Please join us to explore this crucial topic with Joan Luby, M.D., Samuel and Mae S. Ludwig Professor of Psychiatry (Child) at the Washington University School of Medicine

This webinar will review developmental data on the normative trajectory of emotion development in early childhood. This will include how and when a child learns to identify emotions in others from their facial expressions and behavior, identify their own emotions, express their emotions verbally and effectively regulate intense emotions. The key role of the caregiver as a facilitator and external emotion guide to this process will be reviewed.The lecture will focus on how this developmental trajectory becomes altered or delayed and increases risk for various forms of preschool psychopathology. The role of the primary caregiver in “emotion socialization” of the child and methods of optimize this to prevent psychopathology and strengthen emotional development can be a useful tool in various clinical and parenting management contexts. Related to this, methods from a novel “Emotion Development” module that was added to PCIT as PCIT-ED which has been empirically tested and known to alter both parent response to child emotions and child emotional competence, will be reviewed. 

Participants of this webinar will be able to:

• Understand basic principles and timelines of normative emotion development in the preschool period.
• Understand how delays and alterations in emotion development increase risk for psychopathology.
• Understand the role of the caregiver as emotion coach and to facilitate emotion socialization and prevent psychopathology.
• Review therapeutic techniques and recommendations to enhance this process in parent child dyads in the preschool period.

This webinar is for all of those working in the perinatal period as well as children birth to 5 and their families.

Date & Time:

10:30 AM - 12:00 PM ET

Wednesday, April 15th, 2026