Emotions

Infants emotions are so pure and come at the most unexpected times. I find it interesting how infants then develop into their toddler emotions. When looking at infants, you get their happy and sad emotions. Eventually, you’ll get the curiosity of infants expressing emotions for reasons. Happiness is expressed by smiles, and preterm babies smile later because the social smile is affected by age since conception (Berger 2011). Laugher is a babies’ response to curiosity such as a silly face. When a baby expresses sadness, they are obviously crying. But infants can also express anger especially when they want to explore and are restricted to do so (Berger 2011). Fear doesn’t fully develop until around 9 months. Babies can show uncertainty on their face with an unfamiliar person comes too close, or separation anxiety when their caregiver leaves them. Toddlers Take on a whole new level of emotions (Berger 2011). Anger and fear become far less frequent, but more prominent. Toddlers can also express more emotions such as shame, embarrassment, and guilt. Toddlers develop these emotions by observing those around them.

Since I am the oldest in my immediate and extended family of children and grandchildren, I’ve seen a lot of my family grow up. I was 10 when my brother was born, and it was so interesting to see him grow. It still is cool to see how much of a young man he is becoming (as sweatpants are no longer cool to wear for 6^th grade and is now wearing jeans and khakis). Children grow up fast- like everyone says. But when the youngest wants to catch up with the oldest, they try to impress the older ones. It’s fun to see how younger children think to act older to those around them, and how their emotions play out from infant through toddler ages and beyond.