Discuss critically with reference to theory and research in this area.
Emotional expression and understanding is a key part of children’s development. Emotions can be defined as organizers of personal and interpersonal life, enhancing or restricting development and mental health. They are important in a child development as they have long term influences on a child’s personality which is carried into their adulthood. Emotions effect their development and mental health throughout their life shaping them into the adults they will become and influencing the way they live.
One of the factors, emotional expression, can be defined as how individuals either consciously …show more content…
Furthermore it is believed that children are socialized into knowing the suitable emotional displays in the environment in which they grow up, showing that emotional expression and understanding is a learnt ability. Their development also increases the range of responses that is given to environmental changes, resulting in the emergence of groups of emotions, which are based on the common emotions, such as joy, sadness and pride. This theory supports the fact that emotional expression and understanding play an important role on a child’s development. It shows the way in which emotion shapes how an individual has the ability to live their life successfully, by being able to socialise and communicate effectively depending on their environment. This is due to the learnt ability of emotion. It is believe that this is learnt due to their surrounding environment and upbringing from careers which is affected by the relationship that they gain with …show more content…
This is because it helps them gain relationships and develop a stability in their mental health as they are able to express and understand the way they are feeling. The functionalist theory supports this as it suggests that we learn emotional expression and understanding through our experiences and upbringing and because of this we are able to effectively choose appropriate emotions for the situation and environment we are in helping us throughout of life. Expanding on this Bowlby 's theory also shows how emotional expression develops children as he suggests that we are born with certain instincts, enabling us to survive with emotions such as fear which protects us from any threats. Bowlby also believes that we instantly show emotion towards our parents, usually the mother, and form a relationship and attachment. However Bowlby 's work has been criticized, one of the most common criticisms of attachment theory is that non-Western societies tend to offer different results to the ones Bowlby found showing that he cannot generalize his theory to the whole population as different children showed different results in other cultures. This shows a culture biased theory as some children in other cultures do not show attachment to their parent and are still well adjusted members of society. However Carr 's theory (Carr 2011) supports and expands on both the functionalist theory and