Social emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults develop the skills and capacity to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, and establish and maintain positive relationships. In the classroom, SEL is a way of teaching that focuses on the social and emotional skills that are necessary for children to be successful in school and in personal life.
SEL can be implemented in the classroom with a variety of techniques. Teachers can use SEL techniques to teach children how to regulate their emotions, understand others’ perspectives, manage their own behaviour, and make responsible decisions.
In this article, we will explore what SEL is and how it can help students (and teachers!).
What is Social Emotional Learning?
Social Emotional Learning (SEL) is a form of education that emphasizes the development of social and emotional skills.
Social emotional learning is an important factor in the development of students’ social and emotional skills. In fact, it is considered important enough to be integrated into the elementary curriculum. This means that it is not only helpful for educators to integrate SEL practices into their teaching, but necessary, too!
I would also add that this is exceptionally important as we continue to navigate the global COVID pandemic. Our kiddos are not immune to the stresses that come with the pandemic, and so it is important that we help them navigate difficult times by teaching them effective emotional regulation techniques.
How Does Social Emotional Learning Work in the Elementary Classroom?
Teaching children how to regulate their emotions can be done through various activities or exercises that promote self-awareness and healthy interactions with others. By effectively implementing SEL techniques in our classrooms, we can help create positive environments that foster healthy social interactions between students and promote individual self-regulation.
The social emotional learning process can take place at home or at school, but it is typically incorporated into the curriculum from kindergarten onwards.
SEL Curriculum Builds Stronger Students And A Stronger Community
SEL is all about helping children manage their emotions, developing empathy and pro-social behaviour, building positive relationships with adults and peers, understand themselves and others better, and helping them to overcome stress or anxiety.
By learning how to understand their own emotions and those of others, the classroom community is thereby strengthened.
SEL curriculum helps students to be more resilient in the face of challenges. It also helps them to develop skills that will assist them in navigating through the tough times in life.
6 Social Emotional Curriculum Integration Tips For Educators And Parents
A social emotional curriculum is a set of skills and competencies that helps children to develop:
– self-awareness,
– social awareness,
– responsibility for one’s actions,
– empathy for others,
– conflict resolution skills
Sounds great, right? But you may still be wondering exactly how to implement SEL into everyday life and learning. After many years of working with children, here are some of my personal top tips:
- Be consistent
- We emotionally respond to the world around us each and every day… So why wouldn’t we focus on SEL every day too? Sure, life gets stressful and overwhelming and we can’t always be 100% in control of our emotions. And that is okay! We can, however, teach our students to self-regulate by normalizing SEL practices as part of classroom routine and daily interaction.
- Integrate mindfulness and deep breathing techniques
- Expecting to rationalize with an overwhelmed child just isn’t realistic. I mean, can you effectively demonstrate your wants, needs, and emotions when you are deeply upset or frustrated? Probably not! It’s no different for the kiddos in our lives.
- Whenever a child I am working with becomes intensely upset or frustrated, my first response is to demonstrate deep breathing near them. Sometimes, they will naturally follow along. Other times, I might say something like “I can see that you are feeling (upset/frustrated) right now. Let’s take a deep breath together before we talk about why.”
- There are tons of deep breathing techniques out there, and I will likely write a whole post on this later, but here is my favourite right now. It’s called the “Flower and Candle Breathing Technique”
- Have the child hold out their hands in fists. Explain that one is a flower and the other is a burning candle
- First, take a deep inhale as you smell the flower
- Next, slowly exhale that breath as you try to blow out the flame of the candle
- Repeat again, inhaling the scent of the flower, and exhaling to extinguish the flame. Practice this as many times as is needed to reach calm.
- *I hope this goes without saying, but deep breathing should not be introduced during a state of intense emotional response. You’ll want to teach this early in the school year and revisit it often so that children can practice deep breathing to calm their hearts, minds, and bodies during a time of stress.
- Encourage self-expression
- Part of managing emotions is understanding them. Work with your children to understand their emotions and how to navigate each one as they come up. Part of this is through self-expression. Here are a few ways you can do this:
- Journaling: Offer SEL-based journaling prompts that encourage children to check-in with themselves. Try to focus not just on emotional responses to tough situations, but ask them also how they overcame the stressful situation.
- Community circles (or ‘Class meetings’): I truly love the practice of a community circle. You may consider doing this weekly, biweekly, or monthly, but again, be consistent! By hosting a child-led community circle, you can give them space to address topics that are important to them, work on expressing why they are important, and collectively brainstorming solutions
- To gather topics for this, you may consider having a running list of topics (that children get to add to), a ballot-box style system where they can drop in topics, or submission via the virtual platform you most often use.
- Part of managing emotions is understanding them. Work with your children to understand their emotions and how to navigate each one as they come up. Part of this is through self-expression. Here are a few ways you can do this:
- Emphasize community
- Yes, SEL starts within the child as an individual. But, it doesn’t end there! A strong classroom is one that is empathetic to the individual needs of each child, and a strong classroom community prioritizes meeting those needs.
- Some ways that I like to encourage community are: focussing on gratitude, integrating lots of team-building activities, and giving ample opportunity to recognize the successes of each other. A simple way to integrate this is during attendance. For example, you might ask the students to respond with one thing they are grateful for (rather than saying ‘Here’) during morning attendance.
There you have it, friends! A short little overview of how you can integrate social emotional learning into your classroom. Thank you for reading. ♡
