Emotional development of children

Abstract

Little by little the concern to ensure no only cognitive development of the child, but emotional one as well, is becoming more common for the education system practices. The concept of emotional intelligence encourages the resort to traditional educational model (‘knowledge model’) of teaching students. That model invites students to be aware of their own emotions, and to differentiate the emotions of the others. Besides, it is complemented by the task to master one’s emotional self-regulation. The idea of building education on an actor-activity basis, accompanied by an understanding of the importance of the integral personality development (including the emotion component), implies involving students in productive activities with the aim of developing their ability in self-regulation. Self-regulation of learning process calls for the reflective mastering of one’s motivational-emotional sphere. There is a natural connection between the development of intrinsic motivation, self-regulation, emotional involvement and insistence in achieving training target. The development of different sides of personality by separate courses will lead nowhere. It’s necessary not to introduce some additional courses for the development of emotional intelligence, but instead to restructure the educational system on an activity basis and to change teachers’ training. That will require the development of the teacher’s own emotional intelligence, his/her understanding of the logic of the emotional and social aspects of the child’s holistic development in ontogenesis; the mastering by the teacher the methods of organizing educational practice with the view of the integral development of the student’s personality. Such teacher training will allow to solve the tasks of social and emotional development of students not within the framework of autonomous training courses that increase the student’s workload, but during the implementation of basic training courses, the emotional and motivational involvement of students in which is important both for learning success and for their personal development.