Parents experiences and opinions about childrenˈs emotions

Different authors may give different interpretations of emotions, however everyone agrees, that emotions affect all areas of life: health, learning, interpersonal relationships and behaviour. The development of emotion alongside the broader environment and heredity, is also largely influenced by teachers in kindergarten who may have beneficial effects on the emotional development of preschool children. With conversation, storytelling, explanations ... they develop children’s communication skills, which are essential for the child's emotional development. This is the way children learn to communicate their feelings, experiences ... Parents provide a child with their first emotional experience. Therefore I wanted to check whether parents recognize the child’s feelings, what kind of an attitude they have towards it and how they respond to them in their child rearing. The sample consists of 51 parents of children attending kindergarten within the elementary school Janka Modra Dol pri Ljubljani. I collected data through a survey questionnaire in December of 2012. I have found that parents, who participated in the survey, are well-educated about emotional expressions of a preschool child. Most parents recognise and accept their child's emotions, regardless which emotion a child expresses. According to parents, unfavourable feelings (anger) are less desirable than favourable (joy) ones. The survey shows that parents are aware of their impact on the expression of children's emotions and know that the child's emotions greatly affect the development of emotions in later life