Co-regulating the child's emotions in the classroom: Teachers’ interpretations of and decision-making in emotional situations

•Examines how teachers interpret real-life emotional situations in classrooms by stimulated recall interviews.•Investigates teachers’ situation-specific decisions in emotional co-regulatory interactions with children in detail.•The teachers’ knowledge of the children was the foundation for their interpretations of emotional situations in classroom.•The teachers’ decision-making was based on their knowledge of and their relationships with the children.•The teachers were in a dilemma whether to focus on the involved children or the rest of the class in emotional situations. The present study aims to investigate how teachers interpret real-life situations in which children display intense emotions in classrooms, and how they explain their situation-specific decisions in their emotional interactions with these children. The study draws on research that acknowledges a teacher's role as a co-regulator of children's emotions and as a supporter of children's emotional development. The data material consists of seven stimulated recall interviews based on 103 hours of video recordings of actual everyday classroom teaching. The results indicate that a teacher's knowledge of the child was the foundation of their interpretation of the situations in which children displayed intense emotions. The teachers’ decision-making was based on this knowledge, as well as on the reported quality of their relationships with the children. Their decisions were also affected by the dilemma of where to focus during emotionally intense situations. The results indicate a need to focus on teachers’ decision-making processes in classroom interactions, and to find ways to enhance teachers’ abilities to support children's emotional development.