to respond to the request of the parent.

Delaying gratification is a component of effortful control and is demonstrated when a person gives up a smaller immediate reward for exchange of a more valuable reward after a period of waiting. For example, when a child gives up having a snack fifteen to thirty minutes before dinner is ready in order to eat dinner. The child has given up the snack ( the immediate reward) for a more valuable reward (dinner) after waiting  the time period until is ready. Whenever a child doesn't do something and it takes effort not to do it because it's something they really want to do they are developing effortful control which develops self-regulation as the regulate their behavior to what is expected or appropriate.

Two Categories of Self-Regulaion

The process of self-regulation has been divided into two categories: social emotional and cognitive self-regulation. Social emotional regulation enables children to follow social interactions in diverse settings. For example, we teach social emotional regulation when we teach our children not to say things such as,"Your outfit is ugly," or "I don't like your hair." When we teach our children not to say things like this we're teaching our children to follow social interactions in diverse settings. This teaches children that in these settings we don't say things like that because in social settings it's not appropriate to say things like that and teach the emotional regulation part of it because we teach children that saying things like that hurts other peoples feelings. It teaches self-regulation as children learn to regulate their impulses so that these types of comments are no longer said in public settings.

The second category of self-regulation is cognitive self-regulation. Cognitive self-regulation enables children to use thinking processes needed to solve problems and make decisions. Self-regulation plays a role in helping children interact and get along with others by following social standards of conduct and making decisions and solving problems that arise. For example, a child may need some soap to go take a bath but the soap is on a shelf they can't reach. Cognitive self-regulation helps a child either get a stool so they can reach it or ask a parent or older sibling for help instead of throwing a tantrum or not taking the bath because they can't reach the soap. The child has used 'the thinking process' to determine that the way to solve the problems is to either get a stool or ask for help and they have 'made a decision' as to which of those to do in order to solve the problem.

Cognitive self-regulation helps children interact and get along with others by following social standards of conduct and making decisions and solving problems that arise. For example, a child may be over at a friends house playing and cognitive self-regulation helps them determine that social standards of conduct dictate out that they both need to agree on what to play. It helps them solve problems that arise because the child can then talk with their friend about what to play instead of demanding that they play what they want to play. For example, one of the children may want to play a video game while the other wants to go outside and play basketball. Having and using cognitive self-regulation helps a child determine that in order to keep the friend that social standards of conduct and problems solving skills help them decide that a solution to the problem is to do one activity for a while and then do the other for a while or play something else entirely and be able to be all right with that and not be sad, mad etc about it.

This type of self-regulation is one of the hardest types of self-regulation to teach a child and takes lots of time and energy and patience to teach.