Stanley T. Greenspan and T. Berry Brazelton said in their book
The Irreducible Needs of Children that “Emotions
are the internal architects, conductors, or organizers of our mind. We
“know” things through our emotional interactions and then apply that
knowledge to the cognitive world…“Knowing how to reason about cause and
effect, fantasy and reality, and a whole rage of emotional experiences is
vital for relating to peers, family and success…”

Infants: Gestures

Holding infants close and often reading to them helps to
build a warm, trusting, and nurturing emotional relationship. This begins
to lay down the basic foundation for a strong sense of self-esteem in the
future. These relationships with parents and caretakers allow children to
learn to think and are a motivation for later learning. In reality,
emotional thinking becomes the bases for all future thinking when babies
begin to respond to gestures with gestures in return.

Toddlers: Pretend Play

Pretend play involving emotional dramas help children connect to an image
and then use that image to think of solutions. This ability to act out and
create mental pictures of relationships leads to more advance thinking. In
a study by UCLA, 93% of communication effectiveness was determined by
nonverbal clues and only 7% by spoken words. So for toddlers in particular,
engaging in pretend play with others, and using objects to play pretend
dramas becomes the support for learning prior to developing formal
language.

Preschoolers: Hands-on Play

Through hands-on play activities young children build a
bridge between ideas on an emotional level and the more abstract logic of
cause and effect. They are learning how to think logically and use these
skills to figure things out. It also teaches cooperation and helps to
reinforce children’s self-esteem by beginning to distinguish between what
is real and what isn’t with logical thinking. Preschooler’s hands-on play
becomes more complex and they can follow rules by beginning to reason about
feelings and connects them to behaviors.

Children’s words are a magnet for thinking and reasoning skills. Their
language skills not only effect social and emotional relationships, but
also help them develop critical thinking skills.

Willard Hartup said, “…the single best childhood predictor of adult
adaptation is not IQ nor school grades, but rather the adequacy with
which a child gets along with others. Children who are unable to
sustain close relationships with others…are seriously at risk.”