The Development of Anger - Essay Example

Emotional Development: The Development of Anger in 24-36 Month Olds Emotional Development: The Development of Anger in 24-36 Month Olds The progressive materialization of a child’s understanding, experience, expression, and control of emotions, starting after birth through adolescence and young adulthood is best summed up as emotional development. This implies that children progress through stages of emotional growth, even as they develop physically and cognitively. Emotional development encompasses a wide array of feelings ranging from positive sensations like joy, love and confidence to stress, anxiety and anger, on the negative end of the spectrum. Emotional development plays a significant role in a child, since it determines one’s perception of self, that is, intrapersonal role of emotions, and how one perceives of and relates with others, hence the interpersonal dimension (Siegler, DeLoache, & Eisenberg, 2011). Anger is one such notable sensation, whose effective management equips a child with the ability to develop in an emotionally healthy state, while forming and sustaining productive interpersonal relations. Anger, which is a potent adaptive emotion, undergoes momentous progress during the toddler phase of development (Razza, Martin, & Brooks-Gunn, 2012). Arousal of anger in this development stage, which occurs between 24 and 36 months, is primarily attributable to social conditions that trigger or perpetuate frustration or pose a threat to the toddler. Key among these social or affective aspects is the behaviour portrayed and reinforced by parents or guardians, as this paper explores further. It is, therefore, plausible to argue that sensitive parenting as opposed to harsh upbringing plays a significant role in facilitating anger control in toddlers hence guaranteeing healthy emotional development. Discussion Social-Emotional Development in Toddlers According to Razza et al. (2012), social-emotional development is characterized by several aspects key among them being progressive recognition of ability. The latter implies that a child gradually develops the understanding of his or her ability to influence immediate physical and social environs. Emotional development is also discernible from a child’s capacity to communicate certain feelings through gestures, sounds, movements or facial expressions. At a relatively advanced stage of emotional development, approximately 36 months, a child is able to empathize with others albeit at a limited capacity. At such a phase, the toddler could also wield the ability to control or manage basic emotions and impulses with an adult’s help. Other factors that denote a toddler’s emotional development include improved capacity to react to social cues posed by peers or adults, as well as, interacting with the former and the latter at a fundamental level. Finally, a child’s emotional development can be determined from their progressive social understanding ability, as demonstrated by his or her comprehension of other people’s actions or emotional expressions (Feldman, Dollberg, & Nadam, 2011). Kerr and Schneider (2008) indicate that the numerous emotional development competencies highlight the significance of this realm in the course of the first 36 months of life. It is the emotional comprehension and stability attained during these first three years of a child’s life that molds their intrapersonal character and interpersonal relations with both their peers and adults in other spheres of life. In addition to supporting the socio-emotive foundations of development, Fogel (2014) outlines specific emotional growth indicators in children. The scholar points out that between 18 to 24 months, toddlers are capable of imitating movement and facial expressions they observe, and could show preference for certain people, usually parents or caregivers, over others. This serves as a clear indicator that they recognize differences in their social environment. As a result, the child could be wary and fearful of strange people and may express anger or frustration of the same, when left with the stranger by the familiar person. It is also during this phase that many toddlers will test specific behaviors with parents, like dropping toys or adamantly refusing to take a specific drink or eat certain foods. Fogel (2014) takes note of the fact that, in the second year of development children increasingly lower their dependence on parents or caregivers. While they primarily portrayed anger in the preceding phase through contorted facial expressions, wailing, flailing arms around, screaming, and throwing items away, at the age of two the kids have learnt a few words and wield the ability to express anger in a more deliberate manner. This implies that 24 month olds showcase frequent and intentional acts of aggression when angered by anyone. For instance, if a peer angers the child, he or she may refuse to play with the aggressor and may even pull the latter’s hair and poke their eyes even though there is no understanding that the behavior is hurtful. Children at this developmental stage could even imitate their parents’ tone, to convey frustrating concern to a playmate or a toy. This shows that they are able to distinguish an angry tone from one of joy or enthusiasm. Siegler et al. (2011), stress that it is also at the two year mark when most toddlers throw anger tantrums, especially when denied something or restricted from certain behavioral tendencies. During the third year of development, anger is most often triggered by sharing of space or inability to execute a certain task. Even though it is still difficult for these 36 month olds to explain the cause of frustration or anger through words, they are able to utter some terms they have learnt from parents or peers and which they associate with such situations. In response to feeling spatially restrained, three year olds may resort to targeted aggression, for example, by shoving others out of their space, dragging them away, kicking, biting, and hitting, among other acts of violence. Children at this developmental step may perpetuate these aggressive tendencies even though by now they know, at a fundamental level, that their actions cause harm or are hurtful to the other party. Self-Control in 24-36 Month Olds Anger is a normal emotion in toddlers and a necessary one, as well, for their overall social-emotional development. This is not only because of the fact that it serves as an adaptive approach to the child’s social environment, but also allows them to express their needs and control their environs in the effort to become autonomous. These children do not, however, have the full capacity to regulate their anger independently. This draws attention to the assertion by Chang et al. (2003) that, although self-control is crucial in anger management among two to three year olds, parents have a crucial role to play in enabling them to manage impulses and anger fits in an appropriate manner. It is imperative to note that, these toddlers are at a point where they are starting to comprehend acceptable and unacceptable behavior. With proper parental intervention, therefore, kids at this stage can learn to control their actions by anticipating consequences linked to them. Parental intervention does not necessarily have to be through emotive words or punitive actions. Parents are best suited to model proper anger management behavior, by avoiding overreacting to situations or acting in a manner that depicts aggressiveness. Posner and Rothbart (2000) suggest that, using a firm, yet gentle voice and friendly gestures or eye contact when dissuading a child from aggressive tendencies, could go a long way towards ensuring that the child develops self-control. This is because such acts foster a feeling of safety, security, as well as, control in the child, and these are principal determinants of social-emotional wellbeing. These and other roles of parental upbringing in anger management, as well as, overall emotional development are addressed further in subsequent sections. Parenting and Toddler emotional Development Early parent-child communication is an imperative contributor to development of children’s behavior. This is because parenting beliefs and behaviors are unlikely to be depicted in seclusion especially when one is angry. These two elements of parenting highly determine the approach adopted by every parent in bringing up a child. Parenting beliefs can support, encourage, as well as, reinforce use of precise behaviors if adopted accordingly. In contrast, parental behaviors pose some of the greatest risk for young kids in relation to anger. Harsh parenting or poor behaviors may amplify the aspects of sub-optimal parental beliefs like high discipline that may result in high risk for kids’ problem behaviors, such as inability to regulate anger. A principal element of emotional development in kids constitutes learning different ways of how regulating emotions. Children between 24 and 36 months notice how their parents display emotions and the manner through which they interact with other individuals. Children usually imitate their parents in regulating emotions (Sheffield Morris et al., 2007). Consequently, a kid’s temperament, which is guided by parental styles used, plays a vital role in emotion regulation. For instance, kids are more prone to acquire negative emotions like anger if they have had neglectful or hostile parenting compared to when they have warm parents. Difficult anger may become a bidirectional issue, which evokes even more negative emotions from children when not monitored. Parents are supposed to be aware that their emotions, coupled with their parenting style could affect the emotional aspects of their kids. This means that if parents are not aware of how temper affects their children, it may continually exacerbate their negative behavior. Temper tantrums in children are also caused by other family problems. For instance, inconsistent discipline and being neglectful are some of the causes of anger in children. It is crucial to note that, discipline should be instilled in children early enough, since they start noticing facial reactions at a very tender age. This means that before they are 24 months, they should be taught how to behave and deal with anger. If a child is not well disciplined, they will express their anger in very distasteful ways like rolling themselves on the ground or hitting on things. Another imperative aspect to account for, in order to foster positive emotional development of children between 2 and 3 years is the level of warmth exhibited by their care takers. Different studies have been conducted to find out the effect of depressed mothers on the anger development of kids. It is evident from findings that, depressed mothers usually have maladaptive behaviors, thoughts, and attitudes. Coupled with a stressful environment, parents put their kids at risk of developing emotional problems like anger and self-hate (Sroufe, 2001). Depressed parents are likely to be indifferent to their kids, and this impedes their social development capacity, possibly resulting in acute expression of anger. Such parents rarely motivate kids to express emotions in a proper manner, and this puts children at a risk of developing negative emotions. Sensitive Parenting and Effective Anger Control Different researchers have found out that there is a negative relationship between sensitive parenting and kids’ portrayal of distress and anger (Conway & McDonough, 2006). Despite the fact that individual dissimilarities in anger expression are thought to have a biological foundation (Rothbart, Ahadi, & Evans, 2000), there is evidence that kid’s temperamental characteristics could be modified by parenting (Spinrad & Stifter, 2002). For instance, research shows that, supportive, warm, and sensitive parenting may reduce children’s intensity of anger expression and other negative emotions in a given period of time. Sensitive parenting can assist children to properly regulate negative emotions like anger (Feldman et al., 2011). This means that responsive parents to children’s needs may likely reduce expression of distress and anger in emotionally demanding situations thus able to return to neutral states after they experience stressful conditions (Tarabulsy et al., 2003). This means that sensitive parenting acts as a good way enabling children between 24 and 36 months to deal effectively with anger. Such healthy emotional control is ascribable to the provision of adequate parental support. Toddlers should be taught how to express their anger by identifying and dealing with emotions of the people around them. This puts emphasis on why parental behaviors are crucial in since they lay the foundation for kids to comprehend emotions. Interaction between parents and children is, therefore, vital to proper emotional development. If parents are constantly fighting, it becomes difficult for the kids to formulate proper ways of dealing with their dissatisfactions. As a result, they are more likely to express themselves with anger and fail to adjust their emotions in line with those of people around them (Sheffield Morris et al., 2007). One can also not overlook the fact that decisions made by parents often affect the social and emotional adaptability of children, thus stressing the need for parents to play an active role in helping their kids to grow into emotionally stable individuals. Self-control is another way of helping children deal with anger. Kids need to adopt self-control, so as to effectively follow rules and acknowledge their limits. Self-control primarily refers to one’s ability to deal with strong emotions. This key attribute of proper emotional development begins at a very early age and is learnt through interaction and guidance from parents. Such toddlers, especially between 24 and 36 months old, are making significant effort to learn impulse management. Despite that fact that they are not fully capable of stopping themselves from doing things, they can learn self control from their parents. Consistent enforcement of rules is, for this reason, extremely imperative at this age since it makes them secure in regard social aspects, as well as, emotionally mature as they develop (Tarabulsy et al., 2003). Conclusion Judging from the discussion, it is irrefutable that sensitive parenting as opposed to harsh upbringing plays a significant role in facilitating anger control in toddlers hence guaranteeing healthy emotional development. Children between 24 and 36 months tend to imitate most of the things they see from their parents in the course of their development. It is, therefore, crucial to note that anger development in such kids is in most cases instigated by parental reactions. If a parent suffers from impulsive emotional disposition and often expresses his or her anger in presence of their child, then there is a high likelihood that the kid will try to solve problems in a similar manner. As a result, children in this age should be allowed to express their emotions but in a controlled manner. Parents are supposed to assist their children practice self control, which can be achieved through serving as an example, disciplining them, and helping them understand that they have a choice when prompted to respond emotionally. References Chang, L., Schwartz, D., Dodge, K., & McBride-Chang, C. (2003). Harsh Parenting in Relation to Child Emotion Regulation and Aggression. Journal of Family Psychology, 17(4), 598-606. 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