This study examines the effects of the Promoting Alternative Thinking Strategies (PATHS) Curriculum, which provided children with instruction on a variety of issues involved with the expression, understanding, and control of emotions. Participants were 308 first and second graders. PATHS lessons were given about three days a week from October through April. Four main objectives of the curriculum were to: (1) teach children to "Stop and Calm Down"; (2) provide enriched linguistic experiences to help mediate children's understanding of self and others; (3) teach children to integrate emotional understanding with cognitive and linguistic skills in order to analyze and solve problems; and (4) encourage the development of self-esteem and effective peer relations. A slightly modified curriculum was also used in special education classrooms. PATHS lessons were sequenced according to increasing developmental difficulty and included dialogue, role-playing, modeling by teachers and peers, social and self-reinforcement, attribution training, and verbal mediation. Extensive generalization techniques helped teachers apply and transfer skills to other aspects of the school day. A critical focus of PATHS included facilitation of the dynamic relationship between cognitive-affective understanding and real-life situations. Findings regarding emotional understanding are reported and discussed. (RH)