FACIAL EXPRESSIONS: CAN PARENTS RECOGNISE CHILDREN’S EMOTIONS

Communication and the ability to understand emotions are key factors in everyday relationships between children and their parents. The purpose of this research is to identify whether parents are able to recognize emotions in their children’s facial expressions and to explore if there is a difference between parents recognising the emotion in regard to their gender, age or the number of children they have. The sample of examinees consisted of N=273 parents of preschool-aged children attending kindergartens. The results of the survey demonstrate that emotions which are mostly recognized by parents are: fear, anger, surprise, disgust, happiness and sadness, whereas fear proved to be the most easily recognized emotion and sadness the least easily recognized emotion. It has also been established that parents’ answers do not show greater inconsistencies, and that no relevant correlation between gender, age and the number of children and the level of parents’ recognition of six basic emotions through children’s facial expressions has been found.