Article on the topic: “The emotional sphere of preschool children”

Features of the emotional sphere of a preschooler

Emotions are a special class of mental processes and states associated with instincts, needs and motives. Emotions, as specific subjective experiences, sometimes very vividly color what a person feels and imagines. Emotions are constant companions of a person. Emotions influence a person's thoughts and activities.

Emotions help us perceive reality in a certain way and react to it. The way the emotional sphere of a preschool child is developed affects the little person’s understanding of the world and successful interaction with it. Many children have problems in emotional development, namely, they do not know how to respond to the feelings and states of others, and react inadequately to many things. Today, a child’s best friends are a TV and a computer, a smartphone and a tablet, and his favorite activities are watching cartoons and computer games. As a result of this lifestyle, children communicate less with both adults and peers; Preschoolers are not attentive and insensitive to others, they do not know how to control and show emotions appropriately. But communication significantly enriches life, making it bright, filled with emotions and impressions. The preschool period is a fairly short period of human life. Therefore, it is important to lay good personality foundations at this time. Equally important is the emotional development of the child, which has its own special characteristics.

The problem of our time is that many children have problems in emotional development, namely, they do not know how to respond to the feelings and states of others, and react inadequately to many things.

Emotions are characterized by three components: the sensation of emotion experienced or recognized in the psyche; processes occurring in the nervous, endocrine, respiratory, digestive and other systems of the body; observable expressive complexes of emotions, including on the face. Emotions are distinguished from other types of emotional processes: affects, feelings and moods. Emotions, like many other mental phenomena, are understood differently by different authors, so the above definition can be considered neither accurate nor generally accepted. In modern science, there are four directions in determining the connection between emotions and feelings: the presentation of feelings and emotions as identical; the relationship of feelings to one of the types of emotions; consideration of feeling as a generic concept of various emotions; the idea of ​​feelings and emotions as different processes.

The following types of emotions are distinguished: negative; positive; neutral; unconventional; static; dynamic.

Positive emotions include: pleasure, delight, joy, confidence, sympathy, love, tenderness, bliss.

Negative emotions include: gloating, revenge, grief, anxiety, melancholy, fear, despair, anger.

Neutral ones can be called: curiosity, amazement, indifference.

Emotions are understood as time-extended processes of internal regulation of the activity of a person or animal, reflecting the meaning (meaning for the process of his life) that existing or possible situations in his life have. In humans, emotions give rise to experiences of pleasure, displeasure, fear, timidity, and the like, which play the role of orienting subjective signals. A way to assess the presence of subjective experiences (since they are subjective) in animals by scientific methods has not yet been found. In this context, it is important to understand that emotion itself can, but does not have to, give rise to such an experience, and comes down precisely to the process of internal regulation of activity.

Emotions have evolved evolutionarily from the simplest innate emotional processes, reduced to organic, motor and secretory changes, to much more complex processes that have lost their instinctive basis, having a clear connection to the situation as a whole, that is, expressing a personal evaluative attitude to existing or possible situations, to one’s own participation in them. The primary vital (survival) emotions inherited by man include fear, rage, pain and similar emotions.

Emotions allow a person to evaluate everything that happens around and inside him. The “language of emotions” is the same for all living beings on our planet; a dog, not speaking human language, perfectly understands what is happening to a person, simply by observing him, “reading” his emotions. A person from the other end of the earth, having a different upbringing, a different culture and worldview, is able to understand a person’s state without words by “reading” his emotions. Some hypersensitive people are able to read emotions from a distance, even time is not a hindrance to them. The “reading technique” is given to all living beings from the moment of birth; a child who has not yet received “processing by society”, without any life experience, is capable of “reading” emotions from the first days of life (however, even in the womb). It is impossible to thoroughly study how this process occurs, since much is still unknown to humans; there are no such instruments and concepts capable of giving clear answers.

K. Izard identified the following basic emotions

Interest (as an emotion) is a positive emotional state that promotes the development of skills and abilities and the acquisition of knowledge.

Joy is a positive emotional state associated with the ability to sufficiently fully satisfy an actual need, the probability of which until this moment was small or, in any case, uncertain.

Surprise is an emotional reaction to sudden circumstances that does not have a clearly defined positive or negative sign. Surprise inhibits all previous emotions, directing attention to the object that caused it, and can turn into interest.

Suffering is a negative emotional state associated with received reliable or apparent information about the impossibility of satisfying the most important needs of life, which until that moment seemed more or less probable, most often occurs in the form of emotional stress.

Anger is an emotional state, negative in sign, usually occurring in the form of affect and caused by the sudden emergence of a serious obstacle to the satisfaction of a need that is extremely important for the subject.

Disgust is a negative emotional state caused by objects (objects, people, circumstances), contact with which (physical interaction, communication in communication, etc.) comes into sharp conflict with the ideological, moral or aesthetic principles and attitudes of the subject. Disgust, when combined with anger, can motivate aggressive behavior in interpersonal relationships, where attack is motivated by anger and disgust by the desire to get rid of someone or something.

Contempt is a negative emotional state that arises in interpersonal relationships and is generated by a mismatch in the life positions, views and behavior of the subject with the life positions, views and behavior of the object of feeling. The latter are presented to the subject as base, not corresponding to accepted moral standards and aesthetic criteria.

Fear is a negative emotional state that appears when a subject receives information about a possible threat to his well-being in life, about a real or imagined danger. In contrast to the emotion of suffering, caused by direct blocking of the most important needs, a person, experiencing the emotion of fear, has only a probabilistic forecast of possible trouble and acts on the basis of this (often an insufficiently reliable or exaggerated forecast).

Shame is a negative state, expressed in the awareness of the inconsistency of one’s own thoughts, actions and appearance not only with the expectations of others, but also with one’s own ideas about appropriate behavior and appearance.

Thus, emotions are subjective human reactions to the influence of external and internal stimuli, reflecting in the form of experiences their personal significance for the subject and manifesting themselves in the form of pleasure or displeasure.

The nature of the experience (pleasure or displeasure) determines the sign of emotions - positive and negative. From the point of view of influence on human activity, emotions are divided into sthenic and asthenic. Stenic emotions stimulate activity, increase a person’s energy and tension, and encourage him to act and speak. The catchphrase: “ready to move mountains.” And, conversely, sometimes experiences are characterized by a kind of stiffness, passivity, then they talk about asthenic emotions. Therefore, depending on the situation and individual characteristics, emotions can influence behavior differently. Thus, grief can cause apathy and inactivity in a weak person, while a strong person doubles his energy, finding solace in work and creativity. Modality is the main qualitative characteristic of emotions, which determines their type according to the specificity and special coloring of experiences.

Diagnostics

Basic diagnostic methods for the emotional sphere of children:

• testing
• observation
• survey
• conversation
• survey
• analysis of samples of children's creativity (drawings).

When observing a preschooler, pay attention to factors such as emotional background, mood, degree of expression of emotions, level of emotional mobility. By observing, you can easily notice how rich the child’s emotional background is, whether the child knows how to control his emotions, and whether he is characterized by emotional instability.

Using one of the diagnostic methods or in combination, you can find out:

• How adequate is the preschooler’s reaction to phenomena?
• how he perceives and interprets the states and moods of other people
• the breadth of the range of emotions that the child understands and experiences, the depth of his experiences, ways of conveying emotions through speech;
• Is it appropriate to display emotions during communication?

These methods can be used by both professional child psychologists and kindergarten teachers.

Empathy in children

The most important component of the emotional development of a preschool child is the development of empathy, namely the ability to sympathize and understand the experiences and emotions of other people. A child who has developed empathy will always put himself in the position of this or that person and offer him his help.

"This is interesting. The author of the theory of emotional intelligence, Daniel Goleman, is convinced that success in life depends not only on the level of intelligence, but also on a good ability to manage one’s own emotions. And by understanding one’s own emotions, a person will feel and be aware of the emotions of others.”

Forming empathy in a preschooler is the key to successful schooling, easy socialization, and problem-free communication. If only for this reason, parents should definitely pay attention to the development of empathy along with the development of the child’s intellectual, communication, cognitive, creative and other abilities.

Tips for developing empathy:

1. Create a warm atmosphere in the family where love and mutual understanding will reign.
2. Discuss different life situations with your child.
3. Introduce your child to the principles of existence in society.
4. Explain how to properly deal with people in different situations.
5. Explain what consequences this or that behavior of people may have.
6. Develop positive social character traits in your child: optimism, trust, forgiveness, solidarity.
7. Teach your child to do useful things and help others. Don't forget about praise.
8. Empathize with the child, communicate with him about how he feels.
9. Develop your child emotionally: discuss thematic images and photographs, depict emotions in front of the mirror, play emotional games.
10. Be a role model for your child: adhere to the same principles that you teach your child.