<P> Some aspects of social - emotional development, like empathy, develop gradually, but others, like fearfulness, seem to involve a rather sudden reorganization of the child's experience of emotion . Sexual and romantic emotions develop in connection with physical maturation . </P> <P> Genetic factors appear to regulate some social - emotional developments that occur at predictable ages, such as fearfulness, and attachment to familiar people . Experience plays a role in determining which people are familiar, which social rules are obeyed, and how anger is expressed . </P> <P> Parenting practices have been shown to predict children's emotional intelligence . The objective is to study the time mothers and children spent together in joint activity, the types of activities that they develop when they are together, and the relation that those activities have with the children's trait emotional intelligence . Data was collected for both mothers and children (N = 159) using self - report questionnaires . Correlations between time variables and trait emotional intelligence dimensions were computed using Pearson's Product - Moment Correlation Coefficient . Partial correlations between the same variables controlling for responsive parenting were also computed . The amount of time mothers spent with their children and the quality of their interactions are important in terms of children's trait emotional intelligence, not only because those times of joint activity reflect a more positive parenting, but because they are likely to promote modeling, reinforcement, shared attention, and social cooperation . </P> <P> Population differences may occur in older children, if, for example, they have learned that it is appropriate for boys to express emotion or behave differently from girls, or if customs learned by children of one ethnic group are different from those learned in another . Social and emotional differences between boys and girls of a given age may also be associated with differences in the timing of puberty characteristic of the two sexes . </P>

Who said infancy is ideal period of learning