Do you continue to hear about social and emotional learning (SEL) and how our children need it, but you have no idea what it means? Personally, SEL has been one of my guiding factors as an educator and parent. When attempting to explain it to others, I simplify SEL as a means to build positive and supportive relationships with our students. Building this relationship will help to guide students towards greater academic success.

Think about it for a minute. We send our children off to kindergarten knowing most can’t yet read, write, compute mathematical problems, or even know how to handle themselves when someone hurts their feelings. We find it acceptable at this age that our children do not possess these skills, yet there comes a time when we believe they should just know. On the other hand, it is easy to forget everyone learns at different rates and is provided the opportunity to practice skills differently.

Let’s consider the main purpose of SEL is how are we handling our emotions in a social setting. We all know or can think of the “naughty kid” in our child’s class or have memories from our own childhood. What if we reframed our thinking and focused on these children through the lens that they have a deficit and need more support? If a student is struggling in learning to read, then we find ways to help provide extra support. However, when a child misbehaves, it is easier to punish with a suspension or other exclusion activities. By no means am I stating we should avoid setting expectations in holding children accountable for their actions. Yet, we need to improve their skill set.

For the majority of my career, I have been drawn towards and supported students who struggled to behave or acted out in school. These were often the students that others had given up on or thought of as “just too hard to deal with.” It was easier to suspend or exclude instead of implementing an intervention to build and strengthen their deficit.

If a student doesn’t feel connected they will avoid putting in the effort. Let’s consider, do you do more when you feel cared for and valued? Of course, you do. It is human nature to want to feel like you belong.

Our children are no different and some need more help building these skills. The reason we need to be focusing on SEL every day and embedding it into everything we do, is because we need to teach and reteach these skills as educators and parents. Dedicating one day a week is simply not enough.

#standreadytosupport