ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the importance of emotion with a particular emphasis on its importance to children. All of us experience emotion but defining it is more difficult, even for psychologists. Most of human life is involved with emotion. William James recognised the importance of emotion early in the history of modern psychology, yet for most of the twentieth century, psychology, the science of the mind, did not regarded emotion as an important area of study. This was despite the fact that every human mind has probably been continually subject to mood or emotion in some form since the beginnings of history. Consider two important aspects of life, learning and decision making. In the past it was thought that these were, or should be, essentially independent of emotion. Understanding emotional development and how it is affected by adverse situations is often the key to helping children who end up as delinquents, having transgressed the law in some respect.
