The Relationship Between Emotional Regulation Skills and the Adaptability to the Classes of Children

Abstract

This study aims to determine the regulatory role of teachers' social interaction practices in the relationship between children's emotional regulating skills and their classroom adaptation. Using a random cluster sampling method, the sample of the study consists of 250 children and 50 preschool teachers who attended preschool educational institutions on the central districts of the province of Konya, Turkey, in the 2020–2021 academic year. The research data were collected using the Teacher Observation of Classroom Adaptation—Checklist, Social Interaction Practices for the Preschool Years (SIPPY), and Emotional Regulation Checklist. The results demonstrate that emotional regulation skills and intensive strategies have a direct effect on classroom adaptation and that the negative effect of emotional regulation skills on classroom adaptation decreases when intensive strategies applied by the teacher increase. So, in other words, teachers' practices of more intensive social interaction in the classroom have been associated with higher class adjustment for all children in the classroom, regardless of the risk in emotional regulation. In view of these findings, it can be said that increasing the frequency of applying the teacher's intensive strategies in the classroom reduces the negative effect of emotional regulation skills on the classroom adaptation; by this way, classroom adaptation of children increases.