Social-Emotional Development

A parent-friendly tip sheet created by the Illinois Early Intervention Clearinghouse.

This book provides a comprehensive reader-friendly overview of early growth and learning across developmental domains, with special emphasis on the components of emotional development and the environmental factors that influence it.

Also available as an eBook

Infants, toddlers, and 2-year-olds grow best when they are loved, cared for, and valued as unique individuals. This book will help you provide children with high-quality care in a responsive learning environment.

This book gives professionals the knowledge and understanding they need to critically evaluate their own practice and find the best course of action to support personal social emotional development in young children.

This book offers simple strategies for families to support young children’s healthy social and emotional development through enjoyment of everyday activities that promote three key protective factors: initiative, self-regulation, and attachment/relationships.

This book provides valuable tools to help nurture relationships, measure progress, reduce child stress, address challenging behaviors and promote self-regulation. Full of clear, straightforward steps, guiding principles and useful techniques backed by neuroscience and research, this book provides practical methods so that all childhood providers can better support the social and emotional lives of children and families.

This book shows how paying attention to the emotional needs of your child, particularly during the first five years of development, can help him or her grow up happy, secure, and confident.

Chloe loves going to school, but lately something is different. Chloe has all the ingredients of a great friend – kindness, empathy, compassion, and more. Chloe wonders, “What do you do when friends don’t treat you with kindness?” Find out how this brave girl navigates the trials and tribulations that pop up on her way to discovering the recipe for lasting friendship.

A guide providing a blend of child psychology and activities that is suitable for professionals working with children as well as parents. As you identify and develop your child’s strengths, you increase their opportunities to do well at school and become a happy, confident, well-rounded person.

In this book, children learn how to develop positive problem-solving skills to transfer into their everyday lives through evidence-based activities, discussion, role-play, games, and explicit social skill instruction.

The author contends that babyhood is much more important to our lives than many people realize and that a lot of the behavior that worries us later in childhood has already been shaped by children’s experiences in babyhood.

This video teaches much-needed strategies for infants and young children who have sensory processing disorders, autism spectrum disorder, development delays, behavior issues or speech and language delays to improve social-emotional development.

The video features research-based yet practical strategies for working with children and families and nurturing healthy, socially competent children.

A series of training films on the psychosocial development of infants and their families, these five DVDs examine how parents and children fall in love with one another and what happens when there are problems that interrupt the growth of those bonds.

NAMI Illinois is a nonprofit organization founded by volunteers in 1984 and has 23 local Affiliates throughout Illinois. Members of NAMI Illinois may be individuals living with mental illness, family members, friends, and professionals. Its purpose is to help improve the lives of people affected by mental illness through education, support, and advocacy.

Advocating with individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities

The Center of Excellence for IECMHC helps communities support the success of the next generation by increasing access to evidence-based infant and early childhood mental health consultation.

The World Association for Infant Mental Health (WAIMH) is a not-for-profit organization for scientific and educational professionals. WAIMH’s central aim is to promote the mental well-being and healthy development of infants throughout the world, taking into account cultural, regional, and environmental variations, and to generate and disseminate scientific knowledge.

This policy statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics shares valuable information on how pediatricians and other child health care providers can reduce the risk of childhood emotional and behavioral problems by reducing exposure to toxic stress, promoting protective factors, and systematically screening for risk factors for emerging clinical problems.

This website is focused on promoting the social emotional development and school readiness of young children birth to age 5. The site includes many resources for families.

You’re out in public with your toddler or preschooler when the whining starts. Don’t panic! When you take a calm, problem-solving approach, you help your child learn to calm himself when he is irritable.

There’s no sure cure for young children’s public temper tantrums. But some simple steps can reduce the chances that your toddler or preschooler will “pitch a fit” when you run errands together.

Services available from the network include parent groups, a “warmline,” and an infant specialist who will work with parents to find effective ways to care for their baby. All services are available in English and Spanish.

This resource includes ways to comfort a crying baby. It encourages parents to find out what works for their baby.

A lot happens within the first few years of life! It is important to have an understanding of the developmental processes of early childhood. From a developmental perspective, this early stage of life is building the foundation for future learning, development and health. This video looks at early development, focusing on the importance of relationships and enhancing social and emotional wellbeing.

This section from the Illinois Early Learning Guidelines: For Children Birth to Age Three describes indicators for children across four different age ranges along with strategies that caregivers can use to engage with children to support healthy emotional development.

Do you sometimes experience stress? So does your child. Stress may be a part of life for everyone, but prolonged stress can be harmful. You can help your child learn to recognize and cope with the feelings of frustration, sadness, worry, and anger that can lead to stress or be signs of stress. Also in Polish, Korean, Chinese, Arabic, and French.

This pamphlet provides information about temper tantrums and questions for caregivers to create a “plan of action” for the child.

This website from the Nemours Foundation explains why children have temper tantrums and how to avoid them.

This website from the U.S. National Library of Medicine and the National Institutes of Health provides information to understand temper tantrums and what parents can do when children exhibit this behavior.

For parents and teachers on how to manage temper tantrums, prevent them from happening, and what to do after they occur.

Information about why temper tantrums occur and how parents should react to them.

This website takes the research that shows which practices improve the social-emotional outcomes for young children and creates FREE products and resources to help caregivers.

This PBS program provides parents and early care providers information on the physical and social-emotional development of children from birth to age 5.

This website from the American Academy of Pediatrics provides tips on how caregivers can handle temper tantrums.