The paper contains the analysis of the modern condition of the issue of emotional development in foreign and national researches. On the basis of analysis of various research positions, the author defines performance standards that determine content characteristics of the emotional development of a preschool child. The research shows age opportunities of the children of different pre-school periods, which constitute a meaningful basis for the key emotional growth (capacity for differentiation and identification of emotional states, empathic ability, capability for emotional anticipation). Analysis of the existing relationships between separate structural components of emotional growth of a preschool child leads to the understanding of the fact that the following criteria for their integrated assessment can be used: perception and understanding of emotional states according to expression or the context of the emotional situation, development of emotional decentration, and emotional anticipation. The latter leads us to the assumption that all the above-mentioned criteria can be considered from the point of evaluation of the same parameters. Thus, perception, understanding, identification of emotional states is actually regarded as criteria for assessing the emotional and cognitive components of empathy structure. At the same time, the increase of qualitative and quantitative indicators of perception and understanding of the emotional states is associated with the expansion of subject content requirements and development of emotional decentration. Social mediation of emotional states, pro-social motivation of behavior can be simultaneously considered as indicators of empathy development (as an important social gain of a preschool child) and capability for emotional anticipation. The results of theoretical generalizations are presented in the form of a diagram which graphically represents the age-related changes of the emotional development content of children at different pre-school stages.