Why is it important to learn about emotions?

Did you know that our brains aren’t done fully developing until we turn 27 (Jacoby & Roller, 2023)? 

It’s important to remember that children’s social and emotional behaviors and capabilities are somewhat limited by their developmental stage. This can be both helpful and discouraging to hear. The good news is that we, as parents, caretakers, and educators can play a large role in helping children integrate the different parts of their growing brains. 

The brain is divided into two hemispheres, or sides, the right and the left. The right side is nonverbal and focuses on the big picture, like emotions and intuition. The left side is more logical and linear (Siegel, 2011). Veering too far to the left can cause logic to override emotions, causing rigidity, while veering too far to the right can cause overwhelming emotions that hijack logic and cause chaos. Integrating the two sides of the brain results in improved control of the body and emotions, which helps with building relationships and succeeding in school (Siegel, 2011).

Supporting children in normalizing emotions, naming them, and connecting them to bodily sensations, can help children integrate and find balance between their right and left brains.

Here’s some other research that is important to consider:

• Higher emotional intelligence leads to increased attention span, more positive relationships, and higher amounts of empathy (Raver, Garner, & Smith-Donald 2007; Eggum et al. 2011)

• Adverse childhood events (ACE) are quite common, with 68% of children having experienced a traumatic event. The COVID-19 pandemic was one significant recent event that impacted children mentally, emotionally, and socially. Social-emotional learning helps children with processing and discussing their experiences (Rutgers Center for Effective School Policies, 2022)

• Public education around social emotional learning can help families from passing down intergenerational trauma. Bottom-up processing helps with working through  unresolved trauma which can then reduce less healthy coping mechanisms (Jacoby & Roller, 2023)

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