SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING

What is SEL?

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

THE SEL Framework Identifies Five Core Competencies

Self-awareness: The ability to accurately recognize one’s emotions and thoughts and their influence on behavior. This includes accurately assessing one’s strengths and limitations and possessing a well-grounded sense of confidence and optimism.

Self-management: The ability to regulate one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes managing stress, controlling impulses, motivating oneself, and setting and working toward achieving personal and academic goals.

Social awareness: The ability to take the perspective of and empathize with others from diverse backgrounds and cultures, to understand social and ethical norms for behavior, and to recognize family, school, and community resources and supports.

Relationship skills: The ability to establish and maintain healthy and rewarding relationships with diverse individuals and groups. This includes communicating clearly, listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.

Responsible decision-making: The ability to make constructive and respectful choices about personal behavior and social interactions based on consideration of ethical standards, safety concerns, social norms, the realistic evaluation of consequences of various actions, and the well-being of self and others.

SEL Works

More than two decades of research shows that SEL leads to:

• Increased Academic Achievement
  According to a 2011 meta-analysis of 213 studies involving more than 270,000 students, those who participated in evidence-based SEL programs showed an 11% point gain in academic achievement.

• Improved Behavior
  Studies show decreased dropout rates, school and classroom behavior issues, drug use, teen pregnancy, mental health problems, and criminal behavior.

• Improved Emotional Regulation

Why is it Important to Teach SEL?

SEL skills are also life skills. They help our students navigate through their lives and are useful not only in schools settings, but also in social situations outside the classroom. With youth mental health issues on the rise, SEL skills can also help provide a foundation of protective factors for children that can lessen their vulnerability to mental health concerns. In a review of 213 school-based SEL interventions across more than 270,000 students, those who had access to social emotional learning had higher achievement, better behaviors, and improved social and emotional skills (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor & Schellinger, 2011).

Other benefits include:

• More positive attitudes toward oneself, others, and tasks including enhanced self-efficacy, confidence, persistence, empathy, connection and commitment to school, and a sense of purpose

• More positive social behaviors and relationships with peers and adults

• Reduced conduct problems and risk-taking behavior

• Decreased emotional distress

• Improved test scores, grades, and attendance

In the long run, greater social and emotional competence can increase the likelihood of high school graduation, readiness for postsecondary education, career success, positive family and work relationships, better mental health, reduced criminal behavior, and engaged citizenship (e.g., Hawkins, Kosterman, Catalano, Hill, & Abbott, 2008; Jones, Greenberg, & Crowley, 2015).

How Can You Support SEL at Home?

Parents play an important role in the development of a child's social emotional learning. Here are some Choose Love™ strategies you can try at home to further support your child's understanding of courage, gratitude, forgiveness and compassion in action:

Courage

• Try using the following discussion starters: “To me, courage is…,” “I show courage at school by…,” “I show courage at home by…,” “I show courage in my community by…,” “It takes courage to show my feelings because…”

• Ask your child how to do a “Brave Breath.”

• Create a family book of courageous acts that displays pictures of the family being courageous.

• Tell your child about how you act courageously at work or how you were courageous when you were your child’s age.

• Tell your child what affirmations (positive self-talk) you use when you need courage.

Gratitude

• Try using these discussion starters: “To me, gratitude is…,” “I show gratitude at school by…,” “I show gratitude at home by…,” “I show gratitude in my community by…”

• Ask your child to show you a “Gratitude Breath,” and explain how it can help.

• Write or draw something you’re grateful for daily. The family can read it together once a week.

• Model telling someone in your life (brother, sister, mother, father, grandmother, friend, coach, etc.) that you are grateful for them.

• Model making a gratitude list.

Forgiveness

• Try using these discussion starters: “To me, forgiveness is…,” “I show forgiveness at school by…,” “I show forgiveness at home by…,” “I show forgiveness in my community by…”

• Model practicing understanding and expressing your own emotions as this helps your child understand the emotions of others and practice forgiveness.

• Remember forgiveness isn’t about accountability, fairness, or justice. It is about letting go of anger and a choice to surrender retribution.

• Talk about how to make an authentic apology.

Compassion in Action

• Try using these discussion starters: “To me, compassion is…,” “I show compassion at school by…,” “I show compassion at home by…,” “I show compassion in my community by…”

• Ask your child to model a “compassion breath.”

additional resources

Disclaimer: The links below are purely for educational and entertainment purposes and are not intended as psychological interventions or as a substitute for psychological treatment. If you are in need of psychological help you should seek the consultation of a licensed mental health professional.