Emotional learning is one of the aspects that children must begin to put into practice even before they begin their Early Childhood Education studies. This since, while they have more tools to manage their emotions, they will be able to enjoy more well-being with greater probabilities to achieve their goals, desires, and dreams.
This article will explain the definition of emotional learning in Psychology, the existing types, and some activities so that children and adolescents can understand and manage their emotions.
What is emotional learning and what are the types?
Emotional learning consists of a series of processes that human beings experience throughout their lives through various skills, attitudes and knowledge with the purpose of channeling emotions. In this sense, there are 2 types of emotional learning:
Associative Type
In this kind of emotional learning, human beings establish a relationship between a certain fact with another object or person. In this regard, they often use memory as a tool for details.
Cognitive Type
In this type of emotional learning, reasoning is used to expect certain reactions in people.
Benefits of using emotional learning
Childhood is a learning stage of physical and emotional development in which children develop their personality, it being imperative that teachers, as well as parents, take among their responsibilities the task of offering emotional education to these children.
Thus, this type of learning offers the following benefits to children and adolescents:
Allows children and adolescents to identify their emotions
This kind of learning in particular promotes positive emotions over negative ones, allowing people to control frustrations, anger, anxiety, among other emotional manifestations that do not make them experience well-being.
Children and adolescents will be able to develop emotional independence
Emotional learning helps children and adolescents to reaffirm their self-confidence, which will generate positive impacts on their self-esteem, being able to manage and self-regulate emotions with assertiveness, which in turn will allow them to make better decisions if they need to. This since they will be able to analyze the pros and cons of the various alternatives they can choose.
Children and adolescents will improve their abilities to relate to other individuals
Children and adolescents will be able to act with empathy in the circumstances of their lives that warrant it. In this regard, we can observe examples of emotional learning in students who have the ability to understand some difficulty that one of their classmates may have and may even offer their support.
In addition, children with adequate emotional intelligence will be more likely to have high school performance.
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5 activities to develop emotional learning
Teachers need to be aware of the many ways emotions influence school learning, as well as the fact that each student has a unique way of understanding their inner world and the environment around them.
For this reason, in addition to teaching them the programmatic contents that they have established in their planning, these professionals must also carry out activities in which the students are emotionally educated.
Some that can be very effective are the following:
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Representations and presentations
One of the ways to promote emotional learning is to do short simulations in which students can dramatize some life situations in which it is necessary to manage emotions, which will help them put themselves in other people’s shoes.
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Practice sports activities outdoors
Among the main emotional learning strategies, we must mention sports activities. This because they usually encourage teamwork and therefore develop better social skills in children and adolescents.
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Describe and repeat hypothetical circumstances
This kind of activity to develop emotional intelligence in children and adolescents must be carried out between 2 partners: one of them will describe a particular situation and the other will listen carefully and then explain it in his own words.
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Teach assertive decision making
One of the strategies to develop emotional learning in children and adolescents is teaching them to make decisions assertively. For that purpose, teachers can meet in groups with their students and talk about a specific situation or event.
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Show how problems can be solved
In this dynamic, the teacher will tell a historical fact to the students. Later, said teacher will ask questions about this event so that the little ones can learn how to solve problems effectively. (And with proper management of their emotions). Similarly, parents are also a key figure in the development of emotional learning.
They must offer support to their children, listening to their concerns and helping them to understand some circumstances that they experience. This since said experiences may be significant for their lives, leaving deep traces on a psychological level.
Emotional learning’s main purpose is to help children and adolescents have various tools and resources with which to develop emotional maturity. In this way, the way in which emotions influence the learning of children will depend largely on their ability to act against negative emotions. (As well as in adolescents in Secondary Education). Some of them may have a negative impact on their overall well-being.
