Daddy loves Isaac: Emotional socialization

 

Pat gives Isaac a kiss.  In the process, he’s teaching Isaac what love is and how it is expressed.

 

Parents are often credited as the main socializing force in the process of child socialization, at least during the early years before they are enrolled in school.  We know that parents “mold” their children by teaching them attitudes, values, and norms.  But what does this mean for emotional expression?  We know that children are not born as blank slates.  So, do parents teach their children how to express emotions, or do children already have their own style of emotional expression.  According to Newland and Crnic, the answer is yes to both questions.
The authors uphold the notion that parents mold their children: “Children learn much about acceptable emotional expression and behaviour through their parents” (Newland and Crnic 2011: 372).  Yet, they also acknowledge that children can have their own style of emotional expression that actually influences parents’ socialization techniques.  Newland and Crnic describe parent-driven emotion socialization, where parents  – or parental figures – use their own style of emotional expression to teach their children how emotions are felt and demonstrated; they also describe the opposite process, where adults modify their socialization techniques to account for their children’s emotionality (2011: 372). 
The authors highlight a feedback loop that requires both parent and child to react in the optimal emotional manner.  However, the article describes what happens when this is not the case.  The authors focus, in particular, on children’s negative affective behavior, or how they can misinterpret certain emotions and then display them inappropriately (Newland and Crnic 2011: 380).  The term “negative” here is used by the authors to describe behaviors that are not optimal and may be damaging.  Often, this leads either to externalizing behavior or internalizing behavior, which are two opposing extremes of undesirable emotional behavior.  Externalizing behavior is characterized by children who act out their emotions instead of holding them in, and may engage in behaviors such as fighting, bullying, cursing, and other forms of violence.  Internalizing behavior may result in depression, anxiety, phobias, and other disorders related to constantly holding in emotions instead of expressing them.

Thus, how parents interact with their children in emotional situations is extremely important for their child’s emotional development.  Since the parent has little control over the child’s own style of emotional expression, it becomes even more important that parents control their own behavior and react positively (or in a manner that would teach the child the optimal emotional reaction and expression).  Therefore, parents have the power to influence children’s beliefs about what love is and how it can properly be expressed.  When my brother hugs and kisses my nephew and tells him, “I love you,” he is demonstrating for Isaac how love can be expressed.  In this way, Disney may be right when they tell us a kiss is powerful; it has emotional meaning far beyond the significance of the physical act.  When it comes to children, then, the love requires work in the sense that socializing a child is laborious and endless.  Parents must try to teach their children about love, while adjusting to their children’s own understanding and interpretation.  We are all familiar with Bible verse 1 Corinthians 13:4, which is often recited at weddings.  Verse four reads “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud” (1 Cor. 13:4).  I think this verse if overused at weddings, so it has lost much of its meaning.  However, the notion that love is patient seems very pertinent during the socialization process.

Bibliography:

Newland, Rebecca P., and Keith A. Crnic

2011      Mother–Child Affect and Emotion Socialization Processes Across the Late Preschool Period: Predictions of Emerging Behaviour Problems. Infant and Child Development 20: 371–388.

Bible, NIV. 1 Corinthians 13:4.