Executive Emotional Regulation

Executive functions and emotional regulation are terms that are interrelated. Emotions have been defined as preparation to create, maintain, or alter one’s relation to one’s environment when the situation is of significance to one’s well-being (Thompson, 1994). While, emotion regulation has been defined as the processes that are responsible for the monitoring, evaluating, and modifying of emotional reaction in the service of achieving goals for well-being (Thompson, 1994). Examples of emotional regulation includes calming oneself down rather than telling and throwing things when upset or frustrated. At the surface, regulating emotions involves the ability to engage in effortful control (Thompson, 1994; Kaplan & Berman, 2010). Effortful controlled has been theorized to be a part of executive functions (Kaplan & Berman, 2010). In brief, children with greater executive function skills can regulate their emotions more optimally in early childhood than those with an executive function disorder (Obradovic, 2016). Moreover, infants with higher levels of emotional reactivity and regulation appeared to have greater executive function skills in preschool and infants with higher reactivity but lower regulation showed …show more content…
is raising activity levels. Increasing blood flow to the brain through raising heart rates, is essential to brain development. Activity also reduces stress which helps for executive functions to grow. Nonetheless, exercise helps executive functions through body awareness and control, remembering rules, and controlling emotions (Meuwissen, 2015). All aspects of S.O.A.R. can be promoted through modeling the behaviors (Meuwissen, 2015). However, parents can also negatively impact executive functions development. Physical punishments have been problematic to lowering levels of executive functions. However, when disciplining a child, a parent should talk through the child’s behavior by explaining the problem and why the behavior is