The Roles of Anger and Self-Regulation on School Readiness in Kindergarten

Abstract

Young children who are anger-prone or have poor self-regulation skills tend to have difficulties in school (Diaz et al., 2017; Liu et al., 2018; Valiente et al., 2012). However, few studies have explored how anger may work together with different self-regulatory tendencies to predict children’s school readiness. This study examined the relations of anger, effortful control, executive functioning, and school readiness among kindergarteners (n = 72). Executive functioning skills were found to be particularly important for academic readiness, whereas anger and effortful control were found to be particularly important and to work together to predict social-emotional readiness. These findings provide evidence for the conceptual distinctions between executive functioning and effortful control as two distinct types of self-regulation, and demonstrate the need for tailored approaches to social-emotional learning (SEL). Future SEL programs would benefit from approaches that take children’s pre-existing tendencies for anger and self-regulation into account in anger management training.