Browsing by Author "Rantakari, Saila-Maaria"

The first years of a child’s life set the foundation for emotion regulation. Emotion regulation is a part of self-regulation. The development of emotion regulation is affected by a child’s neurobiological and cognitive development as well as the direct and indirect ways the caregivers of a child use to support a child’s emotion regulation. An adult regulates a child’s emotions outwardly in order to increase a child’s own ability to regulate emotions. Emotion regulation skills have an important effect on a child’s social relations and emotional well-being. This study describes the experiences and views of kindergarten teachers on supporting the emotion regulation of 0–3-year olds. The purpose of this study was to find out the prerequisites for supporting emotion regulation and the functional tools for supporting the emotion regulation of 0-3-year olds in early childhood education. The study method was qualitative research. Research data were collected by semi-structured interviews. Three (3) kindergarten teachers from the Helsinki metropolitan area were interviewed for the purpose of this study. Data analysis method in this study was content analysis. The study showed that the kindergarten teachers who participated in the study considered using small groups and recognizing the individuality of a child as prerequisites for supporting emotion regulation. Important factors in supporting emotion regulation were the sensitivity, attentiveness and professionalism of the kindergarten teachers. The most common ways of supporting emotion regulation were teacher-child interaction including emotional expressions, gestures, naming of emotions and holding a child in a teacher’s lap. According to this study, spontaneous everyday situations provided better opportunities for supporting emotion regulation than teaching materials designed specifically for teaching emotional skills. Peer relations were considered to have a positive effect on the development of emotion regulation. Children’s literature and play facilitated by the kindergarten teachers were also used as ways of supporting emotion regulation.