Social Emotional Resources

Dear parents of Battle Ground Public Schools,

One of the top goals in our district is to help ensure that every child develops strong social emotional skills for academic excellence and success in life. We have developed a Social Emotional Learning website you and your family may find beneficial during this unprecedented time.

As we all progress through this journey of staying home and figuring out a new normal, remember children are just as scared as we are right now. They not only can hear everything that is going on around them, but they feel and see evidence of tension and anxiety. They have never experienced anything like this before. Although the idea of being off from school for a few weeks may have sounded awesome at first, and they were probably picturing a fun time like summer break, we know reality has started to set in with most students and families. The regular school year has been cancelled. They, like most of you, are starting to really deal with being trapped at home and not seeing friends and neighbors. Not to mention the vast amount of social media exposure to the ongoing crisis.

Over the coming weeks, you may see an increase in behavior issues or social/emotional concerns with your children. Whether it’s anxiety, or anger, or protest that they can’t do things normally - it’s likely to happen. You’ll see more meltdowns, tantrums, and oppositional behavior. This is normal and expected under these circumstances. For younger children, you may see more dysregulated behavior, and for kids in secondary school you may see more behaviors such as withdrawal or sadness, or expressions of hopelessness or fear.

What children need right now is to feel comforted and loved. To feel like it’s all going to be ok. And that might mean that you tear up your perfect schedule and love on your kids a bit more. Safely with social distancing in mind, play outside and go on walks. Bake cookies and paint pictures. Play board games and watch movies. Do a science experiment together or find virtual field trips of the zoo. Start a book and read together as a family.

We have gathered resources for you to use that are available on the Coping with social distancing page of our website. Finally, if I can leave you with one thing, it’s this: at the end of all of this, your child’s social emotional mental health will be as or more important than their academic skills. How they felt during this time will stay with them long after the memory of what they did during COVID-19. Please keep this in mind, as we move forward together.