 So, yes, as parts say, we're going to go back to the beginning now and we're going to think about children, and in particular we're going to think about how children develop a sense of emotional competence, how do they learn about emotions, and why is a study of emotions relevant, why should we care about emotions. So, way before children know what emotions are, they're already dealing with emotions from a very early age, from birth really, we're dealing with emotions, and gradually as children grow, when they go towards childhood and adolescence, they grow towards achieving hopefully a sense of emotional competence. So what is emotional competence? Emotional competence is the ability to express your own emotions, to regulate your own emotions, and to understand your own emotions and other people's emotions. So emotion expression is the ability to make others understand what you're feeling. So little babies do it through facial expressions and through vocalizations, such as crying. As children grow and they start talking, they start mentioning emotion words in their speech from about the age of 18 months. And second component of emotional competence is emotion regulation, which is the ability to manage your own emotions so that you can function successfully in any given situation. So little babies cannot really regulate their emotions on their own. They depend on the mothers, imagine a mother soothing a baby when a baby is crying so that the baby stops crying. As a child grows, they tend to regulate their emotions behaviorally and later on cognitively. Emotion regulation is a crucial skill for children, as research tell us, that those children who can regulate their emotions successfully are much better liked by the peers. And finally, emotion understanding. The ability to understand your own emotions and other people's emotions. We go generally through three developmental stages. So from three to five years of age, children learn to recognize facial expressions of emotions, and then also they learn to understand that external situations causes and provokes emotions. So for example, you tend, you're likely to be happy if it's your birthday. Between the ages of five and seven, we understand, we learn how to understand mentalistic emotions. So we understand that all the people might be feeling different things as the ones we're feeling. And we also learned that children, people can hide their true emotions. And finally, between the ages of seven and nine, children learn about reflective emotions. So they learn about ambivalent emotions. So we can have two conflicting emotions at the same time. So you might feel happy and sad at the same time. And they also learn about moral emotions, such as shame and guilt. So the question then is, how do children learn about emotions? How does a child, a little child, learn what crying means or what anger means or why the parents might be fighting? Because they are upset at each other. How do we learn about emotions? So we learn about emotions in the context of the family. So it is with your parents, with your siblings, that you learn how to deal with emotions. You learn to recognize your emotions and all the people's emotions. And you learn how to respond to those emotions. And later on as children grow, they learn about emotions with their peers, their teachers, the media. But of particular importance is mother-child conversations. So there is research saying that those mothers who mentioned more emotional words to their children have children who understand emotions better. But it is not only the frequency of emotions conversation which is important, it's also the quality. So the more explanations that you give your children about emotions, the better understanding of emotions they will have. So for example, it's not the same if I say to my child, I'm not going to play with you today because I'm sad. But if I tell my child, I'm not going to play with you today. I am sad because I had a problem at work. So the more explanations you give them, the much better they will get. And understanding of emotions. As you must be thinking now, why are emotions important? What should we care about emotions? So emotions, they play a crucial role in children's development of social competence. So emotional competence and social competence are very, very closely linked together. And also emotions play a crucial role in children's ability to learn, and especially within the school environment. So those children who are emotionally competent, they're more popular among the peers. They have more friends. Children like them better. This is because they understand what's going on. They understand what children are feeling, how should they respond to them? They know when to interact and not interact. They tend to mention more emotion words in their speech. And research tell us that children tend to like those children who mention more emotion words in their speech. They also display more prosocial behavior. They help others more. They kinder. And as a result, children like them better. And as a result, they make more friends. And they have lower levels of psychological problems. These children are well-adapted to their lives. They suit well in the peer group. And when you're suit well in your peer group, when you're happy, you're less likely to have psychological problems. When you know how to react and to confront problems, you're less likely to have psychological problems. In contrast, those children who have low emotional competence, they have poor social skills. They have more problems in their social relations. They tend not to know what other children are feeling, how to respond to those feelings. And as a result, sometimes it happens that the peer group rejects them, so they get isolated. Or sometimes they get isolated by themselves. They just exclude themselves from the group because they really don't know how to interact in the group. And also research tell us that, for example, those children who show anger frequently, are less liked by the peers. Those children who create conflict often, are less liked by the peers. Children don't like, usually, of the children creating conflict. And they also have higher levels of psychological problems. So children with low emotional competence, they tend to display more eating disorders, anxiety disorders, depression. And in terms of learning and education, children who are emotionally competent, they're better able to adapt to a transition. From nursery to school, this is a huge gap for the children. So when you go from nursery to school, not only you're facing more difficult demands, but you also have one less on one support. So this is a huge step for children. So those children who are emotionally competent are better able to face this challenging situation. And as a result, they can do better than transition. And they tend to do better throughout their school lives than those children who struggle through this transition. And also children who are emotionally competent that show better academic performance across their school years. One reason for this is that these children, they're happier at school, they're more engaged, they go happily to school. And when you have no problem, when you're happy at school, you tend to focus better in your learning. You can learn better than if you're struggling in the playground, let's say, for example. And also these children, they tend to deal better with the stress that the school provokes. They have more confidence in their ability, so they tend to do better at school. And also there's another link showing that children who are emotionally competent, they tend to have a better relationship with their teachers. And research shows that those teachers who have a good relationship with, when a teacher has a good relationship with a student, they tend to demand more of that child. And the child wanting to please the teacher, they work harder, they do better. So the link between the teacher and child is also very important for children's learning. And in contrast, children who are not emotionally competent, they tend to have problems in high cognitive processes. So they have problems sometimes in their working memory, in their planning, they have problems understanding what the teacher is demanding of them, and as a result they do worse academically. And they also tend to have display behavioral problems, such as they tend to be excluded from the group, they might show antisocial behavior. Another range of these, so maybe hostility and aggression towards others. And so is there a way that we can improve emotional competence? So there have been some studies, some intervention programs designed to improve emotional competence. Most of them have been done in the States, and they deal with the skills, such as self-management and self-awareness, social awareness, relationship skills. So for example, these programs, they will get children engaged in mentoring programs, for example, all the children will mentor a little child, or they get children involved in charity work, or social community work to make them engage with the school, because the more the child is engaged within the school life, the better he tends to do academically. And they also tend, for example, in social understanding activities, they tend to use, if there's a conflict in the classroom between children, they tend to take those opportunities to discuss the emotions that those situations are provoking on the children, so they might discuss the emotions in when they read books, or when they watch a movie. And they do have good results in intervention programs, especially when they are long-term. So children, when they do these programs, they tend to show better attitudes towards school, the self and others. They show better academic achievement and they display less behavior problems. So there is a way in which we can improve children's emotional competence. And just, so in some, I think you will agree with me that emotions play a crucial role in children's social and emotional life. And I think it's very important to keep in mind that schools and parents, they should not only focus on the academic subjects that they learn at school, but we should focus in raising children who are emotionally and socially able, because by doing so, we're giving them the tools to be successful in life. And I'm gonna pass it on to Garron, who's gonna tell you about his amazing research that he does here. Oh, there's a question, yes. Anna, we have a question here. If a child misses out on emotional learning due to circumstance, for example, not attending school, is there a way to do this later in their lives? I think not attending school is not a problem really, because as we've seen, a family plays a crucial role. And if a child doesn't attend school, he will have friends in the neighborhood, he will have an extended family, he will have his family. So it is not a case that only the school can do it. We all, I mean, we all take a role in helping and raising children's social competence, all the children that we have around us. So now we say no, the school doesn't play, the school is not the only factor. It's an important factor, but not the only one.