Thoughts on Social Emotional Learning
Social and emotional intelligence is foundational to understanding ourselves and the people around us. The ability to form and maintain meaningful relationships carries such incredible weight and value. I heard a study recently that the impact of loneliness on health outcomes (life expectancy, disease rates, depression, etc) is as impactful as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. We are deeply social beings and we need one another desperately. When you also consider the reality that depression and anxiety rates among children are rising every year, social and emotional learning does not feel like a choice but an absolute necessity.
When I started Nurse Mom Shop, I knew that I wanted one of my first major projects to be a series for early elementary aged children that covered a range of social and emotional topics. I am coming to this topic as a pediatric nurse and as a mama. I spend eight years working on a neurology/neurosurgical unit and I find the brains of children to be absolutely incredible and resilient.
I am raising twins who were born prematurely (and one other daughter, plus one on the way!). We spent a great deal of time and energy investing in our twins’ social/emotional development during their early years. The skills and tools we learned in early intervention and social skills therapy transformed our family. My deepest hope for these units is that they can provide other families and educators with easy and accessible tools, language and ideas.
These units are designed with kids ages 5-7 in mind. They are intentionally versatile and can be used in home settings (we often break out the anchor charts around the dinner table to talk about these ideas!), small group settings or larger classroom settings. I interviewed parents and educators about what topics they would like to see covered and outlined the most common themes. I looked through my own journals and therapy notes for patterns and common threads.
These eleven units are a labor of love and I am so excited to get to share them here. I truly hope they help the children in your life to thrive!
It felt appropriate to start the series with a unit on growth mindset. You can read more about growth mindset here if it’s a newer idea for you. It felt like the perfect foundation to start any social emotional learning curriculum. Below are a few photos of the unit in action.
I offer this entire unit for free to my e-mail subscribers. I love getting social learning tools into the hands of as many caregivers as possible! Plus, it allows you to see if these units are a good fit for the kids in your life. Just click here to sign up for my e-mail list and the growth mindset unit will be delivered straight to your inbox.
Each of the eleven units covers a specific topic. While the topics vary widely - from mindfulness to social cues to anxiety - I tried to keep the activities and outlines very similar to allow for continuity and fluency.
Each unit is divided into 2-4 sections. Each section comes with an introduction anchor chart to present the key concepts. It is followed by group discussion prompts, role play ideas and/or social stories. Next I provide journal/drawing prompts to help children process what they have learned. Finally, I have cut-and-paste activities, coloring sheets and word searches to drive home the information presented.
Below you can see some examples of these activities from Unit Five: Cognitive Flexibility, which has been one of my most popular units.
I give away a sample of each unit for free over at my TPT store. The free download is over 60-pages of materials. I love to allow parents and teachers to see how the units flow together. You can click the cover image below to find a link to download these free printables. There is also a link where you can find the full eleven unit bundle of resources.
I hope that these units provide you and the children in your life with easily accessible tools to encourage social and emotional development. Encouraging resilience and meaningful connection in the next generation is a shared responsibility and one that I do not take lightly. If cost is a barrier for you being able to have these resources, please reach out to me directly. My number one priority is to see these tools in the hands of as many families and educators as possible!
May we be kind and gentle with ourselves as we do this work. It is purposeful and rich. It can also be overwhelming and challenging. Thank you for sharing this space with me!