PTKLF (Social & Emotional Development) and the Heart of Learning: Guiding Young Children’s Friendships, Emotions, and Confidence—A Resource for Early Educators

Social and emotional development is the foundation for overall development and learning. Children are developing awareness of their own emotions; thoughts; behaviors; abilities; and identities. As children develop these concepts, they are of course doing it in conjunction with developmental in other areas. Looking at this list it only makes sense: in order to develop awareness of your own emotions, you also need to develop language around those emotions; in order to develop awareness of your own thoughts, you need to develop cognitive abilities to have thoughts about the world. While social and emotional development is the foundation for all learning, it is also happening simultaneously with all learning.