Bringing the RULER Skills Home

Practicing RULER at Home:

To create a positive emotional climate at home, it is important to practice the five key skills of emotional intelligence with the children and other members of your family.

Recognizing

To recognize emotions, families can:

• Pay attention to your emotions and the emotions of your children.

• Point out and discuss the facial expressions, vocal changes, and body language that reflect different emotions.

Understanding

To understand emotions, families can:

• Anticipate, manage, or prevent unwanted feelings in ourselves and others

• Promote wanted feelings in ourselves and others

• Support children’s emotional needs

Labeling

To label emotions, families can:

• Use a wide range of emotion words with children.

• Encourage children to find the best word to describe their feelings

Expressing

To express emotions, families can:

• Talk about what your body looks like when you are angry, excited, sad, calm, etc.

• Help children evaluate the best time, place, and way to express their feelings

Regulate

To regulate emotions, families can:

• Model different effective strategies for children when you manage your own feelings

• Help children find useful and successful strategies for managing the range of emotions they experience