Social and emotional abilities have been shown to advance student achievement in school and beyond. For many children, school is the only place where they can learn some of these SEL skills. This is also where these skills are the most tested, both in social and academic situations.

Here are 13 reasons why SEL instruction is important in schools:

1. Develop students’ self-management: Teaching children to control their emotions and behaviors will allow them to see increased success in new or challenging social and academic situations
2. Boost students’ social awareness: Increasing a child’s capacity to interact with others in a way that shows respect for their ideas and behaviors and recognizes her/his impact on them can decrease instances of bullying
3. Improve relationship skills: Promoting consistent performance of socially acceptable actions will help them maintain positive connections with others
4. Promote students’ self-awareness: Helping a child understand his/her strengths and areas for growth will allow them to take ownership of their own self-improvement
5. Encourage goal directed behavior: Giving a child a better understanding of success and failure will increase their persistence in completing tasks of varying difficulty, which leads to a growth mindset.
6. Further personal responsibility: Instilling in children the tendency to be careful and reliable in his/her actions will ensure they are successful both in their individual tasks and in contributing to group efforts
7. Foster decision making: Honing a child’s approach to problem solving will teach them to use information from her/his own previous experiences, to use her/his values to guide action, to learn from others and to accept responsibility for her/his decisions
8. Stimulate positive attitudes: Infusing more positive attitudes toward oneself, others, and tasks can result in higher self-efficacy, confidence, persistence, empathy, connection and commitment to school, and a sense of purpose
9. Reinforce optimistic thinking: Boosting a child’s attitude of hopefulness, and positive thinking regarding herself/himself and her/his life situations can have a huge impact in the decisions they make, in and out of school
10. Increase academic performance: Receiving SEL instruction can increase achievement scores an average of 11 percentile points
11. Improve attitudes and behaviors: SEL instruction has been shown to provide students with a greater motivation to learn, deeper commitment to school, increased time devoted to schoolwork, and better classroom behavior
12. Decrease negative behaviors: SEL instruction can lead to decreased disruptive class behavior, noncompliance, aggression, delinquent acts, and disciplinary referrals
13. Reduce emotional distress: SEL instruction leads to fewer reports of student depression, anxiety, stress, and social withdrawal.

~ The Nearpod Team