How our emotional regulation impacts our children during early childhood
Developmental psychologists view parent’s emotional expression as an intrinsic part of their children developing emotional proficiency and their ability to interact or display appropriate emotions in a social setting. Parent’s emotional expression is such an imperative part of children’s emotional development as parents are the child’s primary exposure to displays of emotion which also helps them develop the ability to interpret other people’s emotions. If a child is upset, sad or even crying and the parent responds in a cold and harsh manner, the child will assume that this is how you should react when people are upset and respond to their friends in a cold and harsh way when they are upset. This is not usually socially accepted as you are expected to show compassion when the people you care for are upset. When young children frequently see a parent displaying negative emotions towards another parent, the child could blame themselves for the conflict, these negative emotions displayed by parents could also lead to maladjustment in the child.
To allow children to develop these emotional skills adequately, it’s important for parents to have a good understanding of emotions and have good control over how they express emotions. Experts believe that through processes such as modelling and social referencing, children might mimic their parent’s emotional regulation. It is important to remember that parents were once children themselves and that our childhood experiences are what make us who we are today. As children we may have seen poor emotional regulation and lack of conflict resolution skills from our parents which has now resulted in us having poor emotional regulation in adulthood. Adults can engage in practices such as mindfulness, self-awareness and practice acknowledging emotions and working through them in a calm manner instead of trying to suppress them. As parents, we should be as patient with ourselves as we are with our children and give ourselves time to learn and grow. It’s never too late to develop better emotional regulation especially if it will benefit our children.
