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The following points highlight the five main factors influencing emotionality in children. The factors are: 1. Fatigue 2. Poor Health 3. Time of Day 4. Order of Birth 5. Environment.
Factor # 1. Fatigue:
Fatigue caused by too little rest, too much excitement and inadequate food, predisposes children, in the early childhood, to irritability and temper tantrums.
Factor # 2. Poor Health:
Poor health due to malnutrition, digestive trouble or colds, also predisposes children to emotionality. This has been borne out by the studies made by Stratton and Gates.
Factor # 3. Time of Day:
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It has been found that babies and children show pronounced emotional disturbances just before their schedules of eating and nap-times. They show anger even when these schedules are interfered with or delayed.
Factor # 4. Order of Birth:
The first-born children are usually spoiled and overindulged. The youngest ones are ‘babied’ by parents and other siblings. Both types of children have learned by experience that they can get what they want by being ’emotional’. They, because of their position and training, have not learned frustration tolerance to a desirable degree.
Factor # 5. Environment:
The social environment of the child prevailing at home or in the school or in the day care center affects the emotionality of the child. Family relationships, the type of discipline that they have enforces, the excitement that the environment affords, the personality of the teacher, the methods of teaching and others contribute to emotionality in one way or the other.