Abstract
The paper assumes that the emotional development of young children is as important as their physical development and that lack of paying attention to the emotional distresses of little children can have grave consequences for society. The paper highlights some of the major theoretical perspectives on emotional development and emotional distress from early childhood, and reviews past and current research on the nature and causes of emotional disturbances of preschool children in view of the role of parents and their style of parenting. Despite the lack of research to address the emotional problems of preschool children in Nigeria, this paper points out probable obstacles to identification and management of emotional problems in preschool children and concludes with suggestions and recommendations that could help solve some of the problems especially at the family and community levels. DOI: 10.5901/jesr.2016.v6n2p247
Highlights
It may seem as if the state of knowledge about emotional disturbances in early childhood is quite inconsistent as very little is known about preschool emotional problems coupled with poor agreement on classification, as well as the shortage of evidence about causes and treatment
These developmental theories, according to Ugochukwu (1989), help to point out appropriate and inappropriate behaviour as related to the individual’s stage of development. It is against this background that this paper discusses some of the theoretical perspectives related to the identification and management of emotional disturbance among pre-school aged children in Nigeria
There may be several other obstacles to early identification and management of emotional disturbances among preschool children in Nigeria and what has been done is to focus on replicating or getting aid from foreign and developed countries – without national strategies and approved annual plan budgets, which consider the practical implications derived from implementation of the national strategies themselves
Summary
It may seem as if the state of knowledge about emotional disturbances in early childhood is quite inconsistent as very little is known about preschool emotional problems coupled with poor agreement on classification, as well as the shortage of evidence about causes and treatment. The majority of explorations about emotional disturbances of early childhood have been approached from the developmental perspective and most of them are linked to the postulations of Sigmund Freud. These developmental theories, according to Ugochukwu (1989), help to point out appropriate and inappropriate behaviour as related to the individual’s stage of development.
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