Issue 2.2: Emotional Development and Self- regulation.

This second part, which will work about the emotional development and the emotional regulation processes will be divided in two parts:

1. What are the main ontogenetic changes in the socio-affective dimension, of school-aged children?

2. How do social factors influence in the socio-affective development?

So to solve correctly the first question we will take a look in this table about the Emotional Development:

Age	Characteristics
8-10 months	Social Reference
2-3 years old	Emotional comprehension, emotional perspective, empathy and complex emotions
4-5 years old	Theory of mind - Recognize other’s mental state which are different from owns. - Same situation can have different meanings for different persons according to their previous mental states.
6-7 years old	Admit two ambivalent emotions consecutively
7-8 years old	Admit two ambivalent emotions simultaneously

I think it's very important to take into account this evolution when we will be teachers, because we cannot expect the same emotional regulation from one kid than from another. So a kid with between 2 and 3 years old may have problems at the beginning to recognize complex emotions, the main reason is that he or she may think he's feeling something (some simple emotion, live anger) and he may be feeling another one (jealousy). We need to teach those kids to understand the differences, to make sure they don't respond in the same way for both. In the same stage they start to develop the feeling of being able to understand another person feels, this is important as it's the first step to the self control and the regulation of actions.

During the 4 and the 5 years old appears the theory of mind, and it promotes basically two aspects: the first, a step further from the empathy, kids start being able to understand the other people's mental states; and second, they start reacting different to same situations, for example in from of the same comment a kid could get angry, and another one no.

Finally during the 6 and 7, and the 7 and the 8 years old they start being able to experiment two emotions, first in an ambivalent way (one after the other), for example when a kid it's humiliated and he first feel furious and then it decreases to anger; and later on to experiment them simultaneously, which means in the same way, as a kid is feeling surprised we might be happy too.

Another important development that happens trough those years if the development of the moral, which is basically divided in three parts:

- Pre-conventional moral: between 6 and 8 years old which understand the justice as unconditional

- Conventional moral: from 8 to 12 years old, understand justice as equality, maintaining law and order.

- Post-conventional moral: from 12 years old above, understand justice as equity, so in this stage acceptation is not only based in the common good, but in abstract moral principles.

So basically in the first one the first moral the kid is only looking for his or her own benefit, in this case to avoid punishment, in the second one he or she doesn't take part, because as equality means itself, it's not about the person but about the actions, and finally in the last stage the children develop opinion, and his or her position it's not based in his or her own benefit, but in abstract principles.

In the second part of this issue we find the factors that influence in the socio-affective development, and so the main important factor is the affective bond, which functions are to help through the process of adaptation and to give emotional security. So the person who cares about the affective bond has the task to care about the pupil in order to make him or her feel secure enough to explore, to adapt to the new live through the development. If a kid doesn't feel secure in the stage in which he or she is, then he might not try to achieve the next one. 

So we can find four types of attachment bond: 

Attachment	Characteristics
Secure attachment	- Trust in the efficacy and availability of the mother. - Democratic educative styles. - No need of constant contact, the security build in the relation allows/potentiates autonomy and trust.
Anxious-ambivalent attachment	- Incoherent attachment figures. - Emotionally unstable. - Generates anxiety for the fear of losing the relation. - Overprotective and/or permissive educative styles. - Difficulty to build up autonomy.
Evitative attachment	- Figures with difficulty to express affect. - Cold educative styles, oscillating between the authoritarianism and the abandonment. - Loneliness feelings, social isolation behaviors, distant relations with few intimacy.
Disorganised attachment	- Negligent attachment figures and/or psychical abuse. - Cycles of protection, refusal and aggression. - Bond and fear to the attachment figure. - Educative styles negligent or indifferent.

Basically only the first attachment, the secure one, accomplish with all the aspects that a relation kid-family should have. I think is important as a teacher to know all this theory in order to be able to deal with the familiar problems, or even worst, with the emotional and personal problems that a child has because of the family problems. The positive attachment, also makes possible the emotional regulation in an easier way, so we will have plenty more of facilities on the child regulation and most of the emotional problems will disappear.