Recognising Children's Rational Agency in their Socio-Emotional Development

Daniel Vanello is lecturer in philosophy of education at UCL’s Institute of Education. He is currently working on a number of projects on children’s moral and socio-emotional development, including with reception class teachers.

Drawing on his research on children’s socio-emotional development, Daniel Vanello argues that the professional development of early years teachers would benefit from a clearer framework of children’s developing rational agency.

Children's socio-emotional development

We know that children’s socio-emotional development is a central aspect of both their wellbeing as children and of their wellbeing as they grow up into adulthood. We also know that teachers in early years education can have a strong positive role to play in children’s socio-emotional development (Culora et. al, 2025).

And yet, there is a discrepancy between the way in which the value of children’s socio-emotional development is understood by the early years foundation stage (EYFS) statutory framework (DfE, 2025) and in classroom practice. While the EYFS sees value in children’s socio-emotional development insofar as it is conducive to the ability to attend to tasks and complete them, many teachers often have a related but different focus, namely their rational agency.

I think teachers are right and that it would be helpful to bring both some clarity on what children’s rational agency looks like in their socio-emotional development, and an alignment between teachers’ and the EYFS’s understanding of its value.

Children’s rational agency 

In my experience both as a volunteer in a reception class and in speaking with early years teachers, children’s socio-emotional development is fostered in classroom settings by creating an environment in which children learn how to think and speak about their own and others’ emotions. For example, some teachers might use circle time as an opportunity to read a story and ask children why they think the main character feels a certain way. Another example is teachers observing how children behave towards each other in their play and whether they are showing a developing ability to form positive relationships.

What these examples show is that children feel emotions as responses to things they find important. In other words, there are reasons why each child feels a certain way in certain situations. This is what I mean when I say that children’s socio-emotional development involves the development of their rational agency (Vanello, 2025). For example, if a child becomes angry when asked to share a toy, there is a reason in the child’s eyes that justifies him or her getting angry: having to share while not wanting to. It is an inappropriate reason, but it is a reason nonetheless. And this reason comes from what the child finds important, in this case playing with the toy.

Teaching  children how to think and use words to express their reasons for feeling a certain way shows children how to think about their own and others’ emotions as things that are responsive to reasons. An ideal outcome of this, of course, would be to teach children how to listen to others’ reasons for feeling a certain way, how to reflect on them and converse about them and, if good, to adopt them. For example, a reason why sharing toys is good is that sharing can lead to making friends and friendships are important. Children who learn how to understand these reasons and adopt them are better placed to have healthy friendships.

Towards an alignment between teachers’ perspectives and the EYFS 

Teachers often recognise children’s rational agency as a key component of their socio-emotional development. It is not so obvious that the EYFS does. There is no doubt that it’s important for children to learn how to focus on a given task in order to complete it. This is what is often referred to as the ability to self-regulate in order to exercise one’s executive functions (Oftsed, 2024). But stressing this as the key goal of emotional regulation risks overshadowing a central value of children’s socio-emotional development, the one that will truly have an impact on their wellbeing. That is, their ability to think and talk about their emotions and those of others, and therefore about what they find important and understanding why others might find different things just as important.

It would therefore be hugely beneficial if the EYFS would adopt language to describe the value of children’s socio-emotional development that aligns more closely with what many teachers already put in action. This should also be accompanied with further support for      developing aspects of teachers’ professional development that recognises and fosters children’s rational agency in their socio-emotional development.

Author: Daniel Vanello

https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-vanello-10841b257/

REFERENCES:

- Culora, A., Davey, C., Freitas, G., Griggs, J., Glaze, C., Parker, B., Rabbevaag, S., Sasse, B., Spence, R., & Sylva, K. (2025, March). Evaluation of the Early Years Experts and Mentors programme: Research report. Department for Education. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/early-years-experts-and-mentors-programme-evaluation 

-DfE. (2025). Early years foundation stage statutory framework for group and school-based providers. available at: https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/68c024cb8c6d992f23edd79c/Early_years_foundation_stage_statutory_framework_-_for_group_and_school-based_providers.pdf.pdf 

- Oftsed, (2024. Best start in life Part 2: available at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/best-start-in-life-a-research-review-for-early-years/best-start-in-life-part-2-the-3-prime-areas-of-learning

- Vanello, D. (2025). Rethinking emotional development in the early years curriculum. Education 3-13, 1–14. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/03004279.2025.2510700