Understanding the Emotional Development of School-aged Children: A Critical Review

Abstract

This article explores the features of emotional development of school-aged children and discusses the significance to understand the characters and influential factors of their development in emotional competences. First, this paper explores three aspects of emotional development in school-aged children: emotional awareness, emotional expression, and emotional regulation, and emphasizes the significance of these three emotional development competences for children's mental health, academic success, and social development. In addition, three factors influencing emotional development: sociocultural background, family background, and gender are discussed. Understanding the development of school-aged children can help parents, educators, and other caregivers in comprehending the behavior of school-aged children and provide them theoretical guidance for making educational decisions. Besides, this paper highlights gaps in the literature on emotions in school-aged children, such as the insufficient research on school-age children and the lack of clear standards for the design of emotional development measurement tools. This paper gives advice for researchers interested in the emotional growth of children.