Emotional development Emotional development, involves feelings and expression of feelings. Trust, fear, confidence , pride, friendship, and humour. Other emotional traits include timidity, interest, and pleasure.
Attachment
Attachment is the emotional bond of infant to parent or guardian. It is described as a pattern of emotional and behavioural interaction that develops over time, especially when infants express a need for attention, comfort, support or security. Parents’ ability to perceive, interpret and react promptly to their infants needs and attention, in turn influence the quality of their attachment relationships. A secure relationship results in not only positive developmental outcomes over time, but also influences the quality of future relationships with peers and partners. John Bowlby said that there is a great deal of research on the social development of children. He proposed one of the earliest theories of social development. Bowlby believed that early relationships with caregivers play a major role in child development and continue to influence social relationships throughout life.
Secure parent and child relationships help children to ;
a) regulate their emotion in stressful situations,
b) explore their environment with confidence, c) foster their cognitive, emotional and language development. Furthermore, children who are securely attached are predisposed to display positive social behaviours
Eg.) Empathy and cooperative behaviours helping them to develop future positive relationships. On the other hand, insecure and disorganized attachment put children at increasing risk of problem behaviours and psychopathologies. Examples include preschool and school-aged aggression, depression and emotional dysregulations (mood swings).

Learning to express emotions in appropriate ways begins early. Guardians promote this learning when they positively model these skills. A person’s self concept and self-esteem are also part of this area. As children have success with all skills, confidence flourishes. This leads to a healthy self-concept and sense of worth. A child’s self-concept and personal identity are closely linked to the quality of parenting in their early years. Many young people and adults who harm others or carry out serious crimes have had very negative experiences as children and often have a very poor self-concept. The physical, cognitive, and social emotional areas of development are linked to one another. Developments in one area can strongly influence another area. For instance, writing words requires fine-motor skills. It also requires cognitive development. Language, a part of cognitive development, is needed to communicate with others. It is also necessary for growing socially and emotionally. Just as research has made known the areas of development, it also shows that development follows key patterns, or principles.
Personal identity
Identity formation is the main developmental task in adolescence. Our identity is the single motivating force in life, in choosing behaviour options, and in deciding on friends. Our self-image is all that stands between action and passivity, and it will continually change for most people over the remainder of their lives, depending on intelligence, experiences, and the quality of our social network.
Erikson's view of Identity Formation
Personality and Role Experimentation - with the overwhelming number of choices, adolescents appear to go through a period of psychological moratorium, during which they try out many roles to see if they fit. You