Features of emotional disorders in childhood. Emotional-volitional disorders in a child. Behavioral and emotional disorders in children

A child’s emotions are connected with his inner world and various social situations, the experience of which causes him to have certain emotional states. As a result of disruption of social situations (changes in daily routine, lifestyle, etc.), the child may experience a stressful state, affective reactions, and fear. This causes the child to feel negatively and emotionally unwell.

Causes

Child psychologists believe that the main causes of emotional disorders in children can be: illnesses and stress suffered in childhood; features of the child’s physical and psycho-emotional development, including delays, impairments or retardation in intellectual development; microclimate in the family, as well as the characteristics of upbringing; social and living conditions of the child, his close environment. Emotional disorders in children can be caused by other factors. For example, psychological trauma can be caused to a child’s body by the films he watches or the computer games he plays. Emotional disorders in children most often appear during critical periods of development. A striking example of such mentally unstable behavior is the so-called “adolescent age”.

Types of Emotional Disorders

Euphoria is an inappropriately elevated, joyful mood. A child in a state of euphoria is characterized as impulsive, striving for dominance, and impatient.

Dysphoria is a mood disorder with a predominance of angry-sad, gloomy-dissatisfied, with general irritability and aggressiveness. A child in a state of dysphoria can be described as sullen, angry, harsh, unyielding. Dysphoria is a type of depression.

Depression, in turn, is an affective state characterized by a negative emotional background and general passivity of behavior. A child with a low mood can be described as unhappy, gloomy, pessimistic.

Anxiety syndrome is a state of causeless concern, accompanied by nervous tension and restlessness. A child experiencing anxiety can be defined as insecure, constrained, and tense. This syndrome is expressed in frequent mood swings, tearfulness, decreased appetite, finger sucking, touchiness and sensitivity. Anxiety often turns into fears (phobias).

Fear is an emotional state that arises in the event of awareness of an impending danger - imaginary or real. A child experiencing fear looks timid, frightened, and withdrawn.

Apathy is an indifferent attitude towards everything that happens, which is combined with sharp drop initiatives. With apathy, the loss of emotional reactions is combined with defeat or absence of volitional impulses. Only with great difficulty can you briefly disinhibit the emotional sphere and promote the manifestation of feelings.

Emotional dullness is characterized not only by the absence of emotions (to adequate or inadequate stimuli), but also by the impossibility of their appearance at all. Introduction of stimulants medications leads to temporary pointless motor excitement, but not to the emergence of feelings or contact.

Parathymia or inadequacy of emotions is a mood disorder in which the experience of one emotion is accompanied by the external manifestation of an emotion of the opposite valence. It should be noted that both parathymia and emotional dullness are characteristic of children suffering from schizophrenia.

Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) is a combination of general motor restlessness, restlessness, impulsiveness, emotional lability, and impaired concentration. It follows that the main signs of this syndrome are distractibility and motor disinhibition. Thus, a child suffering from ADHD is restless, does not finish the job he starts, and his mood changes quickly.

Aggression is a type of provocative behavior aimed at attracting the attention of adults or peers. It can be physical, verbal (obscene language), indirect (displacement of an aggressive reaction to a stranger or object). It can manifest itself in the form of suspicion, resentment, negativism, and guilt.

In addition to these groups of emotional disorders, emotional difficulties in communication can also be identified. They are represented in children by autistic behavior and difficulties in adequately determining the emotional states of people.

Treatment

Emotional disorders in children are treated in the same way as in adults: a combination of individual, family psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy gives the best effect.

The leading method of correcting emotional disorders in childhood is the imitation of various emotional states by children. The significance of this method is due to a number of features:

1) active facial and pantomimic manifestations help prevent the development of certain emotions into pathology;

2) thanks to the work of the muscles of the face and body, active discharge of emotions is ensured;

3) in children, when voluntarily reproducing expressive movements, the corresponding emotions are revived and vivid memories of previously unreacted experiences may arise, which allows, in some cases, to find the root cause nervous tension child and level his real fears.

Children’s imitation of emotional states helps expand their system of knowledge about emotions and makes it possible to clearly see that different moods and experiences are expressed in specific poses, gestures, facial expressions, and movements. This knowledge allows preschoolers to more competently navigate their own emotional states and the emotions of others

Violations and their causes in alphabetical order:

emotional disturbance in children -

Spectrum of emotional disorders in childhood and adolescence extremely large. These can be severe neurotic conflicts, neurosis-like conditions in a child due to organic damage to the central nervous system, pre-neurotic conditions, etc.

In the psychological literature, emotional distress in children is considered as a negative state that arises against the background of difficult-to-resolve personal conflicts.

Symptoms of emotional disorders in children of senior preschool age.

1. Difficulties in communicating with peers and adults:
- imbalance;
- excitability;
- violent affective reactions (anger, hysterical crying, demonstration of resentment), which are accompanied by somatic changes (redness, increased sweating, etc.);
- negativism;
- stubbornness;
- intransigence;
- conflict;
- cruelty;
- persistent negative attitude towards communication;
- getting stuck on negative emotions;
- emotional coldness;
- alienation that hides self-doubt.

2. Features of the inner world:
- acute sensitivity;
- impressionability;
- painful sensitivity;
- the presence of fears: those that are not age-related, that interfere with the normal functioning of children;
- anxiety;
- suspiciousness.

This classification is very conditional, since the child’s internal ill-being directly affects his behavior and communication with others.
The need to more clearly distinguish children with different levels of socio-emotional development contributes to the creation of the classification presented below.

Levels of social and emotional development of children of senior preschool age.
Low (unwell):
- reluctance and inability to act together with adults and peers;
- lack of initiative in communication;
- avoidance of interaction;
- lack of self-control in actions, behavior and emotions;
- exceptional focus on one’s own actions;
- non-recognition of rules and norms of communication and activity;
- lack of concepts of “good and bad” or unwillingness to follow them when formed;
- conflict, aggressiveness.

Average:
- lack of initiative in communication;
- preference for exclusively passive roles;
- situational regulation of affective manifestations;
- inability to resolve conflicts;
- acceptance of help and the possibility of providing it.

High:
- desire to communicate and interact for a long time;
- successful participation in collective affairs;
- successful performance of both leadership and passive roles;
- the ability to resolve conflict, give in or insist on one’s own;
- recognition and adequate implementation of the rules proposed by adults;
- caring attitude towards the world of people’s feelings and the objective world;
- ability to keep oneself busy;
- possession of adequate ways of expressing one’s internal state.

The formation in children of senior preschool age of the ability to overcome their disadvantage occurs in activities, in direct communication with adults and peers.

What diseases cause emotional disturbance in children:

Traditionally, there are three groups of factors leading to emotional disorders in children and adolescents: biological, psychological and socio-psychological.

Biological causes of emotional disorders include genetic factors. Thus, in studies by foreign authors, a clear connection was found between depressive conditions in children and similar conditions in their parents. Undoubtedly, hereditary factors play a role important role in the formation of individual typological characteristics of a child’s personality, but they are far from sufficient for the occurrence of certain emotional disorders.

Biological factors predisposing to the occurrence of emotional distress in a child include somatic weakness due to frequent illnesses. It contributes to the emergence of various reactive states and neurotic reactions, mainly with an asthenic component. A number of authors point to an increased frequency of emotional disorders in children with chronic somatic diseases, noting that these disorders are not a direct result of the disease, but are associated with difficulties in the social adaptation of the sick child and with the characteristics of his self-esteem. Much more often emotional disturbances occur in children with a history of aggravating biological factors in the peri- and postnatal periods, but they are also not decisive in the occurrence of emotional disorders in the child. V.V. Kovalev noted that neurotic reactions in children can be caused by improper upbringing against the background of cerebral-organic insufficiency. Residual organic failure, according to the author, contributes to the formation of mental inertia, getting stuck on negative affective experiences, increased excitability, and lability of affect. This facilitates the emergence of painful reactions to psychological influences and promotes their fixation.

The authors attribute to the actual psychological reasons for the occurrence of emotional distress in children the characteristics of the emotional-volitional sphere of the child, in particular, a violation of the adequacy of his response to external influences, a lack of development of skills of self-control of behavior, etc.

Conventionally, emotional disorders can be divided into two subgroups. This division is based on those areas in which socio-emotional disadvantage is manifested: on the one hand, in relationships with other people, on the other, in the characteristics of the child’s inner world.

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GRADUATE QUALIFYING WORK

Emotional disorders in children

Introduction

Chapter I. Emotional disorders in children of preschool and primary school age

1.2 Features of emotional development in children of preschool and primary school age

1.3 Emotional disorders in children of preschool and primary school age

Chapter II. Methods and techniques for psychodiagnostics of emotional disorders in children

2.1 Features diagnostic methods to identify emotional disorders in children

2.2 Diagnosis of emotional development disorders in children

Conclusion

Bibliography

Application

INTRODUCTION

Relevance of the topic

Every year the number of children who are diagnosed with some kind of nervous disease increases and almost all children have some kind of deviation in the emotional sphere. According to A.I. Zakharov, by the end of primary school, less than half of children are healthy, and according to school teachers and psychologists, by middle school, a diagnosis of emotional nervous disorder can be given to most children, and in fact only a few can be called healthy. If we take into account that emotional disorders do not appear at school age, but much earlier, and by school age some children arrive with stable nervous disorders, then one can draw sad conclusions.

Judging by the scale of the spread of this problem, in the near future we are threatened with “complete neuroticization of the population.” Such a society will not be able to exist harmoniously in the future.

Due to its relevance, this topic deserves the attention of not only specialists in the field of child neuropathology, but also, first of all, kindergarten parents and teachers. Therefore, it is certainly necessary to think about the timely diagnosis of emotional disorders in childhood, try to identify them as early as possible, and select adequate methods in order to prevent most cases of emotional disorders and nervous diseases in children, which in turn will ensure the mental health of the younger generation.

Elaboration

A large number of scientists have dealt with the problem of emotional disorders and their diagnosis, such as Zakharov A.I., Sukhareva G.E., Gannushkin L.K., Lichko A.E., Lebedinsky V.V., Nikolskaya O.S., K Leongard, Gubinshtein S.Ya., Shchard K.E., Borodulina S.Yu., Eliseev O.P., Bardyshevskaya M.N., Nepomnyashchaya N.I. etc.

Emotional disorders in children of preschool and primary school age.

Diagnosis of emotional disorders in children of preschool and primary school age.

Clarification of the possibilities for diagnosing emotional disorders in children of preschool and primary school age.

Main goals

1) Analyze the psychological essence and meaning of emotions, and also consider the features of emotional development in children of preschool and primary school age.

2) Describe disorders of emotional development in children of preschool and primary school age.

3) Identify the possibilities of psychodiagnostic methods for identifying emotional disorders in children of preschool and primary school age.

5) Conduct a diagnosis of emotional disorders in children of the 1st grade secondary school.

Scientific and practical significance of the problem under study

A generalization of material on the problem of diagnosing emotional disorders in children is useful not only for psychologists, teachers and doctors, but also for parents.

Chapter I. Emotional development of children of preschool and primary school age

1.1 Psychological essence, the meaning of emotions

Cognizing reality, a person relates in one way or another to objects, phenomena, events, to other people, to his personality. Some phenomena of reality make him happy, others sadden him, admiration, indignation, anger, fear, etc. - all this different kinds a person's subjective attitude to reality. In psychology, emotions are processes that reflect personal significance and assessment of external and internal situations for a person’s life in the form of experiences. Emotions and feelings serve to reflect a person’s subjective attitude towards himself and the world around him.

Emotions are a special class of subjective psychological states that reflect, in the form of direct experiences of pleasure, the process and results of practical activities aimed at satisfying its current needs. Since everything that a person does ultimately serves the purpose of satisfying his various needs, since any manifestations of human activity are accompanied by emotional experiences. Emotions, C. Darwin argued, arose in the process of evolution, as a means by which living beings establish the significance of certain conditions to satisfy their actual needs (L.D. Stolyarenko, p. 233). As our ancestors evolved, the period of growing up and training of young individuals became longer - they needed more and more time to learn how to get food and take care of themselves. In order for a child to survive, a mutual affection had to develop between him and the person who cared for him. Based on data modern research, we can confidently say that emotions are the cementing factor in the mutual attachment of mother and child. If you leave a one-year-old baby without a mother in an unfamiliar room, he will certainly react to the separation with a strong emotion. If the connection between mother and baby is disrupted for a longer period of time or is disrupted permanently, one can observe an expressive bouquet of negative emotions that can develop into severe forms of depression and can even cause general exhaustion of the body.

Undoubtedly, one of the reasons for the emergence of emotions during evolution was the need to provide a social connection between mother and child. The ecological niche of the human child is such that the bearer of all the cognitive, social and physiological skills necessary for the survival of the infant is the adult who cares for him. The child depends on the mother in everything: she satisfies his needs for food, warmth, care, and protects him from danger. Among other things, a child also needs parental love for physiological health and psychological well-being, the lack of which underlies many psychological disorders, and especially depression.

Another reason for the emergence of emotions was the urgent need for means of communication between mother and child. Numerous studies devoted to the emotional development of a child show that long before a child begins to understand speech addressed to him and pronounce individual words, he can already inform others about his internal state using a certain set of signals. for example, hunger and pain may manifest themselves through the outward expression of physical suffering. [Izard K.E., pp. 19-22].

Emotional sensations have become biologically entrenched in the process of evolution as a unique way of maintaining the life process within its optimal boundaries and warn of the destructive nature of a lack or excess of any factors.

For the first time, emotional expressive movements became the subject of study by Charles Darwin. Based on comparative studies of the emotional movements of mammals, Darwin created a biological concept of emotions, according to which expressive emotional movements were considered as a rudiment of expedient instinctive actions that retain to some extent their biological meaning and at the same time act as biological significant signals for individuals not only of our own, but also of other species.

The result of deep theoretical thought is the biological theory of emotions by P.K. Anokhina. This theory considers emotions as a product of evolution, as an adaptive factor in the life of the animal world, as a mechanism that keeps life processes within optimal boundaries and prevents the destructive nature of the lack or excess of any factors in the life of a given organism.

The main position of P.V. Simonov’s information theory of emotions is that emotions arise when there is a mismatch between a vital need and the possibility of satisfying it. A person’s awareness of the means to satisfy a need can reduce emotions.

The James-Lange “peripheral” theory of emotions proves that the emergence of emotions is caused by changes in organic processes (for example, breathing, pulse, facial expressions). And emotions themselves are the sum of organic sensations - “a person is sad because he is crying,” and not vice versa.

In this aspect, Arnold's concept is of interest, according to which an intuitive assessment of a situation, for example, a threat, causes a desire to act, which is expressed in various bodily changes, is experienced as an emotion and can lead to action. This can be expressed this way: “We are afraid because we have decided that we are being threatened.”

Dalibor Bindra, after a critical analysis of existing theories of emotion, came to the conclusion that it is impossible to draw a rigid distinction between emotion and motivation. Emotions do not exist as a separate class of behavioral reactions; they are inseparable from sensation, perception, and motivation. Bindra puts forward his own concept of a “central motivational state” - a complex of nervous processes that arises as a result of the action of a combination of incentive stimuli of a certain type, which determines certain emotional and typical species reactions. [L.D. Stolyarenko, p.236].

The results of experimental studies suggest that the cerebral cortex plays a leading role in the regulation of emotional states. I.P. Pavlov showed that it is the cortex that regulates the flow and expression of emotions, keeps under its control all phenomena occurring in the body, has an inhibitory effect on the subcortical centers, and controls them. If the cerebral cortex comes into a state of excessive excitation, then overexcitation of the centers flying below the cortex occurs, as a result of which the usual restraint disappears. In the case of widespread inhibition, depression, weakening or stiffness of muscle movements, decline in cardiovascular activity and respiration, etc. are observed.

It can be argued that emotions arise as a result of exposure to a certain stimulus, and their appearance is nothing more than a manifestation of human adaptation mechanisms and the regulation of his behavior. It can also be assumed that emotions were formed in the process of evolution of the animal world and maximum level They have achieved development in humans, since they are represented objectively, at the level of feelings. [A.G. Maklakov, p.408].

The oldest in origin, the simplest and most common form of emotional experiences among living beings is the pleasure obtained from satisfying organic needs, and the displeasure associated with the inability to do this when the corresponding need intensifies. The diverse manifestations of a person’s emotional life are divided into affects, emotions themselves, feelings, moods and stress.

The most powerful emotional reaction - affect - is a strong, violent and relatively short-term emotional experience that completely captures the human psyche and predetermines a unified reaction to the situation as a whole. Examples of affect include extreme anger, rage, horror, intense joy, deep grief, and despair.

Emotions themselves, unlike affects, are longer lasting states. They are a reaction not only to events that have happened, but also to probable or remembered ones. If affects arise towards the end of the action and reflect the total, final assessment of the situation, then emotions shift to the beginning of the action and anticipate the result.

In order to understand the essence of emotions, it is necessary to proceed from the fact that most objects and phenomena of the external environment, acting on the senses, cause in us complex, multifaceted emotional sensations and feelings, which can include both pleasure and displeasure, tension or relief, excitement or calm. In addition, from the point of view of their influence on human activity, emotions are divided into sthenic and asthenic. Stenic emotions stimulate activity, increase a person’s energy and tension, and encourage him to act and speak. And, conversely, sometimes experiences lead to stiffness and passivity, then they talk about asthenic emotions. Therefore, depending on the situation and individual characteristics, emotions can influence behavior in different ways. [L.D. Stolyarenko, p.234].

It should be noted that attempts have been made repeatedly to identify the main, “fundamental” emotions. In particular, it is customary to highlight the following emotions:

1) Joy is a positive emotional state associated with the ability to sufficiently fully satisfy an actual need.

2) Surprise - an emotional reaction to sudden circumstances that does not have a clearly defined positive or negative sign.

3) Suffering is a negative emotional state associated with received reliable or apparent information about the impossibility of satisfying the most important needs of life.

4) Anger is an emotional state, negative in sign, usually occurring in the form of affect and caused by the sudden emergence of a serious obstacle to the satisfaction of a need that is extremely important for the subject.

5) Disgust is a negative emotional state caused by objects (objects, people, circumstances, etc.) contact with which comes into sharp conflict with the ideological, moral or aesthetic principles and attitudes of the subject.

6) Contempt is a negative emotional state that arises in interpersonal relationships and is generated by a mismatch in the life positions, views and behavior of the subject with the life positions, views and behavior of the object of feeling.

7) Fear is a negative emotional state that appears when the subject receives information about a real or imagined danger.

8) Shame is a negative state, expressed in the awareness of the inconsistency of one’s own thoughts, actions and appearance not only with the expectations of others, but also with one’s own ideas about appropriate behavior and appearance. [A.G. Maklakov, p.395]

It should be noted that emotional experiences are ambiguous. The same object can cause inconsistent, contradictory emotional relationships. This phenomenon is called agility, i.e. duality of feelings.

Feelings are another type of emotional state. This superior product cultural and emotional development of a person. Feelings are even more than emotions, stable mental states that have a clearly defined objective character: they express a stable attitude towards some objects (real or imaginary).

Depending on the direction, feelings are divided into moral (a person’s experience of his relationship to other people), intellectual (feelings associated with cognitive activity), aesthetic (feelings of beauty when perceiving art, natural phenomena) and practical (feelings associated with human activity).

Feelings play a motivating role in a person’s life and activity, in his communication with people around him. In relation to the world around him, a person strives to act in such a way as to reinforce and strengthen his positive feelings. They are always connected with the work of consciousness and can be voluntarily regulated. Having a strong and lasting positive feeling for something or someone is called passion. Stable feelings of moderate or weak strength that last for a long time are called moods.

Mood is the longest lasting emotional state that colors all human behavior.

Passion is another type of complex, qualitatively unique and unique emotional state found only in humans. Passion is a fusion of emotions, motives and feelings concentrated around a certain type of activity or object (person). [L.D. Stolyarenko, p.235].

The last type of emotional response is one of the most common types of affects - stress. It is a state of excessively strong and prolonged psychological stress that occurs in a person when he nervous system gets emotional overload. Stress disorganizes a person’s activities and disrupts the normal course of his behavior. According to G. Selye, stress is a nonspecific response of the body to any demand presented to it, which helps it adapt to the difficulty that has arisen and cope with it. All that matters is the intensity of the need for restructuring or adaptation.

The very occurrence and experience of stress depends not so much on objective as on subjective factors, on the characteristics of the person himself: his assessment of the situation, comparison of his strengths and abilities with what is required of him, etc.

Close to the concept and state of stress is the concept of frustration, which is experienced as tension, anxiety, despair, anger that grips a person when, on the way to achieving a goal, he encounters unexpected obstacles that interfere with the satisfaction of needs.

The most common reaction to frustration is the emergence of generalized aggressiveness, most often directed at obstacles. Aggression, quickly turning into anger, manifests itself in violent and inappropriate reactions: insult, physical attacks on a person or object. In some cases, a person reacts to frustration by withdrawing, accompanied by aggression that is not expressed openly.

Frustration leads to emotional disturbances only when an obstacle to strong motivation arises [L.D. Stolyarenko, p. 243]

According to I.P. Pavlov, emotions play an important role in human life and perform a number of functions:

1) Reflective-evaluative function of emotions.

Emotions are a reflection of the human and animal brain of any active need (its quality and magnitude) and the likelihood (possibility) of its satisfaction, which the brain evaluates on the basis of genetic and previously acquired individual experience.

2) Switching function of emotions.

From a physiological point of view, emotion is an active state of a system of specialized brain structures that encourages behavior to be changed in the direction of minimizing or maximizing this state.

The switching function of emotions is found both in the sphere congenital forms behavior, and in the implementation of conditioned reflex activity, including its most complex manifestation.

An assessment of the likelihood of satisfying a need can occur in a person not only at a conscious level, but also at an unconscious level. The switching function of emotions is especially clearly revealed in the process of competition of motives, when a dominant need is identified, which becomes a vector of goal-directed behavior.

The dependence of emotions not only on the magnitude of the need, but also on the likelihood of its satisfaction, extremely complicates the competition of coexisting motives, as a result of which behavior is often reoriented towards a less important, but easily achievable goal.

3) Reinforcing function of emotions.

By reinforcement, I.P. Pavlov understood the action of a biologically significant stimulus, which gives a signal value to another, biologically non-existent stimulus combined with it. V. Vyrvitska came to the conclusion that direct reinforcement is not the satisfaction of any need, but the receipt of desirable and elimination of undesirable stimuli. For example, fear has a pronounced aversiveness for the animal and is actively minimized by it through the avoidance reaction.

4) Compensatory (replacement) function of emotions.

Emotions influence other cerebral systems that regulate behavior, the processes of perception of external signals and the extraction of engrams of these signals from memory, and the autonomic functions of the body.

Emotion in itself does not carry information about the surrounding world; the lack of information is replenished through search behavior, improving skills, and mobilizing engrams stored in memory. The complex meaning of emotions lies in the replacing role [Yu.B. Gippenreiter, pp. 189-194].

5) Regulatory function of emotions and feelings - when, under the influence of negative emotional states, a person may develop prerequisites for the development of various diseases, and vice versa, there are a significant number of examples when, under the influence of emotions, the healing process is accelerated, i.e. emotions regulate our health.

6) Pre-information (signal) function of emotions

The experiences that arise signal to a person how the process of satisfying his needs is going, what obstacles he encounters on his way, what he needs to pay attention to first, etc.

7) Incentive (stimulating) function of emotions.

Emotions and feelings help determine the direction of the search, as a result of which the satisfaction of an emerging need is achieved or the problem facing a person is solved.

8) Communicative function of feelings.

Mimic and pantomimic movements allow a person to convey his experiences to other people, inform them about his attitude to objects and phenomena of the surrounding reality. Facial expressions, gestures, postures, expressive sighs, changes in intonation are “the language of human feelings, a means of communicating not so much thoughts as emotions [A.G. Maklakov, p. 412].

The variety of emotional manifestations is expressed primarily in the prevailing mood of people. Under the influence of life conditions and depending on the attitude towards them, some people have a high, cheerful, cheerful mood; others - depressed, depressed, sad; for others - capricious, irritable, etc.

Significant emotional differences are also observed in the emotional excitability of people. There are people who are emotionally insensitive, for whom only some extraordinary events evoke pronounced emotions. Such people do not so much feel the situation as they are aware of it with their minds. There is another category of people - emotionally excitable ones, in whom the slightest trifle can cause strong emotions, a rise or fall in mood.

There are significant differences between people in the depth and stability of feelings. Some people are completely overwhelmed by their feelings and leave a deep imprint behind them. For other people, feelings are superficial, flow easily, unnoticeably, and pass quickly. Manifestations of affects and passions differ noticeably among people. In this regard, we can identify unbalanced people who easily lose control over themselves and their behavior. Other people, on the contrary, are always balanced, completely in control of themselves, and consciously control their behavior.

It should be noted that significant differences in the manifestation of emotions and feelings largely determine the uniqueness of a particular person, i.e. determine his individuality. [A.G. Maklakov, p.414].

Thus, emotions play an extremely important role in people's lives. Thus, today no one denies the connection between emotions and the functioning of the body. It is well known that under the influence of emotions the activity of the circulatory, respiratory, digestive organs, endocrine and exocrine glands, etc. changes. Excessive intensity and duration of experiences can cause disturbances in the body. M.I. Astvatsaturov wrote that the heart is more often affected by fear, the liver by anger, and the stomach by apathy and a depressed state. The occurrence of these processes is based on changes occurring in the external world, but affects the activity of the entire organism.

Emotions characterize human needs and the objects to which they are directed. In the process of evolution, emotional sensations and states have become biologically entrenched as a way of maintaining the life process within its optimal boundaries. Their significance for the body is to warn about the destructive nature of any factors. Thus, emotions are one of the main mechanisms for regulating the functional state of the body and human activity. Thanks to emotions, a person becomes aware of his needs and the objects to which they are directed. Another universal feature of emotions is their assistance in realizing needs and achieving certain goals. Since any emotion is positive or negative, a person can judge whether a goal has been achieved. Thus, we can conclude that emotions are most directly related to the regulation of human activity. [A.G. Maklakov, p. 393].

1.2 Features of the emotional development of children of preschool and primary school age

Emotions are common to all higher mental functions the path of development is from external socially determined forms to internal mental processes. Based on innate reactions, the child develops a perception of the emotional state of the people around him. Over time, under the influence of increasingly complex social contacts, emotional processes are formed.

The earliest emotional manifestations in children are associated with the organic needs of the child. This includes manifestations of pleasure and displeasure when satisfying or not satisfying the need for food, sleep, etc. Along with this, such elementary feelings as fear and anger begin to appear early. At first they are unconscious.

Children also develop empathy and compassion very early. Thus, at the twenty-seventh month of life, the child cried when he was shown an image of a crying person.

It should be noted that positive emotions in a child develop gradually through play and exploratory behavior. For example, research by K. Bühler showed that the moment of experiencing pleasure in children's games shifts as the child grows and develops. Initially, the child experiences pleasure at the moment of obtaining the desired result. In this case, the emotion of pleasure plays an encouraging role. The second stage is functional. A child at play brings joy not only to the result, but also to the process of the activity itself. Pleasure is now associated not with the end of the process, but with its content. At the third stage, older children begin to anticipate pleasure - the emotion in this case arises at the beginning of play activity, and neither the result of the action nor the execution itself are central in the child’s experience.

Another characteristic feature of the manifestation of feelings at an early age is their affective nature. Emotional states in children at this age arise suddenly, proceed violently, but disappear just as quickly. More significant control over emotional behavior occurs in children only in older preschool age, when they develop more complex forms of emotional life under the influence of increasingly complex relationships with people around them. [A.G. Maklakov, p.409].

Preschool age, as A.N. Leontiev wrote, is “the period of the initial actual personality structure.” It is at this time that the formation of basic personal mechanisms and formations occurs. Emotional and motivational spheres, closely related to each other, develop, and self-awareness is formed.

Preschool childhood is characterized by generally calm emotionality, the absence of strong affective outbursts and conflicts over minor issues. This new, relatively stable emotional background is determined by the dynamics of the child’s ideas. The dynamics of figurative representations are freer and softer compared to the affectively colored processes of perception in early childhood. Previously, the course of a child’s emotional life was determined by the characteristics of the specific situation in which he was included. Now the appearance of ideas allows the child to escape from the immediate situation, he has experiences that are not related to it, and momentary difficulties are not perceived so acutely and lose their former significance.

So, emotional processes become more balanced. But this does not at all mean a decrease in the richness and intensity of the child’s emotional life. A preschooler's day is so full of emotions that by the evening he can become tired and reach complete exhaustion. [I.Yu. Kulagina, V.N. Kolyutsky, p. 218].

The emotional development of a preschooler is also associated with the development of new interests, motives and needs. The most important change in the motivational sphere is the emergence of social motives, no longer conditioned by the achievement of narrowly personal, utilitarian goals. Therefore, social emotions and moral feelings begin to develop intensively. The establishment of a hierarchy of motives leads to changes in the emotional sphere. Isolation of the main motive, to which a whole system of others is subordinated, stimulates stable and deep experiences. Moreover, they relate not to the immediate, momentary, but rather distant results of activity. Feelings lose their situational nature, become deeper in semantic content, and arise in response to perceived mental circumstances. (P.M. Yakobson) [G.A. Uruntaeva, p. 254].

The desires and motivations of the child are combined with his ideas and thanks to this, the motivations are restructured. There is a transition from desires (motives) aimed at objects of the perceived situation to desires associated with imagined objects located in the “ideal” plane. The child’s actions are no longer directly related to an attractive object, but are built on the basis of ideas about the object, the desired result, and the possibility of achieving it in the near future. Emotions associated with the idea allow one to anticipate the results of the child’s actions and the satisfaction of his desires.

The mechanism of emotional anticipation is described in detail by A.V. Zaporozhets. They show how the functional place of affect in the general structure of behavior changes. Comparing the behavior of a young child and a preschooler, we can conclude that a child under 3 years of age experiences exclusively the consequences of his own actions, their assessment by an adult. They do not worry about whether an action deserves approval or censure, or what it will lead to. Affect turns out to be the last link in this chain of unfolding events.

Even before a preschooler begins to act, he has an emotional image that reflects both the future result and its assessment by adults. Emotionally anticipating the consequences of his behavior, the child already knows in advance whether he is going to act well or badly. If he foresees a result that does not meet accepted standards of upbringing, possible disapproval or punishment, he develops anxiety - an emotional state that can inhibit actions that are undesirable for others. Anticipation of the useful result of actions and the resulting high evaluation from close adults is associated with positive emotions, which additionally stimulate behavior. Adults can help the child create the desired emotional image. Wishes focused on the emotional imagination of children, and not on their consciousness, turn out to be much more effective. Thus, in preschool age there is a shift in affect from the end to the beginning of activity. Affect (emotional image) becomes the first link in the structure of behavior. The mechanism of emotional anticipation of the consequences of an activity underlies the emotional regulation of a child’s actions [I.Yu. Kulagina, V.N. Kolyutsky, pp. 219-220].

Emotional anticipation makes a preschooler worry about the possible results of his activities and anticipate the reactions of other people to his actions. Therefore, the role of emotions in a child’s activities changes significantly. If earlier he felt joy from the fact that he received the desired result, now he is happy because he can get this result. If previously a child fulfilled a moral norm in order to earn a positive assessment, now he fulfills it, anticipating how happy those around him will be with his action.

Gradually, the preschooler begins to foresee not only the intellectual, but also the emotional results of his activities. Assuming how happy his mother will be, he gives her a gift, refusing the attractive game. It is in preschool age that a child masters the highest forms of expression - expressing feelings using intonation, facial expressions, pantomime, which helps him understand the experiences of another person

Thus, on the one hand, the development of emotions is determined by the emergence of new motives and their subordination, and on the other hand, emotional anticipation ensures this subordination. [G.A. Uruntaeva, pp. 254-255].

The structure of the emotional processes themselves also changes during this period. In early childhood, autonomic and motor reactions were included in their composition: when experiencing an insult, the child cried, threw himself on the sofa, covered his face with his hands, or moved chaotically, shouting incoherent words, his movements were uneven, his pulse was rapid ; in anger, he blushed, screamed, clenched his fists, could break something that came to hand, hit, etc. These reactions persist in preschoolers, although the external expression of emotions becomes more restrained in some children. In addition to vegetative and motor components, the structure of emotional processes now also includes complex forms of perception imaginative thinking, imagination. The child begins to be happy and sad not only about what he does in this moment, but also about what he still has to do. Experiences become more complex and deeper.

The content of affects changes - the range of emotions inherent in the child expands. Figurative representations acquire an emotional character and all the child’s activities are emotionally rich. [I..Kulagina, V.N. Kolyutsky, p.220].

Changes in the emotional sphere are associated with the development of not only the motivational, but also the cognitive sphere of the individual, self-awareness. The inclusion of speech in emotional processes ensures their intellectualization, when they become more conscious and generalized. The first attempts to restrain one’s feelings, for example, external manifestations of tears, can be noticed in a child at 3-4 years old. Although the baby is still not good at it. The older preschooler, to a certain extent, begins to control the expression of emotions by influencing himself with the help of words.

But still, preschoolers have difficulty restraining emotions associated with organic needs. Hunger and thirst make them act impulsively.

In preschool age, the development of communication with adults and peers, the emergence of forms of collective activity and, mainly, role-playing play lead to further development sympathy, empathy, the formation of camaraderie. Higher feelings are intensively developed: moral, aesthetic, cognitive.

The source of humane feelings is relationships with loved ones. If in early childhood a child was more often the object of feelings on the part of an adult, then the preschooler turns into a subject of emotional relationships with himself empathizing with other people. Practical mastery of behavioral norms is also a source of development of moral feelings. Experiences are now caused by social sanction, the opinion of the children's society. At this age, moral assessments of actions from external requirements become the child’s own assessments and are included in his experience of relationships to certain actions or actions.

Role-playing games are also a powerful factor in the development of humane feelings. Role-playing actions and relationships help the preschooler understand the other, take into account his position, mood, desire. When children move beyond simply recreating actions and external character relationships to the transmission of their emotional and expressive content, they learn to share the experiences of others.

IN labor activity, aimed at achieving a result useful for others, new emotional experiences arise: joy from general success, sympathy for the efforts of comrades, satisfaction from the good performance of one’s duties, dissatisfaction from one’s poor work.

Based on children's acquaintance with the work of adults, love and respect for it is formed. And preschoolers transfer their positive attitude towards work to their own activities. (Ya.Z.Neverovich)

Empathy for a peer largely depends on the situation and position of the child. In conditions of intense personal rivalry, emotions overwhelm a preschooler, and the number of negative expressions addressed to a peer increases sharply. The child does not give any arguments against his peer, but simply (in speech) expresses his attitude towards him, empathy for his friend sharply decreases.

Passive observation of a peer’s activities causes dual experiences in a preschooler. If he is confident in his abilities, then he rejoices at the success of another, and if he is not confident, then he experiences envy.

When children compete with each other, realistically assessing their capabilities, comparing themselves with a friend, the desire for personal success increases the power of expressions to the highest level. In group competitions, the main core is the interests of the group, and success or failure is shared by everyone together, the strength and number of negative expressions decreases, because against the general background of the group, personal successes and failures are less noticeable.

The child experiences the most vivid positive emotions in a situation of comparing himself with a positive literary character, actively empathizing with him and with the confidence that in a similar situation he would do the same. That's why negative emotions there are no comments addressed to the character.

Sympathy and sympathy encourage the child to commit the first moral actions. Even a 4-5 year old child fulfills moral standards, showing a sense of duty primarily towards those with whom he sympathizes and sympathizes. R. Ibragimova’s research made it possible to trace how the sense of duty develops throughout preschool age.

The beginnings of a sense of duty are observed in the third year of life. The child obeys the adult’s demands without realizing their meaning. During this period, there is only a process of accumulation of initial moral ideas: “possible”, “impossible”, “bad”, “good” and correlating them with one’s actions and deeds. A child’s emotional reactions to the positive or negative side of adults’ actions are unstable. He may give in, but only under the influence of an adult or out of sympathy and sympathy for someone.

The first more or less complex manifestations of feelings of duty occur in children 4-5 years old. Now, on the basis of life experience and initial moral ideas, a moral consciousness arises in the child, he is able to understand the meaning of the demands placed on him and relate them to his own actions and actions, as well as to the actions and actions of others.

The child experiences joy, satisfaction when he performs worthy actions and grief, indignation, dissatisfaction when he himself or others violate generally accepted requirements or commit unworthy actions. The feelings experienced are caused not only by the assessment of adults, but also by the child’s own evaluative attitude towards his own and others’ actions, but these feelings themselves are shallow and unstable. At the age of 5-7, a child develops a sense of duty towards many adults and peers; a preschooler begins to experience this feeling towards children as well.

The sense of duty manifests itself most clearly at the age of 6-7 years. The child realizes the necessity and obligation of the rules of social behavior and subordinates his actions to them. The ability to self-esteem increases. Violation of rules and unworthy actions cause awkwardness, guilt, embarrassment, and anxiety.

By the age of 7, the sense of duty is not based only on attachment and extends to a wider circle of people with whom the child does not directly interact. The experiences are quite deep and last a long time.

The development of camaraderie and friendship occurs long before children begin to understand their relationships with their comrades in terms of moral standards. At the age of 5, children develop friendships with many children in turn, depending on the circumstances. At 5-7 years old, friendships between one child and many children remain, although paired friendships are more common. Friendship in small subgroups is most often born in the game on the basis of gaming interests and inclinations, including intellectual interests. Paired friendship is characterized by deep sympathy. Kids are friends because they play together, because playing and being friends are equivalent for them. Older preschoolers play with those with whom they are friends on the basis of sympathy and respect.

The development of intellectual feelings in preschool age is associated with the development of cognitive activity. Joy in learning something new, surprise and doubt, bright positive emotions not only accompany the child’s small discoveries, but also cause them. The world, nature especially attracts the baby with mystery and mystery. Surprise gives rise to a question that needs to be answered.

The development of aesthetic feelings is associated with the development of children’s own artistic and creative activity and artistic perception.

Children's aesthetic feelings are interconnected with moral ones. The child approves of the beautiful and good, condemns the ugly and evil in life, art, and literature. Older preschoolers begin to judge actions not only by their results, but also by their motives; they are concerned with such complex ethical issues as the fairness of rewards, retribution for harm caused, etc. [G.A. Uruntaeva, pp. 255-260].

In the second half of preschool childhood, the child acquires the ability to evaluate his own behavior and tries to act in accordance with the moral standards that he learns.

Foreign psychologists have shown that the assimilation of ethical standards and the socialization of a child’s moral behavior proceed faster and easier in certain family relationships. The child must have a close emotional connection with at least one parent. Children are more willing to imitate caring parents than indifferent ones. In addition, they accept the behavior and attitudes of adults, communicating more often and participating in joint activities with them.

In communication with loving parents, children receive not only positive or negative emotional reactions to their actions, but also explanations of why some actions should be considered good and others bad. All this leads to an earlier awareness of ethical standards of behavior.

The assimilation of moral norms, as well as the emotional regulation of actions, contributes to the development of voluntary behavior in a preschooler. [I.Yu.Kulagina, V.N.Kolyutsky, p.224].

Thanks to intensive intellectual and personal development, by the end of preschool age, its central new formation is formed - self-awareness. Self-esteem appears in the second half of the period on the basis of the initial, purely emotional self-esteem (“I’m good”) and a rational assessment of other people’s behavior. The child first acquires the ability to evaluate the actions of other children, and then his own actions, moral qualities and skills.

The child judges moral qualities mainly by his behavior, which either agrees with the norms accepted in the family and peer group or does not fit into the system of these relationships. His self-esteem therefore almost always coincides with an external assessment, primarily with the assessment of close adults.

When assessing practical skills, a 5-year-old child exaggerates his achievements. By the age of 6, high self-esteem remains, but at this time children no longer praise themselves in such an open form as before. At least half of their judgments about their success contain some kind of justification. By the age of 7, most self-esteem of skills becomes more adequate.

In general, a preschooler’s self-esteem is very high, which helps him master new activities and, without doubt or fear, engage in educational activities in preparation for school. An adequate image of “I” is formed in a child through a harmonious combination of knowledge gleaned from his own experience and from communication with adults and peers. [I.Yu.Kulagina, V.N.Kolyutsky, p.225].

Thus, the features of emotional development in preschool age are that:

1) The child masters social forms of expressing feelings.

2) The role of emotions in the child’s activities changes, emotional anticipation is formed.

3) Feelings become more conscious, generalized, reasonable, arbitrary, non-situational. A system of motives is formed, which forms the basis of arbitrariness mental processes and behavior in general.

4) Higher feelings are formed - moral, intellectual, aesthetic.

5) There is a development of imagination, imaginative thinking and voluntary memory. [G.A.Uruntaeva, p.260].

The turning point in the mental development of a child is the crisis of 7 years, which occurs at the border of preschool and junior school age.

The main symptoms of this crisis include:

Loss of spontaneity: the child begins to understand what this or that desired action may cost him personally. If previously behavior was structured and implemented according to desires, now, before doing anything, the child thinks about what it might cost him;

Maneuvering: his soul becomes closed and he begins to play a role, pretending to be something and hiding something at the same time;

Symptom of “bitter candy”: when a child feels bad, at this age he tries to hide it from others.

Along with this, you can easily notice that during this period of time the child changes dramatically and becomes more difficult to raise than before. You can often encounter aggressiveness (verbal and physical), and in some children it takes on extreme forms in the form of a destructive attitude towards things. The child becomes hot-tempered, is rude in response to some kind of dissatisfaction or from an adult, he has poor communication, and is disobedient. Some children may even refuse to eat and drink.

You can often encounter the exact opposite phenomenon - absolutely passive behavior. Such children bother their parents and educators with excessive passivity and absent-mindedness. It is clear that the cause in both cases is childhood experiences. They are being restructured. From “I myself” and “I want” to “This is how it should be” is a long way, and a preschooler goes through it in just 3-4 years. [V.A. Averin, pp. 229-230].

All psychological new formations of preschool age together will allow the child to fulfill a new role for himself - the role of a schoolchild. And it is the formation and level of development of psychological processes that determines the child’s level of readiness for school and his first steps to adapt to it.

Readiness for learning consists of a certain level of development of mental activity, cognitive interests and readiness for voluntary regulation of behavior. [V.A.Averin, p.232].

The beginning of school life expands the perception of the world around us, increases experience, expands and intensifies the child’s sphere of communication. Under the influence of a new way of life, which forms a new social situation for the development of a primary school child, the arbitrariness in the child’s behavior and activities makes a significant progress in its development.

At primary school age, the leading factor in the development of voluntary behavior is educational activity, partly work in the family. The latter is associated with the child having certain responsibilities in the family, when the activity itself begins to be of a pronounced voluntary nature.

1. For the development of voluntary behavior, it is important that a child is able not only to be guided by the goals that an adult sets for him, but also the ability to independently set such goals and, in accordance with them, independently organize and control his behavior and mental activity. In the first and second grades, children are still characterized by a low level of arbitrariness in behavior; they are very impulsive and unrestrained. Children are not yet able to independently overcome even minor difficulties they encounter in learning. Therefore, at this age, the education of voluntariness consists in systematically teaching children to set goals for their activities and persistently strive to achieve them, i.e. teach them independence.

2. The next moment in the development of voluntary behavior is associated with the growing importance of relationships between schoolchildren. It is during this period that collective connections arise, public opinion, mutual assessment, demandingness and other phenomena public life. On this basis, a direction begins to be formed and determined, new moral feelings appear, and moral requirements are assimilated.

Everything that has been said is important in the lives of third and fourth graders, but is poorly manifested in the lives of students in grades 1-2. While they still remain indifferent to whether they received a reprimand in private with the teacher or in the presence of the whole class; at the same time, a remark made in the presence of comrades to a third or fourth grade student is experienced much stronger and more acutely. [Averin V.A., pp. 288-290].

High grades for a young student are his key emotional well-being, a source of pride and other rewards.

In addition to the status of a good student, broad social motives for studying also include duty, responsibility, the need to get an education, etc. They are also recognized by students and give a certain meaning to their educational work. But these motives remain only “known” in the words of A.N. Leontyev. If, in order to receive a high mark or praise, a child is ready to immediately sit down to study and diligently complete all tasks, then the abstract concept of duty for him or the distant prospect of continuing his education at a university cannot directly encourage him to study. Nevertheless, social motives for learning are important for the personal development of a schoolchild, and in children who perform well from the 1st grade, they are quite fully represented in their motivational systems.

The motivation of underachieving schoolchildren is specific. If there are strong motives associated with getting a grade, the range of their social motives for learning is narrowed, which impoverishes motivation as a whole. Some social motives appear in them by the 3rd grade.

The broad social motives of learning correspond to the value orientations that children take from adults and mainly internalize in the family. What is the most valuable and significant thing in school life? First-graders, who had only studied for one quarter, were asked what they liked and disliked about school. Future excellent students value the educational content and school rules from the very beginning: I like mathematics and Russian because it’s interesting,” “I like that the lessons are given,” “Everyone needs to be good and obedient.” Future C-students and low-achieving students gave different answers: “I like that there are holidays at school,” “I like after-school activities, we all play and hang out there.” starting their school life, they have not yet acquired adult values and are not focused on the essential aspects of learning.

External manifestations of disorders of the emotional-volitional sphere in childhood

Despite the fact that you should not independently make not only medical diagnoses, but also diagnoses in the field of psychological health, and it is better to entrust this to professionals, there are a number of signs of disturbances in the emotional-volitional sphere, the presence of which should be the reason for contacting specialists.

Violations in the emotional-volitional sphere of a child’s personality have characteristics age-related manifestations. So, for example, if adults systematically note in their child at an early age such behavioral characteristics as excessive aggressiveness or passivity, tearfulness, “getting stuck” on a certain emotion, then it is possible that this is an early manifestation of emotional disorders.

In preschool age, the above symptoms may be supplemented by the inability to follow norms and rules of behavior and insufficient development of independence. At school age, these deviations, along with those listed, can be combined with self-doubt, impaired social interaction, decreased sense of purpose, and inadequate self-esteem.

It is important to understand that the existence of disorders should be judged not by the presence of a single symptom, which may be the child’s reaction to a specific situation, but by the combination of several characteristic symptoms.

The main external manifestations are as follows:

Emotional tension. With increased emotional tension, in addition to well-known manifestations, difficulties in organizing mental activity and a decrease in play activity characteristic of a particular age can also be clearly expressed.

The rapid mental fatigue of a child in comparison with peers or with earlier behavior is expressed in the fact that the child has difficulty concentrating, he may demonstrate obvious negative attitude to situations where the manifestation of thinking and intellectual qualities is necessary.
Increased anxiety. Increased anxiety, in addition to the known signs, can be expressed in avoidance of social contacts and a decrease in the desire to communicate.
Aggressiveness. Manifestations can be in the form of demonstrative disobedience to adults, physical aggression and verbal aggression. Also, his aggression can be directed at himself, he can hurt himself. The child becomes disobedient and with great difficulty succumbs to the educational influences of adults.
Lack of empathy. Empathy is the ability to feel and understand the emotions of another person, to empathize. In case of disturbances in the emotional-volitional sphere, this symptom is usually accompanied by increased anxiety. An inability to empathize may also be a warning sign of a mental disorder or intellectual disability.
Unpreparedness and unwillingness to overcome difficulties. The child is lethargic and does not enjoy contact with adults. Extreme manifestations of behavior may look like complete ignorance of parents or other adults - in certain situations, a child may pretend that he does not hear an adult.
Low motivation to succeed. A characteristic sign of low motivation for success is the desire to avoid hypothetical failures, so the child takes on new tasks with displeasure and tries to avoid situations where there is even the slightest doubt about the result. It is very difficult to persuade him to try to do anything. A common answer in this situation is: “it won’t work,” “I don’t know how.” Parents may mistakenly interpret this as a manifestation of laziness.
Expressed distrust of others. It can manifest itself as hostility, often accompanied by tearfulness; school-age children can manifest it as excessive criticism of the statements and actions of both peers and surrounding adults.
Excessive impulsiveness of a child, as a rule, is expressed in poor self-control and insufficient awareness of his actions.
Avoiding close contacts with other people. A child may repel others with remarks expressing contempt or impatience, insolence, etc.

Formation of the emotional-volitional sphere of the child

Parents observe the manifestation of emotions from the very beginning of the child’s life; with their help, communication with parents occurs, so the baby shows that he feels good, or he experiences unpleasant sensations.

Later, as the child grows up, problems arise that he has to solve with varying degrees of independence. Attitude to a problem or situation causes a certain emotional response, and attempts to influence the problem cause additional emotions. In other words, if a child has to show arbitrariness in carrying out any actions, where the fundamental motive is not “I want”, but “I need”, that is, volitional effort will be required to solve the problem, in fact this will mean the implementation of a volitional act.

As we grow older, emotions also undergo certain changes and develop. Children at this age learn to feel and are able to demonstrate more complex manifestations of emotions. The main feature of the correct emotional-volitional development of a child is the increasing ability to control the manifestation of emotions.

The main causes of violations of the emotional-volitional sphere of the child

Child psychologists place special emphasis on the statement that the development of a child’s personality can occur harmoniously only with sufficient trusting communication with close adults.

The main causes of violations are:

suffered stress;
retardation in intellectual development;
lack of emotional contacts with close adults;
social and everyday reasons;
films and computer games not intended for his age;
a number of other reasons that cause internal discomfort and feelings of inferiority in the child.

Violations of the children's emotional sphere manifest themselves much more often and more clearly during periods of so-called age-related crises. Vivid examples Such points of growing up can be crises “I myself” at the age of three years and “Crisis adolescence"in adolescence.

Diagnosis of disorders

To correct disorders, timely and correct diagnosis is important, taking into account the causes of the development of deviations. Psychologists have a range of special techniques and tests to assess the development and psychological state of a child, taking into account his age characteristics.

For preschoolers, projective diagnostic methods are usually used:

drawing test;
Luscher color test;
Beck Anxiety Scale;
questionnaire “Well-being, activity, mood” (SAM);
Phillips School Anxiety Test and many others.

Correction of disorders of the emotional-volitional sphere in childhood

What to do if the baby’s behavior suggests the presence of such a disorder? First of all, it is important to understand that these violations can and should be corrected. You should not rely only on specialists; the role of parents in correcting the behavioral characteristics of the child’s character is very important.

An important point in laying the foundation for a successful resolution of this problem is the establishment of contact and trust between parents and the child. In communication, you should avoid critical assessments, show a friendly attitude, remain calm, praise adequate manifestations of feelings more, you should be sincerely interested in his feelings and empathize.

Contact a psychologist

To eliminate disturbances in the emotional sphere, you should contact a child psychologist, who, with the help of special classes, will help you learn how to react correctly when stressful situations arise and control your feelings. Also important point is the work of a psychologist with the parents themselves.

Psychology currently describes many methods for correcting childhood disorders in the form of play therapy. As you know, the best learning occurs with the involvement of positive emotions. Teaching correct behavior is no exception.

The value of a number of methods lies in the fact that they can be successfully used not only by specialists themselves, but also by parents interested in the organic development of their baby.

Practical correction methods

These are, in particular, the methods of fairy tale therapy and puppet therapy. Their main principle is the child’s identification with a fairy tale character or his favorite toy during the game. The child projects his problem onto the main character, the toy and, during the game, resolves them according to the plot.

Of course, all these methods imply the obligatory direct involvement of adults in the game process itself.

If parents in the process of upbringing pay sufficient and due attention to such aspects of the development of the child’s personality as the emotional-volitional sphere, then in the future this will make it much easier to survive the period of teenage personality formation, which, as many know, can introduce a number of serious deviations in the child’s behavior.

The work experience accumulated by psychologists shows that not only taking into account the characteristics age development, a thorough selection of diagnostic methods and psychological correction techniques allows specialists to successfully solve problems of disruption of the harmonious development of a child’s personality; the decisive factor in this area will always be parental attention, patience, care and love.

Psychologist, psychotherapist, personal well-being specialist

Svetlana Buk

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Question:
Hello! Our child was diagnosed with a violation of the emotional-volitional sphere of the sphere. What to do? He’s in 7th grade, I’m afraid if we send him to homeschooling he’ll get even worse.
Answer:
Hello, dear mom!

A child with a violation of the emotional-volitional sphere may have melancholy, depression, sadness, or painful high mood up to euphoria, fits of anger or anxiety. And all this within one diagnosis.

A competent psychotherapist works not with a diagnosis, but with a specific child, with his individual symptoms and situation.

First of all, it is important for you to level out your condition. Parents' fears and concerns negatively affect any child.

And make corrections and solve the problem. Transferring to home schooling is only an adaptation to the problem (i.e., a way to somehow live with it). To solve it, you need to work together with medical care come to an appointment with a psychologist-psychotherapist.
Question:
Hello. I am a mother. My son is 4 years 4 months old. At first we were diagnosed with STD, yesterday a neurologist removed this diagnosis and diagnosed it as ‘a disorder of the emotional sphere against the background of the development of the emotional sphere’. What should I do? How to correct? And what literature do you recommend for behavior correction? My name is Marina.
Answer:
Hello, Marina!
Imagine that your smartphone or TV somehow doesn’t work properly.
Would it even occur to anyone to start repairing these devices using books or recommendations from specialists (take a soldering iron and replace transistor 673 and resistor 576). But the human psyche is much more complex.
Here we need versatile sessions with a psychologist-psychotherapist, speech therapist, speech pathologist, and psychiatrist.
And the earlier you start classes, the more effective the correction will be.
Question:
What diagnostic techniques exist for identifying disorders in the emotional-volitional sphere of children aged 6–8 years?

Answer:
Classification by M. Bleicher and L.F. Burlachuk:
1) observation and related methods (biography study, clinical conversation, etc.)
2) special experimental methods (modeling of certain types of activities, situations, some instrumental techniques, etc.)
3) personality questionnaires (methods based on self-esteem)
4) projective methods.
Question:
Hello Svetlana.
I have observed the disorders of the children's emotional sphere described in this article in many children, approximately 90% - aggressiveness, lack of empathy, reluctance to overcome difficulties, reluctance to listen to others (headphones are now very helpful in this) these are the most common. The rest are less common but present. I am not a psychologist and I may be mistaken in my observations, so I want to ask: is it true that 90% of people have disturbances in the emotional-volitional sphere?

Answer:
Hello dear reader!
Thank you for your interest in the topic and your question.
The manifestations you have noticed - aggressiveness, lack of empathy, reluctance to overcome difficulties, reluctance to listen to others - these are just signs. They may serve as a reason to contact a specialist. And their presence is not a reason for diagnosing “Violations of the emotional-volitional sphere.” To one degree or another, every child tends to experience aggression, for example.
And in this sense, your observations are correct - most children show the above symptoms from time to time.
Question:
Hello Svetlana!
I would like to consult you about my son’s behavior. We have a family of grandparents, son and me (mother). My son is 3.5 years old. I am divorced from my father; we separated from him when the child was a little over a year old. We don't see each other now. My son was diagnosed with dysarthria, his intellectual development is normal, he is very active and sociable, but in the emotional and volitional sphere there are serious disorders.
For example, it happens that he pronounces (in kindergarten one boy started doing this) sometimes some syllable or sound repeatedly and monotonously, and when he is told to stop doing this, he may start doing something else out of spite, for example, making a face ( how he was forbidden to do so). At the same time, in a calm tone, we explained to him that this is what “sick” boys or “bad” boys do. At first he begins to laugh, and after another explanation and reminder that this may be fraught with some kind of punishment, especially when an adult breaks down and raises his tone, crying begins, which abruptly gives way to laughter (definitely, already unhealthy), and so laughter and crying can change several times within minutes.
We also observe in our son’s behavior that he can throw toys (often (in the sense of a month or two), breaks a car or toys, abruptly throwing and breaking them. At the same time, he is very naughty (hears, but does not listen), often every day brings close people.
We all love him very much and want him to be a healthy and happy boy. Tell me, please, what should we do in such a situation when he does something out of spite? What conflict resolution methods do you recommend? How can I wean my son from the habit of pronouncing these “articulate sounds”?
My grandparents are intelligent people; I have the education of a teacher, economist, and educator. We turned to a psychologist about a year ago, when this picture was just beginning to appear. The psychologist explained that these are signs of a crisis. But, having currently been diagnosed with dysarthria, we are forced to explain his behavior differently, which, by the way, has not improved, despite our implementation of the psychologist’s advice, but has worsened.
Thank you in advance
Best regards, Svetlana

Answer:
Hello Svetlana!

I recommend that you come for a consultation.
We can contact you in advance via Skype or phone.
It is important to switch the child and distract him with some interesting activity at such moments.
Punishments, explanations and raising the tone are not effective.
You write “despite our following the psychologist’s advice” - what exactly did you do?

The range of emotional disorders in childhood is extremely wide. These can be severe neurotic conflicts, neurosis-like and pre-neurotic states, etc.

In the psychological literature, emotional problems in children are considered as negative states that arise against the background of intractable personal conflicts.

Traditionally, there are three groups of factors leading to emotional disorders in children: biological, psychological and socio-psychological.

Biological factors predisposing to the occurrence of emotional distress in a child include somatic weakness due to private diseases. It contributes to the emergence of various reactive states and neurotic reactions, mainly with an asthenic component. A number of authors point to an increased frequency of emotional disorders in children with chronic somatic diseases, noting that these disorders are not a direct result of the disease, but are associated with difficulties in the social adaptation of the sick child and with the characteristics of his self-esteem. Emotional disturbances are much more common in children who have a history of aggravating biological factors in the peri- and postnatal periods, but they are not decisive in the occurrence of emotional disturbances. V.V. Kovalev noted that neurotic reactions in children can be caused by improper upbringing against the background of cerebral-organic insufficiency. Residual organic failure, according to the author, contributes to the formation of mental inertia, getting stuck on negative affective experiences, increased excitability, and lability of affect. This facilitates the appearance of painful reactions to mental influences and promotes their fixation.

The actual mental causes of emotional distress include a violation of the adequacy of its response to external influences, a lack of development of self-control skills, behavior, etc.

In studies by domestic authors, preneurotic pathocharacterological traits that develop in childhood have been studied in sufficient detail. V.N. Myasishchev classifies these as impulsiveness, egocentrism, stubbornness, and sensitivity. Students of Myasishchev V.N. Garbuzov and co-authors identify 9 types of emotional disorders: aggressiveness, ambition, pedantry, prudence, anxious syntony, infantilism and psychomotor instability, conformity and dependence, anxious suspiciousness and isolation, contrast. At the same time, the authors emphasize that the most characteristic type is contrast, i.e. inconsistency of all personal characteristics. A.I. Zakharov describes seven types of premorbid personality traits that predispose a child to neurosis:

sensitivity (emotional sensitivity and vulnerability);

spontaneity (naivety);

expressiveness of the feeling “I”;

impressiveness (internal type of processing of emotions);

latency (potentiality - a relatively more gradual disclosure of the individual’s capabilities);

uneven mental development.

A. Freud identified the following factors that predispose a child to the onset of neurosis:

A system of unconscious fantasies among parents who attribute a certain role to the child;

Neglecting the child’s needs and “pulling” him into one’s pathological system:

If a child has a neurosis, parents share his symptom with the child or deny it, resorting to unconstructive methods of psychological defense.

Carl Gustav Jung considered the sources of “nervous disorders” in children and adolescents in a family situation. The author uses the concept of primitive unconscious identity, viewing it as a merging of the child with the parents, as a result of which the child feels conflicts in the family and suffers from them as if they were his own.

Representatives of humanistic psychology consider emotional disorders within the framework of deviations in personality development that arise when a child loses agreement with his feelings and the inability to self-actualize.

From the point of view of a representative of the behavioral direction, emotional disorders in children may be caused by inadequate punishments and rewards.

V.V. Tkacheva identified 8 types of personal attitudes of parents who have children with developmental problems, which in a traumatic situation prevent the establishment of harmonious contact with the child and with the outside world. This:

rejection of the personality of the sick child;

unconstructed forms of relationships with him;

fear of responsibility;

refusal to understand the existence of problems in the child’s development, their partial or complete denial;

exaggeration of the child’s problems;

waiting for a wizard who will heal a child in an instant, believing in a miracle;

considering the birth of a sick child as a punishment for something;

disruption of family relationships after the birth of a child with developmental problems.

Violation of contacts between spouses contributes to the development of feelings of instability, increased anxiety or physical discomfort. There may be a feeling of danger, apathy, depression, and weak search activity.

Thus, emotional disorders in childhood can be determined by a number of reasons, factors, and conditions. Their combinations form a complex system, which largely causes difficulties differentiated approach in psychological correction.

Let's consider anxiety as a feature of the emotional sphere of a preschooler

Practicing psychologists in everyday professional communication use the words “anxiety” and “anxiety” as synonyms, however, for psychological science these concepts are not equivalent. In modern psychology, it is customary to distinguish between “anxiety” and “anxiety,” although half a century ago this distinction was not obvious. Now such terminological differentiation is characteristic of both domestic and foreign psychology, and allows us to analyze this phenomenon through the categories of mental state and mental property.

Based on general theoretical ideas about the essence of anxiety as a mental state and anxiety as a mental property, we will next consider in detail the specifics of anxiety in childhood.

Anxiety as a mental property has a pronounced age specificity, revealed in its content, sources, forms of manifestation and compensation. For each age, there are certain areas of reality that cause increased anxiety in most children, regardless of the real threat or anxiety as a stable formation. These “age-related peaks of anxiety” are determined by age-related developmental tasks.

Among the most common causes of anxiety in children of preschool and school age are:

· intrapersonal conflicts, primarily related to assessing one’s own success in various fields activities;

· violations of intra-family and/or intra-school interaction, as well as interaction with peers;

· somatic disorders.

Most often, anxiety develops when the child is in a state (situation) of conflict caused by:

· negative demands that can put him in a humiliated or dependent position;

· inadequate, most often inflated demands;

· conflicting demands placed on the child by parents and (or) child care institutions and peers.

In accordance with the ontogenetic patterns of mental development, it is possible to describe the specific causes of anxiety at each stage of preschool and school childhood.

In preschoolers and primary schoolchildren, anxiety is the result of frustration of the need for reliability and security from the immediate environment (the leading need of this age). Thus, anxiety in this age group is a function of impaired relationships with close adults. Unlike preschoolers, younger schoolchildren may have such a close adult, in addition to their parents, as a teacher.

Anxiety becomes a stable personality formation by adolescence. Until this moment, it is a derivative of a wide range of socio-psychological disorders, representing more or less generalized and typified situational reactions. In adolescence, anxiety begins to be mediated by the child’s self-concept, thereby becoming its own personal property. The self-concept of a teenager is often contradictory, which causes difficulties in perceiving and adequately assessing one’s own successes and failures, thereby reinforcing negative emotional experience and anxiety as a personal property. At this age, anxiety arises as a consequence of frustration of the need for a stable, satisfactory attitude towards oneself, most often associated with disturbances in relationships with significant others.

It should also be noted that both boys and girls are susceptible to anxiety, but experts believe that in preschool age boys are more anxious, by the age of 9-11 the ratio becomes even, and after 12 years there is a sharp increase in anxiety in girls. At the same time, girls’ anxiety differs in content from boys’ anxiety: girls are more concerned about relationships with other people, boys are more concerned about violence in all its aspects.

Among the reasons that cause anxiety in preschoolers, in the first place, according to E. Savina, is improper upbringing and unfavorable relationships between the child and his parents, especially with his mother. Thus, rejection and rejection by the mother of the child causes anxiety in him due to the impossibility of satisfying the need for love, affection and protection. In this case, fear arises: the child feels the conditionality of material love (“If I do something bad, they won’t love me”). Failure to satisfy the child's need for love will encourage him to seek its satisfaction by any means.

As stated by A.L. Wenger, childhood anxiety can also be a consequence of the symbiotic relationship between the child and the mother, when the mother feels one with the child and tries to protect him from the difficulties and troubles of life. It “ties” you to yourself, protecting you from imaginary, non-existent dangers. As a result, the child experiences anxiety when left without a mother, is easily lost, worried and afraid. Instead of activity and independence, passivity and dependence develop.

In cases where upbringing is based on excessive demands that the child is unable to cope with or can cope with

labor, anxiety can be caused by the fear of not being able to cope, of doing something wrong; often parents cultivate the “correctness” of behavior: the attitude towards the child can include strict control, a strict system of norms and rules, deviation from which entails censure and punishment. In these cases, the child’s anxiety may be generated by the fear of deviating from the norms and rules established by adults.

A child’s anxiety can also be caused by the peculiarities of interaction between the teacher and the child, the prevalence of an authoritarian style of communication, or the inconsistency of demands and assessments. In both the first and second cases, the child is in constant tension because of the fear of not fulfilling the demands of adults, of not “pleasing” them, of setting strict limits.

When we talk about strict limits, we mean the restrictions set by the teacher. These include restrictions on spontaneous activity in games (in particular, outdoor games), activities, walks, etc.; limiting children's spontaneity in the classroom, for example, tearing children away (“Nina Petrovna, but with me... Quiet! I see everything! I’ll go up to everyone myself!”); suppression of children's initiative (“put it down now, I didn’t say take the leaves in your hands!”, “Shut up immediately, I’m saying!”). Restrictions can also include interrupting the emotional manifestations of children. So, if emotions arise in a child during an activity, they need to be thrown out, which can be prevented by an authoritarian teacher (“who’s funny there, Petrov?! I’ll laugh when I look at your drawings,” “Why are you crying? You’ve tortured everyone with your tears!").

Disciplinary measures applied by such a teacher most often come down to reprimands, shouts, negative assessments, and punishments.

An inconsistent teacher causes anxiety in the child by not giving him the opportunity to predict his own behavior. The constant variability of the teacher's demands, the dependence of his behavior on his mood, emotional lability entail confusion in the child, the inability to decide what he should do in a particular case.

The teacher also needs to know situations that can cause children's anxiety, especially the situation of non-acceptance from peers; the child believes that it is his fault that he is not loved, he is bad (“they love good people”) to deserve love, the child will strive with help positive results, success in your activities. If this desire is not justified, then the child’s anxiety increases.

The next situation is a situation of rivalry, competition; it will cause especially strong anxiety in children whose upbringing takes place in conditions of hypersocialization. In this case, children, finding themselves in a situation of competition, will strive to be first, to achieve the highest results at any cost.

Another situation is a situation of suspended responsibility. When an anxious child falls into it, his anxiety is caused by the fear of not meeting the hopes and expectations of an adult and of being rejected by him.

IN similar situations Anxious children, as a rule, have an inappropriate reaction. If they are anticipated, expected, or frequently repeated in the same situation, causing anxiety, the child develops a behavioral stereotype, a certain pattern that allows him to avoid anxiety or reduce it as much as possible. Such patterns include systematic fear of participating in activities that cause anxiety, as well as the child’s silence instead of answering questions from unfamiliar adults or those towards whom the child has a negative attitude.

In general, anxiety is a manifestation of personal distress. In some cases, it is literally nurtured in the anxious and suspicious psychological atmosphere of the family, in which the parents themselves are prone to constant fears and anxiety. The child becomes infected with their moods and adopts an unhealthy form of response to the outside world.

However, such an unpleasant individual trait sometimes manifests itself in children whose parents are not susceptible to suspiciousness and are generally optimistic. Such parents, as a rule, know well what they want to achieve from their children. They pay special attention to the discipline and cognitive achievements of the child. Therefore, they are constantly presented with various tasks that they must solve in order to meet the high expectations of their parents. It is not always possible for a child to cope with all the tasks, and this causes dissatisfaction among elders. As a result, the child finds himself in a situation of constant tense anticipation: whether he managed to please his parents or made some kind of omission, for which disapproval and censure will follow. The situation may be aggravated by inconsistency of parental demands. If a child does not know for sure how one or another of his steps will be evaluated, but in principle foresees possible dissatisfaction, then his entire existence is colored by tense alertness and anxiety.

Also capable of causing the emergence and development of anxiety and fear

intensively influence the developing imagination of children in a fairy tale model. At 2 years old, this is a Wolf - a crack with teeth that can cause pain, bite, eat, like Little Red Riding Hood. At the turn of 2-3 years, children are afraid of Barmaley. At 3 years old for boys and at 4 years old for girls, the “monopoly on fear” belongs to the images of Baba Yaga and Kashchei the Immortal. All these characters can introduce children to the negative, negative sides of human relationships, to cruelty and treachery, callousness and greed, as well as danger in general. At the same time, the life-affirming mood of fairy tales, in which good triumphs over evil, life over death, makes it possible to show the child how to overcome the difficulties and dangers that arise.

Anxious children are characterized by frequent manifestations of restlessness and anxiety, as well as a large number of fears, and fears and anxiety arise in situations in which the child would seem to be in no danger. Anxious children are particularly sensitive. So, a child may worry: while he is in the garden, what if something happens to his mother.

Anxious children are often characterized by low self-esteem, due to which they have an expectation of trouble from others. This is typical for those children whose parents set impossible tasks for them, demanding that the children are unable to fulfill them, and in case of failure, they are usually punished and humiliated (“You can’t do anything! You can’t do anything!” "").

Anxious children are very sensitive to their failures, react sharply to them, and tend to give up activities, such as drawing, in which they have difficulty.

In such children, you can notice a noticeable difference in behavior in and outside of class. Outside of class, these are lively, sociable and spontaneous children; in class they are tense and tense. They answer the teacher’s questions in a quiet and muffled voice, and may even begin to stutter. Their speech can be either very fast and hasty, or slow and labored. As a rule, prolonged excitement occurs: the child fiddles with clothes with his hands, manipulates something.

Anxious children have a tendency to develop bad habits of a neurotic nature (they bite their nails, suck fingers, pull out hair, and engage in masturbation). Manipulating their own body reduces their emotional stress and calms them down.

Drawing helps to recognize anxious children. Their drawings are distinguished by an abundance of shading, strong pressure, and small image sizes. Often such children “get stuck” on details, especially small ones.

Thus, the behavior of anxious children is characterized by frequent manifestations of anxiety and anxiety; such children live in constant tension, all the time, feeling threatened, feeling that they could face failure at any moment.

Conclusions to Chapter 1

After conducting a theoretical study, it can be concluded that emotional sphere preschoolers are characterized by the following:

1) easy responsiveness to ongoing events and coloring of perception, imagination, mental and physical activity with emotions;

2) spontaneity and frankness of expression of one’s experiences - joy, sadness, fear, pleasure or displeasure;

3) readiness for the affect of fear; in the process of cognitive activity, the child experiences fear as a premonition of troubles, failures, lack of self-confidence, and the inability to cope with the task; the preschooler feels a threat to his status in the group or family;

4) great emotional instability, frequent changes of mood (against the general background of cheerfulness, cheerfulness, gaiety, carelessness), a tendency to short-term and violent emotions;

5) emotional factors for preschoolers are not only games and communication with peers, but assessment of their success by parents and educators;

6) preschoolers have little awareness and understanding of their own and other people’s emotions and feelings; the facial expressions of others are often perceived incorrectly, as well as the interpretation of the expression of feelings by others, which leads to inadequate responses in preschoolers; the exception is the basic emotions of fear and joy, for which children of this age already have clear ideas that they can express verbally by naming five synonymous words denoting these emotions.