The Development of Emotional Competence in Young Children

This engaging, authoritative text synthesizes a vast body of research on how young children develop the ability to understand, express, and manage their emotions, as well as the impact of these capacities on relationships, school readiness, and overall well-being. Illustrated with vivid vignettes, the book explains specific ways that parents, teachers, and education systems can foster or hinder emotional competence, and reviews relevant assessments and interventions. Compelling topics include emotion regulation as both product and process, cultural variations in emotion socialization, the expression of empathy and self-conscious emotions, risk factors for delays in emotional development, and connections between emotional competence and social–emotional learning (SEL). Almost entirely new, this book replaces Susanne A. Denham's influential earlier work, Emotional Development in Young Children.
 

Susanne A. Denham, PhD, is Emeritus University Professor of Psychology at George Mason University. She is an applied developmental psychologist with particular expertise in children's social and emotional development. Dr. Denham has conducted extensive research on emotional competence, especially in preschoolers--how it influences children’s social and academic functioning, its assessment, and how parents and teachers foster it. Before joining the faculty of George Mason University in 1985, Dr. Denham worked as a school psychologist for 11 years. She is editor of the journal Early Education and Development and past coeditor of Social Development.
 

Preface
1. Introduction
2. Emotional Expressiveness: Basic Emotions and Empathy
3. Emotional Expressiveness: Social Emotions and Voluntary Emotional Control
4. Developing Knowledge of Emotions and Regulation
5. More Advanced Emotion Knowledge During Preschool
6. Emotion Regulation
7. Socialization of Emotional Competence and Impact on Preschoolers’ Expressiveness
8. Socialization of Preschoolers’ Emotion Knowledge and Emotion Regulation
9. Teachers’ Emotion Socialization of Preschoolers’ Emotional Competence
10. Contributions of Emotional Expressiveness, Emotion Knowledge, and Emotion Regulation to Preschoolers’ Social Competence
11. Contributions of Emotional Expressiveness, Emotion Knowledge, and Emotion Regulation to Early School Success
12. Disruptions in the Development of Emotional Competence
13. Educating for Emotional Competence
14. Concluding Remarks
References
Author Index
Subject Index
About the Author