Trajectories of emotional and social intelligences and internalizing symptoms in primary school children across a post-pandemic school year

The COVID-19 pandemic substantially disrupted primary school children’s educational and social routines, but longitudinal evidence on children’s socio-emotional functioning after the return to routine schooling remains limited. This three-wave longitudinal study aimed to explore how children’s self-perceptions of trait Emotional Intelligence and Social Intelligence changed across one academic year, and whether they were associated with the maintenance or change of anxiety and depression during this period. A total of 171 primary school children completed all three waves of data collection. Among the dimensions of Social Intelligence, an exploratory increase in Social Awareness was observed, although this finding should be interpreted cautiously, whereas Trait Emotional Intelligence decreased significantly. As regards internalizing symptoms, anxiety decreased significantly, whereas depression remained stable. Baseline Social Skills predicted steeper decreases in anxiety over time. These findings suggest differentiated changes in children’s self-perceived emotional and social functioning across one academic year following the return to routine in person schooling and point to social skills as a potentially relevant resource for school-based monitoring and early prevention of scholastic anxiety.