Emotional development during late childhood
This is the period of stability and control. The emotional expressions are restrained and very soon the child learns that violent expression of emotions is not acceptable and it is ‘babyish’ to express the emotions every time. But it, in any way, does not mean that the emotional life of the child is not rich.
He has pleasant emotions too and expresses them. He laughs and enjoys being laughed with. Although there is increased differentiation of emotional expressions, there is gradual decline in the exhibition of overt expressions.
There is a shift from the wholehearted and violent reactions to more subdued responses. Garrison is of the view that the child who at the age of nine months shrieks and cries with his “whole self’, withholds his emotional expressions. Why is it that the child learns to control his emotions ? It is, because at this stage, what matters is social prestige of the child; in later childhood, he shuns the very idea of expressing his emotions directly.
It should be understood that lack of expression does not mean that the child is without any emotional life. He has emotions of anger, fear, jealousy and other common emotions. In order to express his emotions, the child uses words. He might be aggressive sometimes and resort to beating also. ‘Ignoring others’ is another common technique of expressing his emotion of jealousy.
