Emotions play a crucial role in school contexts concerning a child’s academic achievements, social functioning, and well-being (Denham et al., 2012; Valiente et al., 2020). As schools are complex emotional arenas, teachers constantly experience emotional situations in the classroom involving children with emotions. More specifically, the teachers get emotionally involved as they interact with children (Valiente et al., 2020). These interactions can also act as learning situations for children, where they can learn from emotions and regulate them (Kurki et al., 2017). For the interactions to be beneficial for supporting children’s learning, it requires a good teacher-student relationship as well as the teachers being sensitive to the child’s signals and needs and attuned to the child’s emotional state (Guo et al., 2021). These emotional interactions are reciprocal: children’s emotional displays and behaviours affect the teacher’s emotions and actions and vice versa (Lavelli et al., 2019). Despite a variety of research exploring this reciprocal relationship at a general level, exploring teacher’s emotions and their impact on students (Frenzel et al., 2021), there are less contextualized studies on how teacher’s own interpretations and related emotions in emotional interactions are connected to how they interact with the emotional child. Therefore, more research is needed on how teachers interpret emotional situations and what kind of emotions they themselves experience in these situations.

Co-regulation of emotions has been used as a term to describe adult-child interactions, where the adult supports and helps the child to learn to regulate their emotions (Lunkenheimer & Lobo, 2020). Prior research indicates that children are highly dependent upon these interactions in order to regulate their emotions, internal emotional states, and behaviours (Bernier et al., 2010; Erdmann & Hertel, 2019). In the school context, teachers can become important co-regulators of the children’s emotions (Spilt et al., 2021). More specifically, as the teachers set the standards for appropriate social behaviour, the teachers become role models who support the children in handling their emotions (Valiente et al., 2020). However, teachers are not always aware of their impact as co-regulators of children’s emotions (Kurki et al., 2016; Silkenbeumer et al., 2018). Hence, understanding how teachers identify their own emotions and thoughts and the way these emotions and thoughts affect their co-regulation with the emotional child, is needed.

The aim of this study is to explore teacher’s own reflections, thoughts and emotions about classroom situations and the ways these contribute to the teacher’s co-regulation of the child’s emotions. Hence, the following research questions (RQ) are:

1) How do teachers interpret emotional classroom situations?

2) How do these interpretations contribute to teacher’s co-regulation in emotional classroom situations?

In this study, the participants were seven teachers from three different primary schools in Norway. There were all teaching children in 1st and 2nd grade (age: 6-8 years). The data material was collected using video film of their teaching in classrooms and Stimulated Recall Interviews as methods. In addition, and as an extension of the Stimulated Recall Interview, a brief in-depth interview was conducted to ensure the participants elaborated reflections upon their and the child’s emotions, behaviours, and thoughts in general as well as from a classroom perspective. First, teachers were individually filmed teaching in the classroom and with the first author present. Two cameras were used to film, and the teachers were carrying a microphone. The total amount of collected video data material was 70 hours. Second, Stimulated Recall Interviews were conducted individually where the participants were shown about five selected video clips that lasted between 30 seconds to 1,50 minutes. The video clips were selected from the video material made by the first author based on following criteria: (1) emotions of high intensity, (2) emotions that are explicitly expressed by the teacher or the pupil, (3) emotions occurring either individually or in group settings and (4) emotions setting the mood in the classroom. In the interviews, the participants were asked open questions like “Can you describe what is happening here?”, “How do you think the pupil experienced this situation?” and “Can you recall your own feelings in this situation?”. The analysis of the interviews was conducted with an explorative approach aiming not to be predetermined concerning the teacher’s interpretation of the emotional situations in the classroom involving the child(ren) and themselves, and their co-regulation. This inductive procedure allowed the codes and developed categories to emerge, still being close to the data material (Charmaz, 2006). The interviews got transcribed and coded as units of meaning where common themes emerge and further developed into relevant categories. The analysis of the selected video clips consisted of a careful and thorough review considering the teacher’s and the children’s behaviour and their co-regulation. This part of the analysis is still in progress and therefore, in the following, the presentation of some important preliminary findings from the interviews will be summarized, subject to fuller and more detailed elaborations of the findings in the presentation.

In relation to RQ 1, preliminary findings indicate that the way the teachers interpreted the emotional situations in the classroom depended on three different themes: 1) their knowledge of the child(ren), 2) their own thoughts and feelings about the child(ren) and 3) their own thoughts and feelings about themselves. The knowledge of the children was expressed by the teachers describing the situations in detail involving explanations of why the child(ren) behaved as they did and their assumption of the child(ren)’s emotions and thoughts in the situations. Their own thoughts and feelings regarding the child(ren) included the parts where the teachers expressed their valuation of the child’s behaviour and their emotional state and expressions. Finally, the participant’s recall of their own thoughts and feelings included statements about how they reacted to the situations, how that affected their role as a teacher and the difficult balancing act between paying attention to one child versus the whole class hence their responsibility to ensure and facilitate a good learning environment. In relation to RQ 2, the teacher’s own interpretations seemed to be linked to their behaviour, thoughts and emotions in the co-regulation process. More specifically, the use of strategies and their assessment of the situation was both affected by their emotions as an overall umbrella. For example, the teacher’s relationship with the child seemed to steer which strategies the teacher used in their approach to the emotional child and their co-regulation. These preliminary results show the importance of paying attention to how teacher’s interpretations of the situation are affecting their co-regulation and how, for example by appropriate education and professional training, these interpretations can potentially be developed towards a more accurate and constructive understanding of the complexity of children’s emotions and teacher’s own role as co-regulators (Mänty et al., 2022).

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