Social emotional development

Social emotional development represents a specific domain of child development. It is a gradual, integrative process through which children acquire the capacity to understand, experience, express, and manage emotions and to develop meaningful relationships with others.^[1] As such, social emotional development encompasses a large range of skills and constructs, including, but not limited to: self-awareness, joint attention, play, theory of mind (or understanding others' perspectives), self-esteem, emotion regulation, friendships, and identity development.

Social emotional development sets a foundation for children to engage in other developmental tasks. For example, in order to complete a difficult school assignment, a child may need the ability to manage their sense of frustration and seek out help from a peer. To maintain a romantic relationship after a fight, a teen may need to be able to articulate their feelings and take the perspective of their partner to successfully resolve the conflict. However, it is also interrelated with and dependent on other developmental domains. For example, language delays or deficits have been associated with social-emotional disturbances.^[2]

Many mental health disorders, including major depressive disorder, anxiety disorders, borderline personality disorder, substance use disorders, and eating disorders, can be conceptualized through the lens of social emotional development, most prominently emotion regulation.^[3] Many of the core symptoms of autism spectrum disorder reflect abnormalities in social emotional developmental areas, including joint attention^[4] and theory of mind.^[5]