[The emotional development of children].

In the context of pre-school and school medical examinations in the public health service in Germany general rating of the cognitive and motor skills of a child is often included. In contrast thereto, emotional development and emotional situation of children are still a domain of intuition. The present article reviews the developmental psychology and psychopathology of emotions. Data of a video analysis of non-verbal emotional behaviour during a verbal task are presented with respect to shame and associated motor behaviour. In a child psychiatric recourse population (n = 2353), the developmental aspect of major child psychopathology, is pointed out in the context of the ICD-10 diagnostic system.