How We Turn Toddler Feelings Into Adult Action |
What Is Emotion Regulation?
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The toddler brain functions as an alarm system to summon help, care, or protection from caregivers.
Regulating alarms is out of the question for toddlers who can’t take care of themselves.
Regulatory function falls to the later developing prefrontal cortex: the adult brain.
Feelings that are urgent alarms in the toddler brain are merely action signals in the adult brain.
Researchers commonly agree that feelings originate or at least mediate in the toddler brain, which is fully developed on a structural level by age three. Anyone who has lived with a toddler will testify that they can express a range of intense emotions.
When it comes to negative feelings, the toddler brain functions as an alarm system to summon help, care, or protection from caregivers. Regulating alarms is out of the question for those adorable little creatures who can’t take care of themselves. That function falls to the later developing prefrontal cortex – the adult brain.
The toddler brain lacks reality testing, which is why toddlers have a........