Emotion socialization in early childhood education and care – How preschool teachers support children's emotion regulation

Silkenbeumer, Judith; Luisa, Lüken; Holodynski, Manfred; Kärtner, Joscha

Research article (journal) | Peer reviewed

Abstract

Children’s emotional experiences during early childhood education and care (ECEC) are important for children’s emotional development and the socialization of this development by teachers. One central goal of emotion socialization is that it should help children acquire reflective regulation of their emotions, resulting in socially acceptable and age-appropriate experience and behavior. The current study is based on emotionally challenging situations of children in ECEC and aims at investigating, first, associations of teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation with children’s self-regulation, and, second, how teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation are linked with characteristics of the specific emotion episode and the involved child. Based on extensive video observations in the preschool setting (N = 19 groups), this study analyzed episodes with teacher interventions (N = 48 teachers) following a negative emotion expression by one or two children (N = 213 children aged 2–6 years old). Multilevel results show, first, that teachers’ initial emotion coaching and co-regulation through meta-cognitive prompts were associated with children’s independent self-regulation. Second, teachers’ emotion coaching and co-regulation were systematically associated with characteristics of the emotion episode, especially emotion quality and intensity. The findings support the assumption that emotion coaching and co-regulation are especially valuable tools to support self-regulation. However, emotion coaching and the different co-regulation levels and strategies do not turn out to be universal strategies that are used indiscriminately, but teachers use them depending on individual child and situational characteristics.

Details about the publication

JournalSocial and Emotional Learning: Research, Practice, and Policy
Volume4
Article number100057
StatusPublished
Release year2024
Language in which the publication is writtenEnglish
DOI10.1016/j.sel.2024.100057
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KeywordsEmotion regulation; Emotion coaching; Co-regulation; Emotion socialization; Early childhood education and care

Authors from the University of Münster

Holodynski, Manfred
nsitute for Psychologie in Education and Instruction
Kärtner, Joscha
Professorship for Developmental Psychology (Prof. Kärtner)
Lüken, Luisa Marie
Professorship for Developmental Psychology (Prof. Kärtner)
Silkenbeumer, Judith Rebecca
Professorship for Developmental Psychology (Prof. Kärtner)