What is Social-Emotional Learning, (SEL)? Social-Emotional learning is the ability to understand, develop, and manage your emotions through social skills and healthy coping mechanisms. SEL places a focus on the emotions you are feeling, and helps you to gain a deeper understanding of what your body is experiencing, how you are displaying these emotions, and what individualized coping skills will work best for you. For more information, feel free to watch this cute short video from Committee of Children.
With what we are currently experiencing as a society among all the uncertainty and "unknowns", a lot of confusing emotions can emerge, especially for children. It is important now more than ever to help children find healthy ways to express these emotions, develop a understanding of what they are, and to find coping skills that will help them cope from any unwanted feelings.
The following is a list of 5 ways you can encourage and increase Social-Emotional Learning within the home.
1. 30 Things You Can Do For Your Emotional Health.
This is a wonderful complied list of easy things you can do each day to encourage language surrounding social-emotional health. These conversation starters help to initiated a deep and meaningful conversation that helps kids focus on their emotions, their bodies reactions to these emotions, and ways we can cope with any negative emotions!
2. "I Feel / When" Statements
Another way to engage in a conversation about our S/E health is to have children practice "I Feel / When" statements. This is best used when a child expressed their emotion with a behavior, instead of using words. For example, your child may throw something out of anger. have them take a second to use the " I Feel / When" format. They could say " I feel frustrated when I lose in my game". This is a practice to get kids to put a name to an emotion they are feeling, and is the first step in figuring out a coping skill that will work for them.
3. Scribble Chart
Step 1: Take a blank piece of paper and make four squares. Label each square 1-4 using the following labels:
1. Label Your Emotion.
2 is What is Making You Feel This Way?
3. What Can Help You Feel Better?
4. Color the Scribbles!
Step 2: SCRIBBLE all over your paper!!
Step 3: Fill out the scribbles!
Square 1: place the name of all the emotions you are feeling in a scribble. Try to use a different color for each emotion.
Square 2: using the same colors, write in a scribble reasons for why you may be feeling that way.
Square 3: Again using the same color to represent the emotion, write down things you can do to help you feel better!
Square 4: COLOR THE SCRIBBLES!!!
4. Mindful Yoga for Kids
There are plenty of great kid friendly yoga videos you can follow on YouTube. I have attached two that are super fun and easy to follow. Cosmic Kids have different themed yoga videos for kids! (Helpful tip: kids have a difficult time keeping there focus for too long. Try shortening the video to fit their needs!)
Cosmic Kids Yoga: Minecraft
Mindful Minutes: Good Morning Yoga Sequence For Kids
No internet access? A fun way to get kids engaged in this activity it to have them imagine themselves as different animals! Have kids think of at least 5 different animals that they can shape their bodes into. The important part of the activity is to try and hold this position for at least 20 seconds and focus on their breathing! Kids can make different animal sounds to help them practice their breathing. Have your child focus on slowing down the breathing (or the sound). This can be a fun twist as the sound your child thinks they are making to represent the animal could become distorted and sound even funnier than they originally sounded!
5. Grounding Technique Using Your 5 Senses (2 versions) Version 1: Take a piece of paper and make a vertical chart with the numbers 1-5 backwards. For each number, you are the find that many things for each sense. For example:
5 Things you can see
4 things you can hear
3 things you can touch
2 things you can smell
1 thing you can taste
Version 2: Grab a small bag (the smaller the more challenging!). In this bag you need to place one item for every sense. The goal is for all items to be able to fit in the bag without sticking out! For example: (Using a brown paper bag)
Sight: phone charger
Sound: Air Pods
Touch: sock
Smell: small hand sanitizer
Taste: apple