Development of Regulatory Abilities
This page focuses on the development of coping and emotional regulation (ER) abilities in early and middle childhood, the target age groups for the books that were analyzed.
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When researching the development of regulatory abilities, there are many obstacles to overcome. One of the biggest obstacles is measurement inconsistency. There are dozens of definitions of coping and emotional regulation, hundreds of methods to categorize these regulatory abilities, and many different ways age groups can be sorted.
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Despite these challenges, researchers have identified overarching patterns in the development of coping and emotional regulation. These patterns have been grouped into 4 sections: cognitive, behavioral, emotional, and social development.
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Click on a term below to navigate to its analysis.
Early Childhood
(ages 2-5)
Cognitive
The cognitive growth that occurs during early childhood allows children to…
Set goal and maintain them for longer periods of time
Plan their actions before carrying them out
Communicate their wants and needs in more detail
Tolerate higher levels of stress (34)
Even with all of these exciting developments, children in early childhood use very few cognitive coping and ER strategies. Their brains and cognitive abilities are developing, but are not yet able to use these more advanced regulation strategies.
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Even as kids develop more regulatory abilities, these responses are not very differentiated (15, 25). As adults, our response to fear is different from stress, is different from anger, is different from frustration, etc. Kids in early childhood will likely respond very similarly to all of these different scenarios, as they don’t yet understand how the context of a situation can influence their response to it.
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A final cognitive ability that begins to develop in early childhood is theory of mind. Theory of mind is the ability to make inferences about others’ mental states (36). This begins to develop at around ages 3-4 (36). Theory of mind helps kids put themselves in someone else’s shoes, so to speak. This is especially important to emotional regulation, as it allows kids to better understand others’ feelings. This skill will continue to develop into middle childhood.
Behavioral
By the time children enter preschool, they have likely developed a collection of behavioral regulation strategies that they feel comfortable using (4). Of these behavioral strategies, escape and avoidance are used very frequently. At this point, kids have learned that they can intentionally control their own behavior. Thus, if there is something in their environment that they don’t like, they will simply control their behavior to avoid it (33)!
When looking at active behavioral strategies, kids in early childhood will use a lot of direct problem solving. Strategies like acceptance or cognitive decision making are often too advanced for this age group, so they stick to a more concrete approach of simply trying to solve the problem (15).
Emotional
In early childhood, emotions are running the show! Kids in early childhood will simply engage with people/situations they do like, and avoid those they don’t like (34). This is such a common theme that early childhood has been referred to as “a period of emotional action regulation.” (34)
Also during early childhood, children begin to develop more complex emotions (32). These include shame, pride, and embarrassment, often referred to as self-conscious emotions (32, 34). It’s especially important for children to have support available as they navigate through these unfamiliar and uncomfortable feelings.
Social
Caregivers play a direct role in a child’s regulatory abilities during early childhood. They may help children appraise a stressor, identify a feeling that needs to be regulated, or walk the child through their response to the stressor or emotion.
Children in early childhood also have an improved ability to ask for help and information from adults (32). This can be an important step towards independent coping and regulation for a child. Instead of a caregiver jumping in to help right away, the child can instead ask for help themselves (33). Though peers may start to become a source of social support, caregivers remain the primary source of this support (37).
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Advances in language also play an important role in the development of regulatory abilities. Kids can start putting their thoughts and feelings into words as they grow their vocabularies. This allows for another step to be taken towards independent regulation: instead of labelling their child’s emotions for them, caregivers can encourage their children to “use their words” and walk them through the process of identifying an emotion (33). This gives kids an opportunity to verbalize their thoughts, feelings, and opinions, a skill that has been correlated with better social competence (15).
Middle Childhood
(ages 5-8)
Cognitive
Middle childhood includes an exciting period of cognitive development. These advances allow children to…
Increase their attention span
Improve their inhibition
Imagine the effects of different behaviors without actually doing them (33, 34)
All of these changes allow kids to use more cognitive coping and regulation strategies. This is one of the most significant developments from early childhood. Kids will start using cognitive escape instead of behavioral escape (37). It is also now developmentally appropriate for kids to begin using active cognitive coping strategies, in addition to relaxation regulation strategies (9).
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In middle childhood, a child’s preferred regulation strategy will start to become more stressor-specific (15). Now that they have developed the cognitive abilities to reflect on past experiences and predict the outcomes of future events, they can use past regulation attempts to select a strategy that they think would match their present situation (33, 34). This skill develops throughout middle childhood, and will continue to develop into adolescence.
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As mentioned in the early childhood section on cognitive development, theory of mind continues to develop into middle childhood. Kids can better understand others' thoughts, beliefs, and feelings (11). The more complex their social relationships become, the more kids will rely on theory of mind (31). This skill is incredibly important for developing good social skills like empathy and problem resolution (31). Theory of mind can also play a role when a child reads! Thinking about a character’s thoughts, emotions, and points of view provides many opportunities for social-emotional growth (31).
Behavioral
It is important to note that just because kids in middle childhood have developed more cognitive regulatory abilities, they do not completely stop using behavioral strategies. Coping and ER are cumulative skills; these cognitive strategies will build upon the behavioral strategies, not replace them.
With that being said, there is typically a decrease in behavioral regulation strategies during middle childhood. Specifically, kids will likely use less behavioral escape and avoidance (9). Since these are more familiar options, a child will likely refer back to these strategies when they are in a particularly high-stress situation (34).
Emotional
Children in middle childhood can have an emotional reaction without exposure to a direct stimulus (34). They can plan and play out scenarios in their heads and brainstorm how different behaviors and situations may make them feel.
Additionally, at this stage, kids are learning how to differentiate their emotions (27). This strategy will continue developing into adolescence. It’s very important for children to start improving their emotional awareness early, as this can be a protective factor against more severe psychological problems (27, 28).
Kids in middle childhood are starting to understand display rules. Display rules help us decide how to alter our emotional behavior to match the demands of the social situation we are in (32). For example, if I receive a gift I don’t like, I know not to show my disappointment; instead, I smile and say “thank you” to the gift giver (32). School-aged children are beginning to learn this skill, and will master it throughout elementary school (16). This is an important emotional regulation concept for kids to understand, as it involves a mismatch between one’s internal feelings and external behavior.
Social
Support seeking behavior becomes much more complex in middle childhood. One aspect that changes is who kids go to for support. Younger kids (roughly ages 5-6) will often still go to an adult for support, continuing the pattern from early childhood. However, older kids (ages 7-8) will start turning to peers for support (37). This demonstrates two important patterns that develop throughout middle childhood: the increasing importance of peer relationships, and an increased ability to coordinate and cooperate with others (9, 25).
Interestingly, this pattern also varies depending on why the child is seeking support. In general, children tend to go to an adult for advice or emotional support for a larger, less controllable stressor. However, peers often serve as the support-giver when they are dealing with a smaller, more specific problem (37). This pattern demonstrates that even as kids grow older and begin to grow stronger relationships with their peers, their caregivers continue to play an important role in the child’s coping.
What are some factors that can influence a child’s social-emotional development throughout their lifetime?
Temperament
Temperament refers to a person’s characteristics that are present early in life and are often believed to be biologically based (1). Temperament can influence…
What a child interprets as stressful
Their coping strategy preferences
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All of these factors play a role in how children cope and regulate their emotions, making temperament an interesting factor in their development of regulatory abilities.
Socialization
Clearly, child development does not exist in a vacuum! There are dozens of external factors that can influence a child’s development.
Caregivers play an especially large role, as they are the earliest socializing agents in a child’s life (32). Studies have shown that frequent discussions about emotion-related topics can help improve children’s emotional development, including how they regulate negative emotions and their ability to identify their emotions (32). Interestingly, caregivers can also be too protective when it comes to regulatory abilities. If a caregiver is constantly solving their child’s problems for them, instead of helping them work through them, the child will not get the valuable experience of learning and using different coping strategies (25).
Zooming out beyond a child’s caregiver, the society in which a child grows up can have a huge impact on their development. Even concepts like gender norms can affect how a child develops. For example, one study looked at peer victimization and bullying in elementary students and found that seeking social support was a helpful strategy for girls who were victimized, but not boys (18). This unfortunate example demonstrates how concepts like gender norms can be harmful to young children and cause healthy coping strategies to result in negative outcomes.