Relationship Skills Resources

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”

–Helen Keller

The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. The ability to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate peer pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed.

Empathy helps us connect to others and develop our relationship skills. As a part of TED's "How to be a better human series," this is a great article on 5 Exercises to Help Build More Empathy.

“The worst thing you can do for your sense of human connection,” Zaki says, “Is to just lurk on various platforms and let anger and other negative feelings seep into you like a young Darth Vader.” -Stanford psychology professor Jamil Zaki PhD

According to Landmark School Outreach, to demonstrate appropriate relationship skills, students must learn to:

communicate clearly- both verbal and nonverbal
listen well
cooperate with others
resist inappropriate social pressure
negotiate conflict constructively
seek and offer help when needed

For further descriptions of these skills, check out this website. Having a strong Advisory can help to build all of these skills in a structured and safe environment. These skills take time to develop and require persistence and guidance from educators, which makes those first 20 minutes in the morning invaluable!

FROM SEL CHECK-IN 12/11/20

Relationship Skills- It is heartwarming to see the planning, cooperation, and teamwork going into the second annual EMS Door Decorating Contest! This activity is a great transition to bring us into our next focus of SEL for January and February- Relationship Skills. This competency centers around the ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. It focuses on the ability to communicate clearly, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate peer pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed. This is a great time to check in and reflect on your Advisory, as well as your classroom agreements! These both have tremendous opportunities embedded for relationship skill building. For example, consider focusing on conflict-resolution work for a weekly theme in your Advisory. This can then be carried into the classroom as you navigate small group work and your Y-chart agreements.

FROM SEL CHECK-IN 1/15/21

Relationship Skills: Our SEL focus for January and February is developing Relationship Skills. These include the following: communicate clearly- both verbal and nonverbal, listen well, cooperate with others, resist inappropriate social pressure, negotiate conflict constructively, and seek and offer help when needed. All of these skills can be explicitly taught and practiced in Advisory, but can also be brought into the academic classes. Using a Jigsaw strategy can increase student interaction and cooperation, as well as the Think, Pair, Share strategy. Project Based Learning encourages a community of collaboration to answer inquiries and develop learning together. Be sure to create Y-chart agreements as to how this work should look like, sound like, and feel like before you begin. These shared agreements set your students up for success and help your students move up the stairs of Kohlberg's moral development.

"The more students get to know and appreciate on another across their differences, the more included and connected to school they become. Included and connected, all students are more likely to succeed."

-Linda Crawford, Author of Face to Face Advisories

Face to Face Advisories is an amazing resource for building relationships through your Advisory and beyond. This text has prepared advisories- equipped with daily news, greetings, shares, and activities. I especially recommend the chapter "Us Versus Them" to work through differences with your students and help build understanding in our EMS community.

If you need to borrow a copy of this book, see me!!

"I Remember/I Appreciate..." Activity:

Students create a paper flower in honor of someone they appreciate/remember (can be fictional, historical, present, etc).
Each petal could include an adjective that describes the figure they have chosen.
Students could share their "I remember/I appreciate figure" as they present the flower for a class vase.
Class vase of all flowers displayed in class, or option to-be-delivered to a local assisted-living home as a gift.
Promotes how to affirm and express appreciation for another person, how to positively influence someone's day, and how our connections with others affect our mood, our energy levels, and our mindset.

Classroom Strategies to Promote Relationship Skills-

Conflict-Resolution Resources

Conflict Resolutions Activities

A Conflict-Resolution Unit- 10 lessons for teaching conflict resolution skills

Relationship skills include:

Initiating contact with others and cultivating friendship
Sharing one’s thoughts and feelings (appropriately)
Communicating effectively
Developing positive relationships
Demonstrating cultural humility
Practicing teamwork and collaborative problem-solving
Resolving conflicts constructively
Approaching relationships with positive presuppositions
Resisting negative social pressure
Resisting stereotypes
Standing up for the rights of others
Showing leadership in groups
Seeking or offering support and help when needed

*From Greater Good in Education

BUILD RELATIONSHIP SKILLS THROUGH RESTORATIVE PRACTICES!

Why use restorative practices in the classroom, you ask? According to Edutopia, "Research shows it is effective to provide clear expectations for behavior, teach skills needed to succeed in the school environment, and respond to problems with strategies to strengthen connections and relationships, rather than push students away."

How do I incorporate restorative practices in my classroom, you also ask? This is a great article that discusses how to do exactly that! Much of what this article says should sound very familiar, as much of what we do through Developmental Designs is embedded in restorative practices and building relationships- morning advisory, goal setting, social contracts, problem-solving conferences, repairing the damage...all practices we use already!