Dear parents, let us discuss some SEL..

While I was sitting in the park after my evening stroll, I happened to listen to the conversation of a group of parents, found it interesting and joined them. They began discussing the significance of additional curriculum for students’ better learning. The conversation proceeded like this:

Mrs. Bakshi : In my child’s school, they have 20 textbooks for grade 3. Is it not interesting that my child gets to study so much through the day and becomes knowledgeable?!

Mr. Ahmed : Is it not really a lot for an 8-year-old to study? Aren’t we expecting a lot from the child and in turn bothering them?

Mrs. Shah : Does the school focus only on imparting the information from textbooks? How does the school help children learn skills that are required to be independent, confident and make informed decisions? Is there anything that the school does to help the child with this?

Mrs. Bakshi : I don’t think the school focuses on anything like this. Nevertheless, I want my child to be equipped with all these skills, but I did assume my child learns these skills by attending classes at school.

Mr. Ahmed : Ahh okay! But, what are these skills about? How do they benefit children?

Continuing the conversation with the parent group, Mrs. Shah shared her understanding of skills that equip children to become independent, resilient and make informed decisions. This is how the discussion went by:

Mrs. Shah : Think of a time when your child had difficulty adjusting with peers in school. Maybe your child was too bored of going to school, had an argument with their good friend and came home upset. Or a situation where you get a phone call about your child’s rebellious behavior from school.

Most of us would have had such experiences, right? You would have helped your child in all possible ways to make them feel better and surely it would have worked, but over the long-term, social and emotional skills can help children develop skills that help them manage their emotions and navigate through such situations independently.

Mrs. Bakshi: Interesting!! Then, does family play any role in helping children develop such skills?

Mrs. Shah: Absolutely!! These skills are considered as social-emotional learning (SEL) skills. Interestingly, families do play a crucial role in fostering children’s SEL. Immense amount of research studies proves that SEL is more effective when parents and guardians model the same skills and behaviors which children are trying to master in their classroom. It is also time and again ascertained that parent engagement in a child’s education and school community have a positive effect on students’ achievement and all this is regardless of their level of education and socio-economic status.

The benefits of parent engagement do not limit itself to just improvement in children’s achievement but also show improvement in their attitudes, behaviors and their mental health. This positively impacts parents and teachers as well as every stakeholder is connected to each other. Since parents demonstrate an active engagement and support in their child’s learning, it influences teachers’ morale and the overall school climate also. Similarly, parents and families also are proven to develop increased confidence, stronger relationships and communication. Parents also seemed to have developed interest in their own personal development and education in order to support their children better.

Mr. Ahmed: If equipping children with SEL skills is sure to offer so many benefits to children and everyone involved, why not we make a conscious effort to support our children in the process of developing these skills and in turn we also get some benefit of it. What can we as parents do to support our children in building social-emotional skills?

Mrs. Shah: Yes, I guess we as parents have an extra edge in helping children develop SEL skills as we are able to spend more time with children and observe them closely about developmental milestones. Also, CASEL, a leading organization advancing the development of academic, social, and emotional competence for all students says when teachers and families work together, they build strong connections with each other. This in turn reinforces the development of SEL skills in children. We can model and practice SEL with our children at home and we have an advantage of steering the discussions and interactions with regard to children’s development, interests and strength areas.

Let us look through a few basic SEL supportive strategies we can employ in our daily interactions with our children.

• Practice active listening: As parents we usually assume what our children are feeling or are afraid of. We usually tend to redirect or diminish the feeling of fear by saying “there is nothing to be scared of. Everything will be alright”. Research tells us to be mindful in how we respond to our children’s fear or feelings. If we validate our child’s emotions, and acknowledge their feelings, fears and concerns, they will better accept and understand their feelings, develop self-compassion and empathy.
• Presence vs Present: Just being physically present for children at home without being emotionally available does not make any difference. Our presence needs to be planned around providing a dedicated structured time to connect with children and not assuming that it will happen organically. It is necessary to be intentional when we connect with our children by setting aside time daily for playing, doing activities, reading, cooking, doing puzzles, coloring or art projects, building on children’s ideas and playing board games together.
• Establishing routines: Routines help us establish a sense of safety and security. It is necessary that we craft a daily routine for our children to which they abide by. This could be done by creating an intentional time and structure for SEL and having a dedicated practice around it everyday during the allotted time. We can also try to use an evidence-based curriculum which provides scope and sequence allowing students to build skills over time. You can also refer to the connect@home program by Learning Curve, which has an array of resources for parents and children to work together at home . You can visit their website to know more.
• Encourage expression of emotions: Instead of dismissing our child’s feelings, we can ask them to explain what they are feeling. We can make use of opportunities to help children increase their vocabulary of emotions and help them manage their emotions by supporting them to express what causes them and offer multiple ways to respond to those feelings.
• Help children make better decisions: Our children are faced with situations where they need to make decisions independently, be it at school, during play or at class. There is no way we can be present for them all the time. If we try to be there for them always, we rob children of the opportunities to gain experiences they need for their development. Decision making grows stronger each time the child needs to figure out a challenging situation on one’s own — making poor choices, facing consequences and then learning a new set of choices obtained from the first unsuccessful experience. As parents, we need to be supportive of this by letting children practice rather than getting tempted to provide solutions to them.

These are a very few SEL supportive strategies we can practice with our children on a daily basis. Practicing SEL supportive strategies not only benefit children but we as parents benefit equally as well. This helps us and families to take onus of our own SEL and it consecutively contributes to a happy and healthy community as well.

Mrs. Bakshi : This is quite a learning for us to utilize in daily interactions with our children. When this is offering a galore of benefits for both parents and children, I am sure to give it a try and experience benefits as well. This evening’s conversation turned out to be pretty productive!

Mr. Ahmed: If SEL is also being practiced at schools, then we can interact with teachers and learn more on how to support SEL development in children.

Mrs. Shah: Absolutely! Working on children’s SEL development needs to be a collaborative work of all stakeholders. Every stakeholder involved in a child’s learning can contribute to students’ SEL development. Let us discuss this and learn more about it next time.

Along with other parents discussing in the group, I did get to know the importance of SEL in parenting as well. I can’t wait to understand more about my own SEL and also make a conscious effort to support my child in her SEL development.

References:

Learning Heroes. (2016). Parents 2016: Hearts & minds of parents in an uncertain world. Washington, DC: Author.

Levinson, M(2012). How do we help kids make better choices? Let them practice . https://www.edutopia.org/blog/student-achievement-practice-matt-levinson

Move this world(2017). Social Emotional Learning Toolkit: Family Engagement. https://www.movethisworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/03/Social-Emotional-Learning-Family-Toolkit.pdf