Know

Emotional well-being during the early years has a powerful impact on social relationships. Children who are emotionally healthy are better able to establish and maintain positive relationships with adults as well as with peers. Social-emotional development is essential to a young child’s sense of well-being. Their first relationships help shape who they are, who they become, and their understanding of the world. The important people in young children’s lives help lay the foundation for a range of social-emotional skills such as:

• Self-regulation
• 共情
• Turn-taking and sharing
• 与成年人和同龄人的积极关系

Social-Emotional Milestones

通过耳朵ly relationships and with nurturing, responsive interactions, infants and toddlers learn ways of being in relationships, how to get their needs and wants met, and how to identify and regulate emotions. Because these skills develop together, this area of development is referred to as social-emotional development.

Below is a chart that highlights how infants and toddlers develop social-emotional skills at different ages. Keep in mind that individual differences exist when it comes to the precise age at which infants and toddlers meet these milestones. As highlighted in the Cognitive, Physical, and Communication courses, milestones are not checklists with which to judge children’s development. Rather, they provide a guide for when to expect certain skills or behaviors to emerge in young children so you are ready to meet their needs. Think of milestones as guidelines to help you understand and identify typical patterns of growth and development in infants and toddlers or to help you know when and what to look for as they develop. You can continue to use your knowledge of these milestones to help meet the needs of infants and toddlers in your care. Even though the skills highlighted in the chart develop in a predictable sequence over the first three years of life, each infant and toddler is unique. Your goal is to help全部infants and toddlers grow and learn to their potential.

It is helpful to remember that expectations about social-emotional milestones are driven by cultural values and preferences. Theorist Lev Vygotsky said that adults share their cultural values and beliefs with children through daily interactions. Ideas, beliefs and expectations about child development are just some of the ways cultures are unique. Becoming aware of and respecting these differences can help you better understand families’ experiences that help shape the infants and toddlers in your care.

Connection of Social-Emotional Development to Other Areas of Development

With our evolving understanding of brain growth and young children’s development, we continue to learn about the ways adult caregivers can be supportive and most effective in helping children develop and learn. This growing understanding also includes how adult caregivers can help children develop social-emotional skills. Through nurturing and trusting relationships, infants and toddlers learn about the world. Their brains mature through interactions, and they can learn that the world is safe as adults are responsive to young children’s needs. They also learn how to form relationships, communicate, respond to challenges, and how to recognize, experience, and regulate their emotions from relationships with caregivers. When infants and toddlers feel safe and alert, they are more likely to observe, explore, play, interact and experiment with people and objects. These experiences lead young children to learn and remember new things. This foundation for learning depends greatly on the quality of infants’ and toddlers’ early environments and relationships.

Understanding and Supporting the Social-Emotional Development of Infants and Toddlers

Now that you have read the milestone chart, let’s revisit the definition of social-emotional development according to Zero to Three:

Within the context of one’s family, community and cultural background, social emotional health is the child’s developing capacity to形成安全的关系，体验和规范情绪，探索和学习。

Below, take a closer look at the components highlighted within this definition to identify additional ways to understand and support the social-emotional development of the infants and toddlers in your care.

Supporting All Infants and Toddlers

Every child is born with her or his unique way of approaching the world. This is called气质。Some young children, for example, are constantly on the move while others prefer to sit and watch the world around them. Some young children enjoy new experiences and meeting new people while others are slower to warm up in new situations. Rothbart (1989) defined temperament as the individual personality differences in infants and young children. As Murphy and Moon describe, “infants and young children vary greatly in their interest in different sensory areas, in the intensity of their attention to sensory stimuli, and in their sensitivity to feelings of comfort and discomfort, familiarity and strangeness, and the emotional context in which sensory experiences occur.”

Infants are born with a unique temperament. There is no right or wrong, good or bad temperament. By understanding temperament, you can continue to use what you know about infants and toddlers to encourage their strengths and support their needs. In the Apply section you will review more information about temperament and consider what it means for your role as a responsive caregiver.

No matter how well you understand temperament and are attuned and responsive, there will be times that an infant or toddler in your care may not seem to be developing socially and emotionally. Some infants and toddlers may experience social or emotional difficulties. These difficulties may be related to inborn (nature) or environmental (nurture) influences. The caregiving strategies in this lesson apply and relate to all children; however, some children may require an additional level of support.

Each infant’s or toddler’s relationship experiences and pattern of growth is different. In your work, you observe and track each young child’s particular strengths and possible areas of need. Your screening and assessment process is part of your ongoing routine, and it helps you to recognize and celebrate infants’ and toddlers’ accomplishments. It also helps you to identify red flags—some aspect of the infant’s or toddler’s development that is outside the expected age range.

以下一般策略可以帮助您关心正在经历社会和情感困难的婴儿和幼儿。您还可以与您的主管，培训师或教练讨论其他社区资源和支持您的计划的专家，他们可以提供额外的支持。

• Observe and notice the infant’s or toddler’s cues and responses to environmental stimuli. Think about ways to limit noise level, for example, or visual stimuli.
• 观察并询问自己如果您发现在特定惯例或一天中的婴儿或幼儿中提高了令人沮丧或烦躁。
• Think about ways to maintain physical closeness and offer gentle touch to help infants and toddlers maintain a sense of control.

See

在婴儿和幼儿促进社会情感发展

Do

You can promote social-emotional development of infants and toddlers in several ways:

• Respond to infant and toddler’s needs in caring ways.
• Acknowledge an infant's or toddler who points to a picture of himself or his family –“That’s right, Bobby, that is a picture of you and your dad!”
• Model caring behaviors and empathy during all interactions.
• Read stories about and show infants and toddlers pictures of different emotions.
• 与您的护理中与婴儿和幼儿家属建立强有力的关系。