Emotions are revealed through facial expressions and modulation
of voice tones. During infancy stage, expression of emotions is done in a
forceful way and it occurs without any external cause. They express it
in the form of crying and shouting. During the first two months of
infant stage, the baby shows only two emotions -- pleasure and
displeasure, caused by physical stimulation. The baby shows out these
emotions through body movements like relaxing the body to show pleasure
and tensing the body with waving arms and kicking legs while crying to
show displeasure.
By the third month, physical stimulation
combined with psychological stimulation allows the baby to express the
emotion of pleasure with a smile when he comes in contact with a human
face and expressing displeasure with facial expressions and crying.
During childhood, expressions are no longer displayed forcefully but
through more reasonable means. This is due to factors of language
development and also development of social behavior, which enables the
child to understand that it is not proper to show emotions at all times.
The development of her mind puts a check on emotional outbursts. Some
common emotions a child expresses are happiness, anger, sadness, fear,
love, sympathy and empathy. Let us see how these emotions are expressed.
Happiness
Happiness
is expressed by the baby with fully joyful smiles to start with, and
later with lively or prolific laughter. The baby smiles and laughs on
attaining new skills or on overcoming an obstacle to reach a goal. He
also shows happiness at the affection and stimulation of the
care-givers. During the early weeks baby smiles when full, to gentle
touches and sounds. By the end of first month, he smiles at something,
say a bright object that comes across his field of vision. Social
interaction begins by 3 months when baby smiles on coming into contact
with familiar people, Laughter begins around 3 to 4 months when the
parent is playful with the baby.
Around 6 months, baby smiles and
laughs more on contact with familiar people. Around 10 to 12 months,
baby's smile differs with context like a broad cheek raised smile in
response to a parent's greeting, a reserved smile to a friendly stranger
and a mouth-open smile while engaged in stimulating play. The baby is
socially well developed when he is 2 years old and his emotional
expressions become intentional or purposeful. He is delighted to respond
to an adult attending to him amidst his play with an interesting toy.
Anger
Anger
is expressed by newborn babies when they are hungry, find any
inconvenience in body condition like change in temperature and when they
face over-stimulation or too little stimulation. The frequency and
intensity of anger increases from 4 to 6 months into the second year.
They express this emotion in specific situations like when an
interesting object they are playing with is removed from them or when
their goal is blocked by an obstacle or when the care-giver leaves the
place for a brief time or when a toy he is playing with stops
functioning. Anger is intense when the baby does not receive the
expected warm behavior from the care-giver. Anger is expressed in the
form of outburst of bad temper - the baby may hit, kick, cry and scream.
Sadness
Sadness
is also expressed in the same situations as that which causes anger.
But this emotion is expressed much less frequently than anger.
Fear
Infants
around 6 to 12 months express this emotion. They express fear for an
animal, when left alone, when they meet a stranger, go to strange places
and when they hear a sudden loud noise. Fear is expressed by crying.
Infants of this age-period show reluctance to play with a new toy due to
fear. Those who have just started to crawl show greater fear. Rise in
this kind of fear after six months comes as a hurdle in the way of
exploratory behavior of crawling and walking babies. Most infants and
toddlers, though do not express their fear when they get to interact
with strangers. They are still cautious of strangers, though. The baby
cries out of fear when picked up by an unfamiliar adult in a strange
setting. This fear can be reduced by the way of approach of the stranger
who picks up the baby. He has to approach slowly, presenting the baby
with an attractive toy or playing an interesting game the baby is
familiar with.
Love and Sympathy
These emotions are
expressed by the baby mostly to the intimate care-giver, the mother of
the baby. When the baby sees the mother in his room he gives out a broad
friendly smile. When picked up he pats her face, puts his gentle tiny
hand into her hair and clings close to her body. Sympathy is expressed
by the baby through facial expressions which the baby learns from the
mother's reaction to a situation.
Empathy
Empathy is
an emotion caused by observing and recognizing what is happening to
others - feeling bad because someone else is feeling bad.
Copyright Oonjal Technologies 2009. All rights reserved.
This is an article from Prathaban Selvaraj. For more articles on parenting visit KidandParent, an Indian parenting website. To find more articles on child development visit KidandParent's articles section on child development.
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