Establishing Early Foundations to Promote Emotional Competence in Preschool Children

Abstract

The primary objective of this paper is to design the framework for enhancing the emotional competence of preschool children by examining the perspective of parents’ involvement with children staying at home. The paper also discusses (1) the concept of social-emotional competence and its importance for preschool children; (2) the concept of emotional competence, happiness, home learning, and sharing among children; and (3) the role of parents in promoting emotional competence in preschool children. The paper examined the impact of home learning, happiness, and sharing habits on the emotional competence of preschool children by using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) 2.0. The respondents included 358 randomly selected parents in two districts of Punjab state of India who have children aged 3 to 6 years. The results showed that happiness and home learning had a significant positive impact on the emotional competence of preschool children. However, sharing habits did not impact emotional competence to a significant extent in the current study.

Keywords

emotional competence parents as teachers social-emotional learning happiness PLS-SEM

Introduction

Parents are considered to be one of the most important people in a child’s life. Developmental research suggests that parenting is a dynamic, multidimensional construct that has a significant impact on the child’s holistic development (Bornstein and Lansford 2010; Unicef 2014). Parenting is regarded predominantly essential during the early six years of a child’s life. This is because as a major part of brain development is taking place during this time and a child is rapidly learning the cognitive, motor, social, and emotional skills that, later, contribute to early success at kindergarten and school (Berk 2009; Gray 2013; Naomee 2013; National Research Council 2012). Emotional competence is considered as a stepping stone in the holistic development of a child that makes him decent at understanding emotions of self and others, being socially competent, empathetic, and responsive to people around him (Osher et al. 2020; Vassilopoulos et al. 2018). Raising emotionally competent children and making their lives blissful and content is the earnest wish of all parents (M. L. Diener and Lucas 2004).

However, not all children would experience emotional stability and happiness throughout their period of development due to increased emotional distress, abuse, neglect, violence, and instability in the current scenario (Luking et al. 2011; Sandstrom and Huerta 2013; Tyrka et al. 2013). With these fast-changing social-emotional well-being dynamics, it has become hard to visualize the kind of future in which the children of tomorrow will live, grow, and survive. Considering the current crisis being caused due to Coronavirus outbreak across the world, also known as Covid-19, has profoundly impacted the health, economic situation, social, emotional, and psychosocial well-being of societies across nations (Maldives UNICEF 2020). Although children are not the direct face of the crisis, they are among the biggest victims facing the unprecedented risks to their rights, safety, and development (Ghosh et al. 2020). Due to the current lockdown, the movement of children has been restricted, constraining their access to socialization, emotional interactions, playing in parks, physical contact with friends, interactions with teachers, and learning at schools. Homeschooling has originated as one of the by-products of Covid-19. Children especially preschoolers are facing an additional challenge in understanding, absorbing, and dealing with the changes that Covid-19 are bringing to our world. It has resulted in increased depressive systems, increased emotional instability, and reduced resilient levels among children in the world. To solve this issue, parents play a major role in a child’s social and emotional development (Ostrosky and Meadan 2010; Taylor et al. 2017). Parents are the foremost teachers with whom children spend a significant portion of their life, learning various subjects, developing meaningful social connections, improving personal potentials, and enhancing their social and emotional competencies under their guidance (Galindo and Sheldon 2012; S. M. Jones and Bouffard 2012; López-Pérez and Fernández-Castilla 2018).

Therefore, this study has focussed on the following objectives: (1) to conceptualize social-emotional competence and its importance for the preschool children; (2) to conceptualize happiness, home learning, and sharing in preschool children; (3) to highlight the role of parents in promoting the emotional competence in preschool children; and (4) to design a framework for enhancing emotional competence of children using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM), by examining the impact of happiness, home learning and sharing habits on the emotional competence of preschool children through the perspectives of parents having children within the age group of 3 to 6 years.

Literature Review

Conceptualizing Social-Emotional Competence and Its Importance for Preschool Children

The preschool years are a key developmental period in which the development of social and emotional competence is considered an important milestone for preschool children (Denham et al. 2014; Odom, McConnell, and Brown 2008; Rose-Krasnor and Denham 2009). Social and emotional competence in a preschool child refers to the way a child feels and thinks of himself and others, the way he experiences, regulates, and expresses his emotions, and forms close and secure interpersonal relationships with people around him, all in the context of family, community, and culture (National Scientific Council on the Developing Child 2005; Darling-Churchill and Lippman 2016). For the past decade, an increasing number of researchers and educators have called for the need to focus on the social and emotional aspects of child development beyond academic mastery (Hong et al. 2015). Several developed nations including the United States, the United Kingdom, Hong Kong, and Australia have designed and implemented various early childhood social-emotional learning (SEL) interventions, promising the development of social-emotional competence in children (Yoder 2014; Hedegaard 2016). Even, the Indian educationalists have also acknowledged the importance of social and emotional competence in the holistic development of children in the National Education Policy (NEP) 2020 of India by stating that the education system must aim to “develop good human beings capable of rational thought and action, possessing compassion and empathy” (Jha and Parvati 2020). Research has emphasized framing effective strategies for the successful implementation of any SEL intervention, as shown in Figure 1.

Figure 1.

Key strategies for developing social-emotional competence of preschool children.

Various SEL interventions for promoting social-emotional competence in preschool children have demonstrated improved sensory-motor skills, enhanced attention and concentration levels, better emotional expressiveness, positive attitude toward self and others, positive social behavior, better peer relationships, and reduced conduct problems and emotional distress among them (Ashiabi 2000; Colwell and Hart 2006; Durlak et al. 2011; Zhai, Raver, and Jones 2015). It has been reported that preschool children who lack social-emotional competence are more likely to experience transition issues during preschool years, have poor relationships with peers, manifest several social and behavioral problems, underachieve in academics or develop physical and mental health problems (Bornstein, Hahn, and Haynes 2010; Denham 2006; Lancaster, Dodd, and Williamson 2004). Therefore, the collective efforts of parents and preschool teachers can help in creating an inclusive home and school environment where children can feel comfortable, happy, and secure, and can grapple with challenges more confidently, thus boosting their social and emotional competence (Merritt et al. 2012; Sharif 2014; McClelland et al. 2017).

Conceptualizing Emotional Competence and Its Benefits for Preschool Children

Emotions are considered a vital aspect of personality that plays a crucial role in the manifestation of a child’s behavior and holistic development. The concept of “emotional competence” was popularized by Danial Goleman (1995) and Saarni (1999). Emotional competence is documented as an ability of a preschool child to recognize and understand his feelings and gradually associate verbal labels with those feelings. This would help him to manage his feelings by shaking off emotions like anxiety, sadness, or frustration, and learn to realize that others have feelings too, making him understand their perspectives, and empathize with them (Goleman 1995; McClelland et al. 2017; Rossouw 2011; Salovey and Mayer 1990). Building emotional competence in preschool children involves blending the skills such as emotion knowledge (the ability to identify and label emotions accurately), emotion regulation (managing emotions and controlling how and when to express them), perspective taking (understanding emotions of others), and empathy (Izard et al. 2001; Raver 2003). A preschool child, under the guidance of his parents, can refine his emotional competence. A child can learn self-awareness reflected in the ability to understand his feelings, thoughts, and emotions (such as happiness, sadness, love, pride, shame, curiosity, frustration, sadness, optimism), self-management reflected in the ability to regulate his feelings, controlling his emotions, and can develop perspective taking reflected in the ability to understand others and empathize with them (Colwell and Hart 2006; Kostelnik et al. 2009). Parents can play an important role in the development of emotional competence in preschool children by encouraging positive behavior with siblings at home, inhibiting the habit of sharing and caring (Corso 2007; Gest and Rodkin 2011), providing support to preschool children to manage their strong emotions (Denham, Bassett, and Zinsser 2012) and creating happy learning environment to regulate conflicting behaviors that can lead to aggression at home (Farmer, Lines, and Hamm 2011). Emotional competency has a positive impact on children, as it allows them to mobilize personal and environmental resources in their social interactions (Test and Cornelius-White 2013). Children who are decent at understanding emotions on their own and others’ faces and recognizing the emotions elicited in social situations are not only more emotionally competent but also are socially competent, empathetic, and responsive to siblings and peers, in comparison to children having poor emotion understanding skills (Denham et al. 2003; Izard et al. 2001; Alwaely et al. 2020). Various other benefits of emotional competency in preschool children are given in Figure 2.

Figure 2.

Benefits of emotional competence among young children.

Conceptualizing Happiness

Happiness is a topic of universal interest, but what exactly is the concept of happiness among preschool children? It is seen as a powerful emotion, represented by positive emotional states like excitement, optimism, positive thinking, joy, and the perception of personal well-being (E. Diener 2000; Veenhoven 2010). It is defined as a concept of subjective well-being (E. Diener et al. 1999; Musikanski et al. 2017; Uchida and Oishi 2016). It is believed to be a state of harmony where one is synchronized within and with the world outside, where one undergoes absence of struggle or synergy, and feels the need to make this state sustainable and continuous (Backman 2016). Operationally, happiness is one of the factors that influences a child’s development; however, no universally accepted definition of happiness for children has been established (Anand 2016; Holder 2012; Husted 2017). Based on the understanding of preschool children aged 3 to 6 years, happiness is regarded as the combination of positive emotions (such as happiness, excitement, cheerfulness, delight, joy), expression of those emotions (such as laughter and smile), and the absence of negative emotions (such as sadness, crying and anger) (Izzaty 2018; Lewis 2008; Kim 2013). In children, emotions are displayed and understood via facial expressions (De Haan et al. 1998; Kirk and Jay 2018). It has been reported that for some preschool children, happiness can be a state of joy that they experience while interacting with parents and siblings (Talebzadeh and Samkan 2011; Paulus and Moore 2012), while for others, happiness can be felt on being praised by a mother upon sharing a toy with a sibling or showing care, help, and love for guardians (Chaplin 2009; Broek 2011; Hong et al. 2016).

Prior literature highlights the strong association between happiness and emotional competence, emphasizing on attaining greater emotional stability through happiness (Bajaj, Gupta, and Sengupta 2019; Chamorro-Premuzic, Bennett, and Furnham 2007; Hills and Argyle 2001; “NiramisaSutta: Unworldly” 2010). It is believed to be the state of psychological well-being of a child that promotes sharing habits and home learning influenced by various ways such as play-based learning, audio-visual aids, dancing, entertainment, reading comic books, sports, and drawing (Siegel 2007; Bajaj, Gupta, and Sengupta 2019; Singer 2013; Izzaty 2018). Thus, focusing on the happiness of children from early childhood is considered a crucial topic of research as a study has shown that happy children are likely to be more vigilant in recognizing and using their emotions in multifaceted social environments efficiently (Schultz et al. 2004; United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization 2016).

Hence, we propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1: Happiness influences the emotional competence of preschool children.

Hypothesis 2: Happiness influences the sharing habits of preschool children.

Hypothesis 3: Happiness influences the home learning of preschool children.

In the current study, parents were asked to rate their perception about the level of happiness in their children on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being very happy, 2 being happy, 3 being ok, 4 being unhappy, and 5 being very unhappy). The survey instrument included three statements to measure the child’s happiness, including happiness experienced by helping parents at home, happiness experienced by being empathetic toward people in need (showing love and care), and the happiness experienced by learning at home.

Conceptualizing Home Learning

A learning style is defined as “an individual’s mode of gaining knowledge” (Blevins 2014). A child starts learning from his mother right from his birth. It is believed that learning is the outcome of a personal act of feelings and thoughts. Over the past three decades, an increasing number of studies have presented empirical evidence that home learning is an important predictor of differences in children’s academic, social, and emotional development (Festus 2013; Tamis-LeMonda et al. 2019). “Homeschooling” or “Home Learning” or “Home based Education” is a type of informal or less formal learning offered to children by their parents either by themselves or through hired physical or online tutors at home. Home learning has a comprehensive definition based upon several factors. It refers to the learning environment given by caregivers and experienced by children at home. It involves learning using various interactive activities that engage parents and children together, providing them opportunities to imitate, learn, communicate, and develop interpersonal interactions between them (Melhuish et al. 2008; Yazar and Arifoglu 2012). Research has explored three key features of the home learning environment, namely, the quality of parent-child interactions, the child’s participation in learning activities, and the availability of learning tools that supports the holistic development of the child (Bradley and Corwyn 2002; Veiga et al. 2017). Home learning activities include in-home parent-child activities, such as shared reading, story-telling, teaching letters and numbers, and art and crafts, as well as family activities outside the home, such as visiting the library and going on outings to the museum (Bajaj et al. 2019; Swain et al. 2019). Research has shown that there is a strong influence of selectively chosen cartoon programs, nursery rhythms and stories on the lifestyle, emotional behavior, language, sharing values and moral formation of preschool children in early childhood (Rai et al. 2017). Child involvement in these learning activities can help in stimulating their sharing habits, creativity, imagination, academics, social, and emotional competence. Hence, we propose the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 4: Home learning influences the emotional competence of preschool children.

Hypothesis 5: Home learning influences the sharing habits of preschool children.

In the present study, parents were asked to rate the frequency of involvement of their children in the home learning activities on the five-point Likert scale. They were asked statements related to home learning of their preschool children including learning through audio-visual aids (like watching cartoon movies), learning through story-telling, and learning through indoor games (such as music, art, craft and dance), and other related activities at home.

Conceptualizing Sharing

Sharing is an essential life skill. It is that developmental skill that preschool children need to learn so that they can make and keep friends, play cooperatively, take turns, negotiate and cope with disagreements and disappointments (Broadhead 2004; Veitch et al. 2010). Research has shown that many preschool children aged 3 to 6 years, begin to understand sharing skills, which help them in learning the value of fairness, compromise, and togetherness (Linke 2011). This practice for children is considered a key part of getting along with others, in and out of the home, which impacts their happiness and their behavior with others around them (Ferreira et al. 2016; Smith et al. 2013). This habit of sharing is useful in building social and emotional competencies among preschool children (Nozadi et al. 2013). The role of parents is essential, as they can build sharing habits in children by providing them opportunities, wherein they can see them, learn about and practice sharing and caring, help parents in small household chores, cooperate with their siblings, and be responsible toward them, starting from early childhood (Aknin et al. 2012; Frey, Elliott, and Kaiser 2014; Lane et al. 2007). For instance, parents can build sharing skills by watching for and praising actions, encouraging fairness, explaining about sharing, and encouraging them to share food, draw a big picture together using the same packet of crayons, sharing toys with siblings, and choosing dress-ups together (Flook et al. 2010; Ostrosky, McCollum, and Yu 2007). For children who face trouble in learning, parents can help them, by motivating, so that they don’t forget to share, by acknowledging their slightest sharing effort, by asking them how they’d feel if someone took their toy, didn’t invite them to play, or didn’t let them have a turn, so that they can understand things from other’s perspective (Bell et al. 2010).

Hence, we propose the following hypothesis:

Hypothesis 6: Sharing habits influence the emotional competence of preschool children.

In the current study, parents were asked to rate their perception about the sharing habits in their children on the five-point Likert scale. The survey instrument included three statements to measure the child’s sharing habits, including sharing food with siblings, sharing household work with parents, and sharing toys and games with siblings at home.

Role of Parents in Building Emotional Competence of Preschool Children

Parents are considered to be one of the most important caregivers in the life of children (Ainsworth and Bell 1972). They are known as their first and foremost teachers, who introduce them to the social world, where they further develop an understanding of themselves and their place and value in society (Harkness and Super 2002). Recent advances in research have drawn attention to the fundamental role of parents in children’s emotional development. Parental involvement has been recorded as one of the reliable indicators toward a child’s successful development (Edward 2020). It is defined as behaviors displayed by the parents, both in-home and school settings, which are meant to support the motor, academic, social, and emotional development of their children (El Nokali et al. 2010; Goleman 1995). The style and level of parental involvement are considered as an ally when it comes to the development of emotional competence of preschool children, which reflects in the quote “effective, lasting academic learning and socio-emotional learning are built on caring relationships” (Elias 2006). Even previous researches have shown a significant relationship between parenting and a child’s emotional development. Parent-child bonds and the family environment including all primary caregivers are considered to be at the foundation of a child’s adjustment, well-being, happiness, and social-emotional-cognitive development (Ashiabi 2007; Naomee 2013; Guilherme and De Freitas 2017). Co-regulation of emotions between caregivers and children has been assessed as an important factor that sustains parent-child emotional interaction and regulation during home learning, primarily during a time of severe crisis (Morris 2015). Although the role of mother and father in caring for, nurturing, bringing up, and educating their child in early childhood is different, it, as a whole, is necessary. The previous theories have revealed that the role of mother is more gentle and caring when raising their child, while the role of the father is to show wisdom and discipline when raising him, and spending time doing various kinds of play activities at home (Wall and Arnold 2007; Brown et al. 2007; Chae and Lee 2011). A child grows observing and imitating their parents, caregivers, and guardians. For instance, a child observes and learns from the way his parents interact with each other, express their emotions, the way his guardians share their time with him by story-telling, how his family treats helpers, how much love his family gives to them, and many more behavioral habits. Therefore, the home is considered to be the first place where learning takes root, and parents are considered to be the first and most important teachers (Bovey and Strain 2003). Hence, the role of parents and their impact on a child may never be greater than during the earliest years of a child’s life (3–6 years), when his or her brain is developing and he or she is learning and experiencing all of that being created and shaped by parents and the family environment (NCERT 2015; Nelson et al. 2013).

The Present Study

The genesis of this paper is to present a “framework for enhancing the emotional competence of young children ages 3 to 6 through increasing happiness, sharing habits as fostered by their parents” in a homeschooling context. The study has examined the impact of parents’ involvement in homeschooling with their children through a self-reporting survey. Parents were asked to rate their children’s level of happiness and their use of “activities” using 5-point Likert scales. The analysis has compared the level of happiness, home learning, and sharing habits in their children as reported by parents with choice and frequency of homeschooling activities.

Study Sample and Data Collection

The main objective of the study is to design the framework for enhancing the emotional competence of young children. The present study aimed to find out the impact of happiness, home learning, and sharing habits on the emotional competence of preschool children. A structured questionnaire was prepared through a self-reported survey. Parents, both mother and father, having children within the age group of 3 to 6 years, were asked to rate their perception about their children on the Likert Scale of 1 to 5, where 1 stood for the most likely response and 5 stood for the most unlikely response. The study was conducted in the Ludhiana and the Patiala districts of Punjab state of India. The number of respondents included 358 parents, and a framework for enhancing the emotional competence of children was designed using structural equation modeling (see Figure 3).

Figure 3.

Model for enhancing emotional competence among preschool children—through happiness, sharing habits, and home learning environment provided by parents.

Designing a Conceptual framework to Enhance Emotional Competence of Young Children

The present study has presented a conceptual framework by examining the impact of home learning, happiness, and sharing habits on the emotional competence of preschool children by using Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling (PLS-SEM) 2.0.

Data Analysis and Results

Sociodemographic profile of respondents

Table 1 shows that respondents included both mother and father of children within the age group of 3 to 6 years. Out of 358 total respondents, 234 respondents belonged to the age group of 26 to 35 years and 108 belonged to 36 years and above. Total respondents were 358, out of which 243 were mothers and 115 were fathers. Talking about the profession, 127 worked in the service sector, 85 were in business, and 136 were housewives. A total of 351 out of 358 respondents had one to two children and the remaining had three to five children. Parents belonged to the districts of Ludhiana and Patiala in the state of Punjab in India.

Table 1.

Profile of Respondents.

No.	Variables	Frequency & percentage (358)
1.	Age of respondents (in years)
	18–25	16 (4.5%)
	26–35	234 (65.4%)
	36 and above	108 (30.1%)
2.	Gender
	Female	243 (68%)
	Male	115 (32%)
3.	Occupation
	Service	127 (35.5%)
	Business	85 (23.7%)
	Housewife	143 (39.9%)
	Others	3 (0.9%)
4.	Number of children
	1–2	351 (98%)
	3–4	07 (2%)

Source. Computed.

PLS-SEM path modeling (see Figure 4; Lohmoller 1988) was used to test the hypotheses using smart PLS 2 software (Hair et al. 2013; Ringle et al. 2020). First, reflective measurement models were tested for their reliability and validity. The reliability and validity of the questionnaire are accepted. In the course of the indicator reliability assessment, three items were deleted because they exhibited loadings below 0.708.

Figure 4.

PLS-SEM 2.0 (Partial Least Squares-Structural Equation Modeling) path model.

Table 2 shows that the composite reliability of the constructs was higher than the minimum requirement of 0.70 and construct convergent validity (Average Validity Extracted [AVE]) were higher than 0.5 value (Hair et al. 2013).

Table 2.

Reliability and Validity.

Variables	AVE	Composite reliability	Cronbach’s alpha
Emotional competence	0.538	0.777	0.569
Happiness	0.558	0.787	0.595
Learning	0.639	0.876	0.813
Sharing	0.564	0.795	0.621

Source. Computed.

Note. AVE = average validity extracted.

In Tables 3 and 4, Fornell and Larcker’s (1981) criterion demonstrated that the square root of AVE values of all the reflective constructs were higher than the inter-construct correlations, indicating discriminant validity. Furthermore, all indicator loadings in bold were higher than their respective cross-loadings, providing further evidence for the discriminant validity.

Table 3.

Correlation and Discriminant Validity (Square Root of AVE across Diagonal).

Statements (items)	Emotional competence	Happiness	Learning	Sharing
Emotions understanding and expression with ease	.6804	.3898	.1717	.1739
Emotional competence via perspective taking	.7336	.4025	.2012	.2177
Improved emotional competence via empathy	.7829	.3935	.372	.179
Happy helping parents	.3515	.7854	.1969	.3565
Happy being empathetic toward others (showing love and care)	.485	.846	.2397	.3474
Happy learning at home	.3577	.5828	.2933	.0135
Home learning through audio—visual aids (such as cartoon movies)	.2303	.1984	.7195	.1796
Home learning through story-telling	.3289	.3766	.8596	.3775
Home learning through indoor games (such as dance, music, art forms)	.2035	.2223	.8236	.2781
Home learning through extra-curricular activities (such as meditation, recreational activities)	.3145	.1654	.7893	.3416
Sharing food with siblings	.1743	.1548	.2849	.745
Sharing household work with parents	.2157	.3437	.3155	.7608
Sharing toys and games with siblings	.1857	.2564	.2572	.7467

Source. Computed.

Note. AVE = average validity extracted.

Table 4.

Correlation and Discriminant Validity (Square Root of AVE across Diagonal).

Variables	Emotional competence	Happiness	Learning	Sharing
Emotional competence	.733485
Happiness	.5377	.746994
Learning	.346	.3156	.799375
Sharing	.2585	.3488	.3834	.750999

Source. Computed.

Note. AVE = average validity extracted.

Path Model and Results Assessment

After the constructs have been confirmed as reliable and valid, the next step is to assess the structural model results. Table 5 shows the path coefficients obtained by applying a nonparametric bootstrapping routine (Vinzi et al. 2010) with 358 cases and 5000 samples.

Table 5.

Path Co-Efficient.

Hypothesis	Hypothesis testing	Original sample (O)	Standard error (STERR)	T statistics (\|O/STERR\|)	Decision
H1	Happiness -> Emotional Competence	0.4704	0.0529	8.8995***	Supported
H2	Happiness -> Home Learning	0.3156	0.0471	6.6986***	Supported
H3	Happiness -> Sharing	0.253	0.0605	4.1824***	Supported
H4	Home Learning -> Emotional Competence	0.1891	0.0528	3.5805**	Supported
H5	Home Learning -> Sharing	0.3036	0.0666	4.5576**	Supported
H6	Sharing -> Emotional Competence	0.022	0.0492	0.4464	Not Supported

Source. Computed.

p < .05. **p < .01. ***p < .001.

In Table 5, the results showed that parents should focus on the happiness of preschool children as it significantly impacts their emotional competence, home learning, and sharing habits; thus, Hypotheses 1, 2, and 3 were supported. Also, the results approved the significance of the home learning on the emotional competence and sharing habits of preschool children by supporting Hypotheses 4 and 5. But, the results did not support the impact of sharing on the emotional competence of preschool children by rejecting Hypothesis 6.

Discussion and Conclusion

Parents’ involvement with children during the first 6 years of their life is operational for improving their emotional competence and influencing their happiness, home learning, and sharing habits (Bakosh et al. 2016; Jeong et al. 2021). Covid-19 pandemic, on one side, has left people thinking of what will happen after its ends, relating to the way we live, work, communicate, earn, celebrate, educate, and many more. However, on the other side, it has given the world the opportunities to spend time with their families, strengthen their relationships, bond with their children, teach them at home, enhance their social and emotional well-being, and make their homes a happy place to live in. Talking about India, which is a developing economy, this current crisis has doubled the workload of parents, giving them a way to rethink about their perceptions of education and child’s emotional development (The NAESP Foundation Task Force on Early Learning 2011).

The purpose of this research was to study the parents’ perspective on emotional competency in their preschool children. The paper investigated the impact of happiness, sharing, and home learning on emotional competence, during the pandemic, among 3 to 6 year olds in Punjab, India. It showed a potential to provide an assessment of child’ emotional well-being when learning from home while experiencing a crisis. This paper is an attempt to design a framework for enhancing the emotional competence of preschool children aged 3 to 6 years, through increasing happiness, sharing habits, and home learning for them (see Figure 4). The study used PLS-SEM path modeling (Lohmoller 1988; Wold 1985) to test the hypotheses using smart PLS 2.0 software (Ringle et al. 2020). Furthermore, it has focused on highlighting the importance and role of the parent-child relationship that acts as significant medium in enhancing the emotional competence of children. The study found out that parental involvement in child’s learning improved the early emotional competence in child. It additionally improved parent’s knowledge, parenting practices, and parent-child interactions. The parents, caregivers, and guardians observed and rated their perceptions about their own child’s happiness, learning, sharing habits, and emotional well-being. Based on the previous researches, three independent variables were chosen, namely, happiness, home learning, and sharing habits in the preschool children. Based on the parent’s observation, the impact of these three variables were seen on the dependent variable named, emotional competence of children. A self-reported survey instrument was prepared for parents which contained statements relating to happiness, home learning, sharing, and emotional competence of preschool children. The study took into consideration few important factors in a preschooler’s emotional competence development, including the emotional understanding and expressiveness, perspective taking, and being empathetic toward oneself, family, and people (Katz 2015; Mihaela 2015; Kennedy 2018). In addition, the study has considered happiness to be the main independent variable under investigation. Happiness was assumed to influence home learning and sharing habits in preschool children. The results showed that in the opinion of parents, their preschool children felt happy by doing their bit in helping their parents or guardian in the household chores (for instance, helping to keep toys in the box, to wash fruits, etc). Also, their children experienced happiness by learning at home from parents (via shared story-telling, dance, craft etc) and being empathetic toward siblings (by showing love, care, and sharing toys with them). Therefore, the results showed that happiness in preschool children improved their home learning, sharing habits, and the emotional competence. Furthermore, the findings suggested that home learning significantly enhanced the sharing habits among preschool children, which they learnt from stories, cartoons, and other educational activities at home, that they practiced under the guidance of their parents. Home learning also improved the emotional knowledge and expressiveness of preschool children, thus building their emotional competence in early childhood. Although literature review has shown correlation between sharing habits and emotional competence of preschool children (Hall 2020; Zhang and Lee 2020), the analysis in the study showed a weak link between sharing and emotional competence of preschool children. The analysis specifically emphasized that happiness, home learning, and sharing are necessary to meet the intentions of promoting and improving the emotional competence in preschool children.

The study concluded that the role of parents, both mother and father, is important in promoting the emotional competence of their children (Harkness and Super 2002). Parents are the teachers who should focus on spending sufficient time with their children, either during morning breakfasts, story-telling sessions, workouts, or in any other way to ensure that their children are living in a happy and safe space, resulting in the emotional well-being of children (Denham et al. 2012; Goldstein 2012; Schonert-Reichl 2017). The focus of parents, caregivers, and guardians on the social-emotional competence development of children, during early years of life, can help in improving sensory-motor skills, concentration levels, emotional expressiveness, behavior, and social relationships of their children (Ashiabi 2000; Colwell and Hart 2006; Durlak et al. 2011; Zhai et al. 2015). In addition, co-regulation of emotions between parents and preschool children could cultivate a strong emotional bond among themselves and their family as a whole. Preschool children could spend much of their prime time together with parents and thus, can learn to identify, nurture and develop emotional competence at home (Whitehurst and Lonigan 1998). Parents, caregivers, and guardians can design effective interventions by using adaptable, multifaceted, game-based, inquiry-based, and activity-based learning strategies (Whitebread et al. 2012; Vygotsky 2016). These strategies may comprise of facial-expression recognition, colors, shapes, indoor and outdoor games, physical activity, sibling-interactions, problem-solving in groups, circle-times, sketching, painting and other pictorial art, craft, music and movement, drama and puppetry, which aid in promoting emotional competence in children via happiness, home learning, and sharing habits (Caselman and Self 2008; NCERT 2015; Ogunyemi and Ragpot 2015).

Contributions

The present study is an attempt to design a framework for enhancing the emotional competence of preschool children aged 3 to 6 years, through increasing happiness, sharing habits, and home learning for them. This paper is a piece of original research work done in areas of happiness, home learning, sharing, and emotional competence, in context to Indian preschool children in the state of Punjab. The paper brings to light the need to focus on children’s happiness, home learning, sharing, and their social and emotional competence, starting from early childhood, that is, in the age of 3 to 6 years. Finally, the paper is an initiative to accentuate the part of parents as teachers in promoting happiness, home learning, and sharing habits in preschool children staying at home, using play-based teaching strategies for enhancing emotional competence of their children.

Limitations

The findings of the study are restricted by certain limitations that warrant consideration. First, the sample included the parents of preschool children only within the age group of 3 to 6 years from two districts of one state, that is, Punjab in India. Again, greater geographical reach may provide a better understanding of the parent-child relationship and role of parents in enhancing home learning, sharing habits, happiness, and emotional competence of preschool children. Further studies might identify the extent to which learning, sharing, happiness, and emotional competence vary across different age groups, different geographical regions, and so on. The present study is a parental perception of their own child’s happiness, which might have included biases that were hard to control. Future studies can include any cross-checking methods such as perceptions of teachers, observations of children in sampled families, and so on, to ensure impartiality. Based on literature review, the study took only limited constructs and variables for the survey. Many other statements and variables could be taken in consideration in future research for better construct validity and results. Further testing of the framework in different learning environments like schools, homes, and crèches is likely to yield valuable insights to parents and teachers or their working on the emotional competence of preschool children.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Availability of Data and Material

The data in the study is transparent and collected by authors themselves.

Code Availability

PLS-SEM 2.0 has been used.

Author Biographies

Jasleen Kaur is a PhD research scholar at the Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala, Punjab, India. She is pursuing research work in the field of social-emotional learning in school teachers and preschoolers. She has published articles in the area of education, framework formation for schools, e-learning, and menstrual hygiene.

Anupam Sharma is an assistant professor at the Thapar Institute of Engineering & Technology, Patiala, Punjab, India. She is a widely published researcher in corporate social responsibility, artificial intelligence, menstrual hygiene, and emotional behavior.

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