V.U.C.A. And Sustainable Well-Being: Impact On B40 Children’s Socio-Emotional Development

Abstract

Emotions trigger cognitive, behavioural, and psychological responses tendencies that reciprocally affect children’s reactions when they perceive challenges and opportunities. Emotion Regulation (ER) abilities develop throughout infancy and childhood and constantly grow until they develop entirely at adolescence. The emotion regulation abilities are pivotal to individuals' psychological well-being, academic success, and healthy social relationships. In the situation of children from low income (B40) group today, their learning development and future challenge are the key dimensions of the sustainability agenda. In the volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity (VUCA) world, no other performance is relevant due to the high speed of change. This paper explores B40 children’s socio-emotional well-being in the VUCA era that impacts their development and understanding of their well-being change. The findings of this research are expected to attempt to understand B40 children’s emotion regulation, concentrating on functional and dysfunctional emotion regulation strategies. In conjunction with the protective factors, it could aid individuals to develop resilience and enable a more constructive method of investigating the impact caused by sudden changes in the surrounding. A set of questionnaires was administered to the children in order to determine the children’s socio-emotional well-being during the VUCA environment. Findings indicate that children express positive socio-emotional well-being regardless of their vulnerable and uncertain environment.

Keywords: Development, emotion regulation, sustainability, well-being

Introduction

Well-being does not solely depend on the positive emotions and eliminating the negative emotions but, it reflects how we deal with those emotions. Besides, well-being is not restricted to only adults, but also children. Children’s well-being is significant in someone’s life as well-developed well-being helps the children lead a meaningful life and, most importantly, aids them in adapting themselves to different situations. Regarding the vulnerable environment, children’s social and emotional well-being becomes more crucial as it influences the children’s way of living their lives. Social and emotional well-being is clearly defined as effective interactions and the capability to act conforming to our own emotions. Moreover, it is a fundamental aspect of a child’s development. The urge to associate with others (social) and to understand and control oneself and experiences (emotional) are the main attributes of a person’s quality of life (Montie, 2011).

The development of children’s social and emotional well-being is pivotal as it started during infancy and through the age of 5 (Ashdown & Bernard, 2011). Important to note that the closest individuals to the children help to develop their social and emotional well-being. As O’Shaughnessy (2016) mentioned, children’s social and emotional well-being has been affected by individuals and surrounding factors, i.e., the essence of parent-child relationships, family circumstances, school, and broader family. Therefore, it is significant for parents and closest individuals to give persistent attention and love towards the children as they are not in the position to choose their environment and have to cater to the settings provided to them. Notably, an assured parent-child relationship can support children’s social and emotional well-being development (Lewis-Morrarty et al., 2015).

However, the volatile environment has challenged the children’s relationship with their closest individual. In this time where pandemic as VUCA world, it is indirectly but significantly affecting children’s social and emotional well-being development as a result of parenting stress (Brown, 2010). The parenting stress arises as a consequence of job retrenchment as well as income instability during the VUCA era. Concentrating job retrenchment in Malaysia, B40 families experienced prominent effects in early 2020, 12.58% of them lost their jobs, and 37.73% experienced income instability (Ahmad Zubir Ibrahim & Zaheruddin Othman, 2020). Remarkably, the B40 families are vulnerable in this uncertain environment of VUCA. Most B40 comes from lower educational qualifications, is employed in lower skills jobs, and has lesser earning potential (Hamid et al., 2019).

It is noteworthy to mention that Emotion Regulation (ER) is vital in helping children maintain positive social and emotional well-being despite the challenges in the VUCA era, which they are now trying to adapt. The strategies that individuals indirectly utilised to regulate emotions have crucial implications towards well-being (Webb et al., 2012). According to Dunsmore et al. (2013) and Rogers et al. (2016), emotion regulations are defined as children’s control of their emotional experiences and expressions, helping them act adequately towards the situations. Therefore, functional emotion regulation aids the children in maintaining positive well-being and overcoming challenges in uncertain conditions. Additionally, positive social and emotional well-being resulted in children’s capability to maximize their learning ability and unconsciously bring positive outcomes towards their academic achievement. Considering the SDG 2030, this study aims to determine the impact of VUCA on B40 children’s social and emotional well-being in terms of emotional regulation strategies. It parallels Goal 3 of Sustainable Development Goals- Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all ages (United Nations, 2015).

Research Methods

This study was survey research, and data collection was done through a quantitative research design using a set of questionnaires. Quantitative research was used to interpret any circumstances by collecting numerical data and analysed using a mathematically based method, particularly statistics (Mujis, 2004). Thus, to evaluate the children’s social and emotional well-being, this study adopted a set of questionnaires from Catholic Relief Services (2018). The questionnaire used a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 5 (Strongly Agree). In relation with the focus towards B40 children’s social and emotional well-being in Malaysia, the population of this study concentrated on Petaling Jaya, Selangor due to the Petaling district having the highest number of B40 households (Mayan & Nor, 2020).

In addition, cluster sampling was applied in sample selection. The sampling was clustered by zone in which this study focused on Zone 4 and Zone 18 in Petaling Jaya. Based on the two zones, the total number of participants for this study was 108, comprising children of B40 families aged 7 to 12 years old. Following the determination of sampling and population, data collection was conducted through an online platform, namely Google Form. The online questionnaire link was distributed using the Snowball technique as Malaysia is still under Movement Control Order due to the breakout of pandemic Covid-19. Therefore, the link was distributed to the teachers from the selected zone and forwarded to the parents of B40 families. Then, the parents were responsible for monitoring and assisting the children in answering the questionnaire. Subsequently, data obtained were analysed using Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS) and interpreted in the frequency table.

Findings

A total of 108 children aged between 7- 12 years old were involved in this research. There were notably more boys ( = 64, 59.3%) than girls (= 44, 40.7%). However, this value is accepted as there were no major differences in the percentages. Data collected were under-representation for B40 children who live in Petaling Jaya. The outcome measures were interpreted in the table of frequency.

Discussion

The present study explores the effects of VUCA on children’s social and emotional well-being. The results depict positive social and emotional well-being considering the vulnerable and uncertain environment in line with the research aim. On an important note, the results are fixated into three significant themes regarding their social and emotional well-being, namely personal skills, social skills, and resilience. According to National Centre for Children and Families, the skills that support resilience development in children are important as it helps them cope and find their ways of overcoming challenges. Analysis of the data shows that the majority of the children acknowledge their emotions are able to analyse and act to the situations rationally. It is aligned with their personal skills in which that it helps the children to understand their conditions and efficiently regulate their emotions. Hence, children are able to act according to their environment without being affected negatively by it.

As being illustrated in the results, questions four until six indicate the social skills of their social and emotional well-being. Similarly, most of the children express positive social skills. However, a relatively small number of children are clueless about understanding and socializing with people. Regardless of the small portion of the disagreement, the ability of a child to understand other people’s feelings and emotions is considered to be socially and emotionally competent. Besides, children’s social and emotional competencies motivate and assist the children in overcoming stressful situations and intercepting behaviour faults later on (Mihaela, 2015).

Resilience also correlated to the results of this study where it shows that a large number of children came to a consensus of adapting and coping with new situations. The resilience built within the children helps them be aware of their feelings and others and their ability to face challenges, specifically in this complex and ambiguous environment. Moreover, resilience acts as a foundation of social and emotional well-being. Mihaela (2015) stated that a well-built social and emotional foundation during childhood acts as a stepping stone for the children to be successful and contented owing to the fact that children are well-equipped to handle the possible presence of stress during adulthood.

Conclusions

Ultimately, the present work contributes to our understanding of how the current VUCA world impacts children’s social and emotional well-being. Based on the analysed data and supported discussion, the researcher concludes that children’s social and emotional well-being can be influenced negatively or positively. The discussion explains that the sample for this study has positive well-being regardless of the volatile environment that challenged their closest individuals. It also illustrates that parents are able to remain composed even the undesirable intercepts their lives, hence capable of maintaining a stable relationship with their children. It is important to note that emotion regulation is proven to function as the children can be rationalised in making decisions and expressing their emotions suitably. On a side note, an in-depth study on the emotion regulation strategies through a systematic literature review will be conducted for future research.

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank the Malaysian Ministry of Higher Education for funding this study under Fundamental Research Grant Scheme (FRGS Nos. FRGS/1/2020/SS0/UNISEL//1). Our appreciation to the full support of Universiti Selangor (UNISEL) in conducting this study. Special thanks to Bright Atfal as our Industrial Partner in this study.

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