Kids Emotion is always a topic for parents. What should parents do when the baby becomes crying, difficult to comfort, unhappy, and not interacting with others? Many moms and dads think that this is only temporary and that the situation will naturally get better in the future, but is this really the case?

Excluding the pre-existing qualitative or disease factors, the environment and parenting style are the keys to affect the baby’s emotional development! From birth, as we age, emotional development will become more and more complicated. Therefore, only by understanding what the baby wants to express, trying to find out the reason and solving it, that’s the way we can reduce the impact of negative emotions on the toddler’s young mind.

1. What Is Kids Emotion?

Emotional development starts from birth. Kids emotions are the subjective psychological feelings that an individual produces when facing environmental stimuli. Emotions are psychological feelings. As people grow older, their emotional development will become more and more complicated. However, children who are still in the infant stage cannot express their needs through words, and the most direct emotional expression is often loud crying. Attentive parents may observe the baby’s crying and understand the different crying sounds of the baby when he is hungry, defecate, begging for a hug, or feeling unwell. Not only that, but from the baby’s voice tone changes, facial expressions, body movements, etc., you can see the emotional expression of these non-verbal information. In addition to understanding the needs of the baby through this information, mom and dad can also help the baby understand his own needs and feelings.

2. Kid's emotional development

From 0 to 6 months old, babies will have emotional changes due to whether their physiological needs such as diet and sleep are met. When the physiological needs are met, there will be pleasant emotions. On the contrary, when the needs cannot be met, negative emotions such as anger or frustration will occur. When the baby is 6 to 12 months old, as the visual function gradually matures, he will begin to distinguish whether the main caregiver’s face is different from others, or whether the environment he is in is familiar with, and then develop a recognition response. Feeling anxious, nervous, or afraid. After the baby is 1 year old, his emotions begin to add “self-awareness”, not just whether the physiological needs are met or not. At this stage, he will gradually show obvious preference responses. Especially when they are 2 to 3 years old, parents may find that their children’s emotions fluctuate greatly, and they are prone to intense emotional reactions. At this stage, children’s sensory, language, physical, cognitive and other abilities develop rapidly, and naturally they want to accomplish different things on their own. Perhaps mom and dad are worried that their children may be injured, and they don’t know when to let them go and let them try this is a normal growth process. Parents should let their children give it a try while ensuring their children’s safety. The “fitness” between children and parents is also an important indicator of the emotional development process. If a child who is prone to nervousness meets a mother who can tolerate him and has the patience to accompany him in all things, the child will gradually develop appropriate emotional regulation. However, if the mother’s personality is more anxious and requires the child to be able to do one action at a time, she may be annoyed by the child’s uncooperative behavior and ignore their current psychological state.

3. Separation Worries

When the baby does not see the caregiver or is separated from the caregiver, crying or feeling uneasy occurs, which is called “separation anxiety”. Generally speaking, babies around 6 months old will begin to develop a recognizing response, and then they will experience anxiety due to separation from the caregiver. The intensity of separation anxiety may be related to the child’s natural temperament and the quality of parent-child interaction. Parents’ warm encouragement allows children to feel a sense of safety and attachment, so that they can accept temporary separation and recognize changes in their feelings and reactions, so that they can face new things independently.

4. Listen And Understand Them

Not every kid know exactly how to express their emotion right at the moment, so this is very important as parents to listen and try to understand their feeling and emotional. When children felt they’re being listened and understand by their caregiver, it will encourage them to have more interaction with people and more often to express their feeling and emotions. No doubt that communication is one of the critical issue to have a happy family. If they’re being neglect for certain time, it will lead them to a status of “Self-enclosed”. They will refuses to have interaction with others, refuses to show out their real emotional and less communication.

5. Emotional Outburst

There are 2 consequences when kids felt they’re being neglected and lack of care from others. First, they might fall into self-enclosed which we’ve mentioned above, and another one is they might become “self-desperate”. If your children are usually very gentle and lively, but he/she suddenly become very aggressive and irritable or there is obviously the attitude has contrasting changes. Parents should observe and analyze the causes of children’s emotions. One of the main reasons children acting differently is because they’re seeking for attention, living under this pressure for a long time will cause their personality distortion.

Conclusion

The need for empathy for human emotion performance is a natural and important process in emotional development. When a baby is depressed, it is easy for adults to use their own subjective thinking and ethical norms to restrain the child, telling him that this is wrong and that is not good. However, the baby may not be able to recognize his own emotions. When he receives the adult’s prohibition or refusal to make mistakes, he may think that these emotions are wrong and are not liked, and long depressive emotions produce pressure. When the baby shows that he doesn’t like it, the parents can be next to him, as if it is his inner monologue, and speak his thoughts. For example, don’t you like this? Maybe the baby still doesn’t understand, but they can understand through the expression, tone and posture of mom and dad. Mom is now trying to understand me! When the baby can feel that he is understood, it will help the smooth development of emotions.

What is Plant-Based Formula?

Plant-based formula are lactose and cow’s milk free. It is safe and as nutritious as cow’s milk formula. Studies have showed that other grain-based formulas like the rice-based ones are promising in children with cow’s milk allergy. Grain-based formulas could be an alternative for children who allergy to cow’s milk or soy.