We’ll start at the beginning: What skills do we want to foster in young children, and how and when is best to do this?

In this first section, you will learn what SEL, or social emotional learning, is really all about. We can break apart SEL into 5 key Social Emotional Domains. It helps us frame our thinking around the hundreds of individual social and emotional skills we want children to learn. That can be very overwhelming, which is why organizing our thinking within the 5 key domains can be helpful. I appreciate how CASEL (Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning) organizes its social emotional learning into 5 key competencies. 

The 5 key SEL Competencies are:

Self-awareness: The abilities to understand one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior across contexts. 

Self-management: The abilities to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations and to achieve goals and aspirations. 

Responsible decision-making: The abilities to make caring and constructive choices about personal behavior and social interactions across diverse situations. 

Relationship skills: The abilities to establish and maintain healthy and supportive relationships and to effectively navigate settings with diverse individuals and groups. 

Social awareness: The abilities to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. 

When thinking about what to teach my students, I like to plan out my year by picking a focus for each month based on what I know students typically need at the time of year. I explicitly teach these skills with lessons, videos, story books, and role-playing (Hello, puppets!!) to hopefully front-load and prevent misbehavior or difficulties with peers. Children don’t have the skills automatically - so we can’t get frustrated when they don’t use them! We have to teach them!

I of course also explicitly teach social and emotional skills as they naturally arise … these moments are definitely the most meaningful to students because they directly understand to an issue they were a part of or witnessed! We will talk about that next.

I break apart my SEL focuses into the following 11 categories:

1. Listening (showing others we are listening, why listening is important)
2. Feelings (identifying feelings and regulation emotions)
3. Independence (trying things on our own)
4. Kindness (how can we make and play well with friends)
5. Problem Solving (What’s a small problem and how do I solve it on my own? What kind of reaction should I have for a small problem vs. a big problem)
6. Persistence (having a positive, growth mindset & how to not give up and why that helps us learn and get better at the things that challenge us)
7. Thoughtful Choices (what’s an expected choice and why should I make expected choices vs. unexpected choices)
8. Bossing My Body (self-regulation strategies)
9. Cooperation (how to work and play with others)
10. Respect (What is respect, how do I show it, why should I show it?)
11. Empathy (What is empathy, how do I show it, why should I show it?)