Guided by Vygotsky's zone of proximal development, this article examined whether characters in emotion picture-books express and talk about emotions in ways that are consistent with theory and research on children's emotions. In general, we found that picture-books recommended by experts in social-emotional development contain content that is fairly consistent with published research in early childhood. We also found parents' reading of the picture-books was consistent with the content analysis, even though we recorded their spontaneous emotion-based language in addition to the text presented in the picturebooks. The findings also suggested that reading of emotion picture-books may increase preservice teachers' references to emotions, which could translate into greater use of emotion language in the early childhood classroom. Results are discussed with regard to the role of picture-books as an important source of emotionrelated information for children, parents, and teachers.

In the current study, we examined associations among early childcare workers’ emotional competence, observed responsiveness, comfort with socioemotional teaching practices, and the quality of their relationships with children in their care. The participants were 100 early childcare workers (72 center‐based Early Head Start teachers and 28 family childcare providers). Results showed that caregivers’ emotion regulation ability was positively associated with caregiver–child relational closeness. Understanding and regulation of emotion were both positively associated with childcare workers’ comfort with socioemotional teaching practices. Their observed responsiveness was positively related to relational closeness and negatively related to relational conflict. Findings are consistent with aspects of the prosocial classroom model, which asserts that educators high in emotional and social competence tend to adopt childcare practices that result in supportive relationships with children. Results provide insight into whether childcare workers’ responsiveness to young children and their perceived socioemotional teaching practices provide a pathway between emotional competence and the quality of caregiver–child relationships.

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