7.1: Introduction

Social-emotional development indicates how preschool children acquire the social skills, self-awareness, and personal qualities that are interconnected with learning in a classroom. Why is social-emotional development important to early learning?

• Many social-emotional qualities—such as curiosity; self-confidence as a learner; self-control of attention, thinking, and impulses; and initiative in developing new ideas—are essential to learning at any age. Learning, problem solving, and creativity rely on these social-emotional and motivational qualities as well as basic cognitive skills.
• When learning occurs in groups, such as in preschool classrooms or family child care programs, the social environment significantly influences how learning occurs. When young children enjoy interacting with adults and other children, they are more enthusiastic about activities and participate more.
• The interest and enthusiasm of others fuels the child’s own excitement about learning, and children are also motivated by others’ acknowledgment of the child’s accomplishments.
  Children who have been reported as having the greatest difficulties in learning are hindered by the lack of social-emotional qualities more than academic concepts.
• The developing brain is not neatly divided into separate areas governing learning, thinking, and emotions. Instead, it is a highly interconnected organ with different regions influencing, and being affected by, the others. This means, for example, that young children who experience emotional challenges (perhaps because of stress) are less ready for learning because the brain regions related to memory are being affected by other regions governing emotion. ^[1]