2022/10/12 by Negar Fatahi, Christen Park, Timothy W. Curby +4
Psychology · Social Sciences · #Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development #Early Childhood Education and Development #Parental Involvement in Education
paper · doi:10.1080/10409289.2022.2133319
openalex publication_date 2022/10/12 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Research Findings: This study examined associations between observed emotion-focused teaching practices and preschool children’s emotion expression, emotion-related behaviors, and learning behaviors. Four centers located in large midwestern and mid-Atlantic metropolitan areas participated in the study. Of these, one center was a Head Start program, one served families on a sliding scale fee, one was focused on providing services to low-income families, and one was a faith-based center with middle- and upper-income students. Structural equation modeling revealed that children displayed fewer negative emotion expressions, better emotion regulation, reduced maladaptive emotion-related behaviors, and increased learning behaviors at the end of the year when teachers engaged in greater emotion-focused teaching practices. Practice or Policy: Preschool teachers play an important role in socializing children to be emotionally competent. Our findings suggest the need for professional development to improve teachers’ emotion-focused teaching as an effective strategy to address children’s challenging behaviors and emotions in the classroom and to better prepare children to engage in learning.