Social Emotional Learning

Social emotional learning is critical in today’s schools. The mental health of our children has become of utmost importance.

Take a moment to think about your adult brain. We all have difficulty making responsible decisions and setting goals. It can be hard to cope with emotions, get along well in social interactions, have positive relationships, or show empathy for others at some points throughout our lives.

Now imagine a younger brain, this emotional stress can be even more difficult since our neurological systems are developing. Schools are trying new ways of teaching these skills so children can grow into successful adults who know how they should respond when faced with a problem.

What is Social Emotional Learning?

Social Emotional Learning is about developing the ability in young people and adults to:

  • set and achieve goals
  • feel and show empathy
  • establish and maintain relationships
  • make responsible decisions
  • understand and manage emotions.

What Are Social Emotional Standards?

Social Emotional Learning (SEL) Standards list the intrapersonal, interpersonal, and cognitive skills woven into and necessary for functioning well in everyday life – at home, at work, and at school – for everyone.

Though they differ slightly from state to state, these standards define social-emotional intelligence, which is really just the academic and neuroscientific breakdown of the attitudes, behaviors, and actions that make someone good to themselves, nice to know, and pleasant to work with.

Because all the research shows that social and emotional competence is fundamental to academic achievement, emotional development, and personal success, SEL skills are an essential and integrated part of every pre and primary school curriculum. The interpersonal skills and academic success of students depends on healthy social emotional development.

CASEL, the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning, supports educators and parents in understanding and cultivating social emotional learning standards. They support these 5 core competencies with the CASEL framework:

  • Self-awareness – the ability to
    • Identify one’s own emotions
    • Accurately perceive oneself
    • Recognize one’s strengths & limitations
    • Embody a confident, positive, growth mindset
  • Self-management – the ability to
    • Control impulses
    • Manage stress
    • Self-motivate
    • Set goals
    • Organize one’s thinking and tasks
  • Social awareness – the ability to
    • Understand other perspectives and values
    • Be empathic & kind
    • Appreciate diversity
    • Respect others
  • Relationship skills – the ability to
    • Communicate clearly & listen fully
    • Engage & cooperate with others
    • Build healthy relationships
    • Negotiate & resolve conflicts
  • Responsible decision-making – the ability to
    • Identify & solve problems
    • Analyze & evaluate situations
    • Receive feedback, self-reflect & self-correct
    • Embody ethical standards, safety concerns, and social norms.

How to Teach Social Emotional Learning

To teach social-emotional skills, school leaders, educators and parents need to build in time for children to imagine, experiment, and reflect on their experiences and choices, just like any other subject matter. When time is spent on these collective goals it can lead to an improved school climate. SEL programs can focus on:

  • Discussing conflicts and trying out different ways to resolve them
  • Naming and being with feelings/emotions inside oneself & expressed by others
  • Playing with how to manage big emotions and have compassion for self & others
  • Experimenting with sharing, negotiation & collaboration
  • Practicing how to be neutral and curious enough to really let in the thoughts, beliefs and values of others without having to defend your own
  • Reflecting on the results and feelings from all of the above before, during & after.

School districts need to empower students to reach these positive goals throughout the school year.

Being a Mindful Model to Support Social Emotional Learning

To learn social-emotional skills, young children must be safe and encouraged to explore, make mistakes, and viscerally feel. They need a safe, empathetic, and playful environment that provides them with strategies, tools, and reflection around the development of self & emotional awareness, self-care & regulation, social awareness, empathy, and cooperation. You, teacher or parent, make this possible by being a mindful model & compassionate mirror:

  • Emotionally honest, self-regulating, available, curious, and responsive
  • Clear with expectations and guidelines. Consistent with appropriate consequences.
  • Calm when angry. Caring when frustrated. Compassionate with everyone including yourself.
  • Supportive with instruction & acknowledging of efforts. Never mock or shame.
  • Give choices and respect wishes. Reflect on results. Don’t micro-manage.
  • Ask questions that help children solve problems and self-regulate on their own.
  • Be culturally aware and respectful.

Practicing meditation enhances your ability to be the mindful model, a compassionate mirror and improves self awareness. When you practice focusing your attention, rather than letting it jump around, you move into in your higher neocortex brain and your para-sympathetic (rest and digest) nervous system, and out of your lower survival, automatic brain and sympathetic (fight or flight) nervous system. You reset your mind-body into an optimal state.

Most of us are programmed to do, act, accomplish. We do not value being, reflecting, processing. Even in the face of all the research that tells us the value of mindfulness practices, it’s hard for most of us to choose to take the time. We have too many things to do! But if you want to improve your capacity to teach social emotional learning, it’s a requirement.

How do movement & mindfulness activities support SEL?

Reinforce Mind-Body Balance & Integration

In The Whole-Brain Child, Dan Siegel and Tina Payne Bryson, encourage lots of active movement and sensory play for children. Why? Because the body is constantly providing useful information to the brain. They define being emotionally intelligent as knowing how to listen to and to use that information to both self-care and connect with innate wisdom taking a whole child approach to development.

All child development experts agree that it is through play that children start to understand their thoughts and feelings as well as to practice how to appropriately interact with others. In combining active play with self-reflection and self-care, the Movement & Mindfulness Bundle helps kids be more cooperative and resilient. The yoga adventures and self-regulation techniques enable them to understand their feelings, embody ways to control impulses, and manage stress to do their best.

2. Reset the Nervous System to Optimal State

The body and the mind are inextricably linked and our mind-body state dictates how available and/or able we are. Movement & mindfulness activities enable kids to regularly destress and reset their nervous systems such that they can connect, learn, and make smart choices. The more children move and play, the less stressed and more cooperative and they become ready for academic learning. The more children learn how to slow down, relax, self-reflect, and self-care, the more they learn how to shift their own body-mind state.

In his book Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain, John Ratey, M.D. describes research showing that physical activity sparks biological changes that increase the brain’s ability to learn, adapt, and perform other cognitive tasks. Exercise builds brain cells, lifts mood, and ameliorates the detrimental effects of stress.

3. Explores the Range of Emotions

Playful exercise and sensory awareness encourage children to explore their natural reactions and impulses. In the Movement & Mindfulness Bundle, the yoga stories invite children to move, pretend to be other animals and objects, try on a variety of emotions, and experiment with specific mind-body activities as self-regulation and social skills. The process of being everything in and acting out the story helps kids develop an awareness of the range of human experience. By naming these feelings and working with shifting them, kids start to be able to tame the bigger emotions that can sometimes overwhelm their young systems. Practicing self-care and regulation as play at a young age lays a foundation for social-emotional competence.

Summary of Social Emotional Learning

Best practices indicate that schools should incorporate social emotional learning activities and standards to provide emotional support and result in a positive impact on academic performance in students. SEL lessons should include direct instruction, movement, and mindfulness activities. By encouraging these positive behaviors in preschoolers, elementary schools, middle schools, and at the high school level, educators and parents can help students succeed.

Additional Resources

How Does Social and Emotional Development Affect Learning?

What is Self Regulation?

Self Regulation Activities

Ultimate Guide to Self Regulation

Read more on impulse control here.