Emotionally literate children manifest the following behavioral characteristics:

Among the basic components of emotional intelligence, one can list the following:

Preschool children are able to orientate relatively well in basic emotions such as: anger, fear, joy, sadness, etc. They can identify when they experience these emotions, as well as identify when other people express these emotions.

Gradually the conscious regulation of emotions emerges. The child learns to control the external manifestations of emotions, based on the requirements of the environment, moreover, the child is even proud of this self-control. Higher sentiments start to emerge, i.e., aesthetic, intellectual, moral feelings, as well as feelings related to self-evaluation. The child gradually engages in a group game, is able to agree on the rules and the course of the game and remain in the game for a longer period of time.

The child is subject to a variety of emotional experiences, such as trauma, stress, frustration, conflicts, which they may not be able to process into a reinforcing experience. The suppression of negative experiences continues to manifest itself in the form of nightmares, anxiety, or psychosomatic difficulties.

Emotional education in this sense should be the prevention of emotional disorders which a preschool teacher can encounter in the form of:

● Neuroses: The child does not manage their feelings, does not have self-control, explodes unexpectedly, is nervous (or excessively lively and manifests exaggerated reactions to certain stimuli).

● Psychopathy: The feelings of the child are not oriented correctly.

● Apathy: Inability to feel emotions, disappearance of emotional interest in the environment.

Self-regulation is the conscious management of ideas, behavior and emotions. Simply put, it is the ability to stop, think, and act. Another term closely associated with self-regulation is executive functions. Executive functions consist of three main components: flexibility of attention, inhibitory control and working memory.

● Flexibility of Attention / Cognitive Flexibility: it is the ability to pay attention and focus on a task, and the ability to shift attention from one task to another if needed.

● Working Memory: it is the ability to accumulate and process information. Children in kindergartens are constantly asked to use their working memory to remember instructions and rules and to follow those instructions. The information that children receive is either simple (one-step) or complex (multi-step).

● Inhibition: the ability to stop an impulse and choose a more appropriate response instead. This also includes calming down when the child is angry, alternating the roles in a game, waiting for or postponed gratification.

Although executive functions differ, they often go hand in hand with each other. For example, for the child to use inhibition skills, they need a working memory in order to remember the appropriate alternative reactions to be used instead of impulsive ones. In order to remember the substituted reaction, they have to pay attention to that information before. The following example illustrates the combination of all executive functions:

When children were moving in a group, Sofia always tended to push other children. Each time her teacher, Eva tried to remind Sophia that she should ask, “Can you move, please?” and wait for a classmate to step out of her way instead of pushing. After a while, the teacher observed with satisfaction that Sofia used verbal requests more and more often and did less pushing.

Self-regulation occurs throughout the day at the kindergarten in almost every activity – from the early common circle, during educational activities, when playing outdoors, at lunch, when washing as well as on arrival and departure from the kindergarten.

However, we should not forget one important component of self-regulation, and that is the context (both physical and emotional) in which self-regulation is expected from children. For example, paying attention during the morning circle may be easy for Lucia on a day when she is well-rested and not hungry. The teacher picks up her favorite book, and Janko (who has problems with self-regulation and has frequent bouts of anger during the morning circle) is not present. But would self-regulation be so simple for Lucia if she was in a bad mood in the morning, if she didn’t want to part with her mother and was sad when coming to the kindergarten? What if the teacher did not have the time to properly prepare for the morning circle on that day and had picked up a story which was way too long and uninteresting for Lucia?

The surrounding context affects not only the development of self-regulation in the child but also their ability to self-regulate at any given moment. Events taking place in the child’s home and school environment affect the emotional state of the child. Research shows that emotions have a strong influence on self-regulation (e.g. attention and memory) as well as on learning. At the beginning of the chapter, self-regulation was defined by means of thoughts and behavior – these are the so-called “cold” aspects of self-regulation which are activated when children are given more abstract tasks, such as sorting colors or numbers. “Hot” aspects of self-regulation are triggered when children have to perform tasks that relate to emotions and motivation, such as working on a frustrating task or on a task with delayed satisfaction.

Matěj loved the game “Simon Says” and strictly followed the instructions, similarly as he did in the “Freezing” game: he was able to freeze during a moment of wild dancing and not move. In these games Matěj’s ability for self-regulation was strong. However, there were also situations where, for example, he could not tie his shoelaces and when the teacher asked whether he could help, this made Matěj even more angry and ended up with the boy throwing the shoe away in anger. Or when another child took his glue during an art lesson, he would push the child to the ground in a fit of anger and take the glue back. In these emotionally troubled situations Matěj’s ability to think first and act accordingly seemed to have disappeared.

In this case the child had difficulty with the so-called “hot” aspects of self-regulation. The natural reaction of the brain to emotionally charged situations is known as “fight or flight”. As a reaction to stress or intense emotions, the brain produces cortisol – a hormone that helps us react quickly to danger, but also inhibits the pathways of the prefrontal cortex (an area of the brain associated with self-regulation). When the teacher learns to recognize such a situation is happening to children, she can encourage them using calming strategies to effectively control their emotions when angry.