A Study On The Promotion Of Emotion Regulation In Children Aged 4-5 Years

The emotional expression of 4-5 year olds is becoming more active,stable,and covert-conditioning as compared to 3-4 year olds.They are learning to regulate their emotions and have some expressive and cognitive abilities.As a result,this is a crucial time for the ability to regulate emotions.Because their capacity to form their own opinions is still developing,young children during this time are still in the pre-operation stage.They frequently have a self-centered mindset,are able to perceive others’ feelings from their own perspective,and crave other people’s acceptance.Also,when faced with unfavorable feelings,they are prone to responding inappropriately.Teachers also play a crucial influence in the development of young children’s ability to regulate their emotions as they enter kindergarten and serve as vital mentors for them.Young children’s ability to regulate their emotions can be significantly influenced by their teachers’ knowledge of emotion regulation and coping strategies to negative emotions.Yet,not just from the teachers’ perspective,there is a lack of intervention study that combine teachers’ coping strategies with young children’s emotion regulation strategies.Consequently,this study investigates efficient emotion regulation program based on knowledge of how young children develop their ability to regulate their emotions and how teachers are currently handling the negative emotions of young students.This study was divided into three sub studies.Emotion Regulation Checklist(ERC)and Emotion Regulation Questionnaire(ERQ)were used in Study 1 with the aim of examining the development of emotion regulation strategies in 4-5 year olds in a kindergarten in Kunming.The study found that although 4-5 year olds in a Kunming kindergarten had highly developed emotion regulation strategies,they do not employ more effective and sophisticated emotion control techniques like cognitive reconstruction and problem solving.At this age,kids have a hard time dealing with emotions like anger,fear,grief,and jealousy.Through Teacher Attitude/Behavior Questionnaire(CCNES),a combination of interview and observation methods,Study 2 investigated teachers’ knowledge of emotion regulation,strategies for coping with young children’s negative emotions,and recommendations on developing young children’s emotion regulation strategies.The study found that teachers’ understanding of emotion regulation was weak,and that they commonly used minimized strategy on reaction when dealing with young children’s negative emotions and less frequently used more constructive coping strategies.Based on Studies 1 and 2,Study 3 created an emotion regulation program based on young children’s daily activities,regarding activity goals,activity content,and activity organization.Study 3 then used quantitative and qualitative research to test the program’s efficacy.According to the study,the emotion regulation facilitation program enhanced both young children’s ability to regulate their emotions and their usage of emotion management strategies.Young children were better able to describe negative emotions appropriately and were readier to articulate good emotion control strategies.Additionally,while the use of negative strategies decreased,the frequency of use of more positive strategies like problem solving and cognitive reconstruction increased significantly.