By this stage, your child has gained increasing control over their feelings, along with the ability to regulate new emotions such as fear and sadness. They begin to gain ability to stem impatience and the ability to wait quietly and pay attention when necessary.
What you need to know
These skills are vital aspects of the preschool/kindergarten-aged child who needs to have the ability to control outbursts of anger and tears as well as sit quietly and pay attention. The school environment is key to the development of emotional understanding during this age period. Children learn to not only control their own emotions, but to identify emotions of others from facial expressions as well as developing an understanding as to what may have caused the emotion in the first place.
Expressing emotions
Perhaps the most important development during this period which aids in emotional development is the acquisition of language. As the child grows in their conversational ability vocabulary is increased. This allows the child to express their emotional states. As well as this, their continual conversations with peers and family in different environments enable the child to understand, through conversation, what emotion their friends are feeling, why they are feeling that way and how they can help. Through this they gain valuable insight into the cycle of emotions and how they start, play out and become remedied.
