In my thesis I have taken into consideration the areas of awareness, understanding and regulating emotions in primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers. The main purpose of the thesis is to determine whether primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers are aware of and understand their emotions and which group strategies regulate their emotions (cognitive, behavioral-expressive, physical-physiological and social) which they use at their work with children. In the theoretical part I have explained that emotions are defined as complicated and assembled processes which include a number of cognitive, physiological, expressive and behavioral responses (Smrtnik Vitulić, 2007). I have presented in more detail a division of emotions; such as pleasant and unpleasant, strong and weak as well as basic and complex emotions. The strategies of regulating these emotions are presented in more detail and are divided into four major groups: cognitive, behavioral-expressive, physical-physiological and social. I have concluded the theoretical part of the thesis with a research of awareness, understanding and regulating emotions of primary school and kindergarten teachers. In the empirical part of the thesis I have introduced how I carried out the research and obtained results about awareness, understanding and regulating emotions of primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers. I also researched the differences between primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers regarding the use of different group strategies to regulate their emotions, such as cognitive, behavioral-expressive, physical-physiological and social are introduced. 102 primary school teachers from 13 Slovene primary schools from Ljubljana and surrounding areas and 164 kindergarten teachers from 8 Slovenian kindergartens took place in this research. A questionnaire was used to obtained the data, which was made by S. Prosen and H. Smrtnik Vitulić (2011). In the survey I was interested in whether primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers are aware of their emotions, what strategies they use to regulate their emotions and if they use both sides while working with children. I was also interested in whether kindergarten teachers differ from primary school teachers in using certain strategies when regulating their emotions. The results obtained with self evaluations, presented that primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers are aware of their emotions, they understand, recognize and give them enough attention. They more often attribute the experiencing of unpleasant feelings to themselves than to others and they estimate that they know how to describe their feelings. Primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers relatively frequently use the chosen strategies to regulate their emotions (cognitive, behavioral-expressive, physical-physiological and social). In assessing the level of awareness and understanding the emotions between the primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers I did not find any statistically significant differences. Statistically significant differences between primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers appeared only in two out of thirteen included strategies to regulate emotions: primary school teachers more often than kindergarten teachers regulate unpleasant emotions in such a manner, that they are looking for the reasons for their unpleasant emotions (cognitive strategies to regulate emotions). Also primary school teachers more often than kindergarten teachers try to influence their feelings by calming down their bodies (physical-physiological control strategy of emotions). The occupation of primary school teachers and kindergarten teachers is important since it represents a great role model for children, therefore it is especially important for them to be aware of and understand their emotions as well as to know how to regulate them in the correct way.
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