Tutoring gives you an opportunity to work collaboratively with your classmates and to take a leadership role in your school. Being able to collaborate and lead well are very important life skills to practice. Both are relational skills; you have to develop them while working with other people. You cannot do either by yourself.

Any time that we are working on relational skills--any time people are working together--there are emotions involved. There is no way to avoid having emotions; they just bubble up. But when we work with others, we need to do our best to pay attention to our emotions and not let overwhelming feelings lead us to poor choices.

For example, lots of people feel anxious about sharing their writing with other people because they think they might be criticized or embarrassed. A writer might let these feelings keep them from showing a tutor their writing, and, as a result, they might not get feedback that would help them improve as writers.

A more positive emotion could also make a tutoring session difficult. For example, if a tutor just got some good news before sitting down to work with a classmate, they might be distracted and find it hard to concentrate because they are so excited.

While Tutoring

Experts at Yale recommend using the RULER approach for big emotions that come up during relational work that could interfere with what we want to accomplish.

Recognize emotions in yourself and others

Understand the cause and consequence of emotions

Label the specific emotion (see chart below)

Express emotions appropriately for the situation

Regulate emotions with coping strategies

Let's take an example of how this might work while tutoring. Let's imagine you are working with a writer, Jasmine, who is struggling with a writing project. You recognize that Jasmine isn't talking with you much. When you ask context questions about the project, she only says a word or two in response. She isn't making eye contact and keeps looking around the room. You recognize that there might be a feeling that is making it hard to connect with Jasmine. You understand that if you don't address what she is feeling, you might not have a very good collaborative conversation about her draft. So, you ask Jasmine to name (or label) what she is feeling.

She tells you that she is feeling pessimistic about the paper because no matter what she does, she always gets bad grades on her papers. She doesn't feel like trying. Jasmine might be feeling bad, but she expressed her emotions in a way that was appropriate and helpful for the situation. Now that you know how she is feeling, you can talk to her about what types of feedback she has received before and what strategies she's tried in the past with her papers. You could even tell her that it was super helpful for her to share how she was feeling--it's a good strategy for her to use in the future when she's feeling hopeless. Thinking about how we might deal with an emotion before it comes up is a regulation strategy.

There might be a situation in tutoring where a big emotion comes up that does interfere with the session because it isn't always easy to do the RULER approach. A writer might not recognize or understand what they are feeling. They might express it inappropriately by leaving a session, raising their voice, or saying something mean. If this happens, it can be hard as a tutor to manage your feelings. Because you are in a leadership position, there is an expectation that you will express your emotions in a calm, mature way. If you feel like you cannot, you can reach out to a fellow tutor or teacher to help resolve the situation.

After Tutoring

You might also take some time to process what you are feeling after you have a tutoring session by talking about it with another tutor or writing about it in a journal. Relational work can cause us to feel many things at once, so try to recognize all of the emotions you might feel. You might pay attention to how the feeling feels in your body and focus your attention on the feeling until it passes. We feel all kinds of feelings as humans; it doesn't make you a bad person to have negative emotions, so don't judge yourself. Most of the time, even big emotions are only intense for a minute or two if we give them all of our attention. This is what it means to process a feeling: paying attention to it until it fades away. (By the way, if you ignore or deny a feeling, it does not fade away. It might grow stronger!)

Know You Can't Control Others

Finally, it's also really important to know that you are not responsible for how other people feel or how they express their emotions. As a leader, you can be a role model and set a tone, but you cannot control others' behaviors. Everyone is responsible for their own choices.

Chapter 14 Activity

Sometimes it can help to use a coping strategy during or after a situation that involves big feelings. Coping strategies include deep breathing, journaling, meditating, talking it out, exercising/movement, positive self-talk, making a list, taking a break, putting it in perspective, and asking for help. Write about a stressful time in your life when you used a coping strategy. What were you feeling? What did you do? How did it help you? Do you think you could use this coping strategy while tutoring? Share your experience with your team.