Social and Emotional Development: Definitions and Importance

Social and emotional development involves the acquisition of a set of skills. Key among them are
the ability to:
• identify and understand one’s own feelings,
• accurately read and comprehend emotional states in others,
• manage strong emotions and their expression in a constructive manner,
• regulate one’s own behavior,
• develop empathy for others, and
• establish and sustain relationships.14
Each of these skills develops on its own timetable, but the skills build on one another. Very young children,
for example, have to learn to understand and recognize their own feelings, but then they gradually
learn to associate verbal labels to those feelings, to learn that others have feelings too, and to begin to
empathize with others. As children grow older, they learn to manage their emotions—to shake off feelings
of anxiety, sadness, or frustration, and to delay gratification in order to achieve a goal.15 As adults, those
skills help differentiate the mediocre salesman from the successful one who can read the emotional
response of a prospective client. They help athletes persevere until they win their gold medals. They help
spouses empathize with one another to de-escalate arguments, and they impel good citizens to shy away
from injuring others because they can understand how such actions would cause pain.
One of the most important skills that children develop is self-regulation—the ability to manage one’s
behavior so as to withstand impulses, maintain focus, and undertake tasks even if there are other more
enticing alternatives available. Self-regulation underlies the ability to undertake every task, so that it has
implications for not just how children get along with one another but also how they can focus and learn
in the classroom. (See sidebar, p. 4.)
In short, these skills help promote a range of positive behaviors, beginning before children enter kindergarten
and extending into adult life. Not surprisingly, when social and emotional development goes awry,
the result can be problems in school and later life.