Intentionally Sharpening Kids’ Social-Emotional Skills

By Chrissy Sergiacomi, School Counselor 

Today’s guest blogger is the school counselor at Sherwood Forest Elementary School, Chrissy Sergiacomi. As we continue to focus on social-emotional learning, Chrissy shares information on why it is so important for kids to learn these skills and several practical activities that parents/guardians can use to teach these skills at home. 

I have always told my young children that I believe the most important thing in life is to be kind.   Maybe that philosophy is why I became a school counselor.  I had a student once introduce me to a new classmate as “This is the lady who teaches us how to be good people.”  I think it’s the best job description I’ve ever heard!  Because the truth is, we have to teach our kids to be good people.  Social-emotional life skills are critical, and their teaching needs to be intentional.  If we teach our kids Calculus, history, poetry. . .none of it is useful if they can’t manage their own emotions.

The activities below are just examples of things you can add to your social-emotional toolbox at home.  One caveat. . .don’t try these when your kids are in the middle of an emotional meltdown!  These are activities to teach and practice when your children are calm, and then you can gently remind them to use the pre-learned skills when they need them.

• Journaling with a twist:  This activity is great for older kids who are confident with writing or for any age kids who enjoy drawing.  Your child needs a notebook where they can write and/or draw daily.  It’s helpful if the whole family takes 5-10 minutes daily to pause, giving the child a scheduled opportunity for journaling.  The journal belongs to the child and is private.  However, if the child wants to share something with a parent, they turn down that particular page and place the journal in a pre-determined location (like a coffee table).  The parent can then read that part of the journal only and can write a message back to the child.  This is a great strategy for students who are uncomfortable talking about their feelings directly but need some form of self-expression.  

• Mindful Coloring:  Challenge your child to color pictures with lots of details, taking time to color each individual section while they practice breathing in and out.  Check out these sites where you can find mindful coloring examples:   Mandalas to color online  Mandalas to print and color

• Feelings heart and GoNoodle:  This activity combines feelings identification with short online exercises that correspond with the feeling the child identifies. Children choose a feeling on the  Feelings Heart, click on it and they are directed to multiple GoNoodle online activities to help them practice coping with that feeling.  If those particular activities don’t seem applicable, you may need to have a discussion about whether the child has identified their feeling correctly.   This helps increase feelings vocabulary and gives kids go-to activities for self-regulation.

• Read alouds: For younger children, reading a book aloud and discussing its’ social-emotional message can be powerful.  This list of Read Aloud books for Social-Emotional Topics is an excellent resource to start building your social-emotional library!  

• Size of the problem/reaction:   By teaching students to identify the size of their problem, we can help them understand that it’s important to match our reaction to the size of our problem.  When we overreact or underreact we make others uncomfortable and we typically don’t end up solving our problem.  By using this free downloadable graphic Size of problem and reaction downloadable visual you can help your child identify the size of their problem and whether it matches the size of their reaction.  If it doesn’t match, then you’ll need to discuss what a more appropriate reaction would be.  

• Glitter jar:  This is one of my favorite calm down tools ever.  Kids love to make them and they can be calming even for adults.  There are many different ways to make the jars, but this is one example:  Glitter jar instructions  The idea is that when you shake the jar the glitter swirls around making the water cloudy, just like your mind gets cloudy when you are nervous, angry, sad, etc.  If you keep the jar still, the glitter will settle and the water will become clear again.  Children watch the glitter as it settles to the bottom of the jar, taking deep breaths and calming their minds just as the jar is “calming down”.  

• Deep breathing:  I like to teach kids lots of different ways to take deep breaths and let them choose which way they like the best.  Every way has the same physiological results, your breath slows down, which slows down your heart rate, which tells your body it isn’t in danger, and the prefrontal cortex goes back to work making good decisions.  These websites have excellent printable visuals kids can use for deep breathing exercises:  Using shapes to teach deep breathing  Printable breathing cards for kids  Mindful breathing activities for kids and teens  You can model these for your child and then you can each choose your favorite ones.

• Practicing Gratitude:  Gratitude is one of the biggest predictors of happiness.  Help your children engage in acts of gratitude during this difficult time.  Sometimes helping others is the best way to help ourselves.  You can simply keep an individual or family gratitude journal where you choose several things at the end of each day that you’re grateful for.  You can also actively practice gratitude with activities like these:  Loving letters campaign   Gratitude gifts    Kindness rocks

I hope that you will find an activity here that makes sense for your family and that you can easily incorporate into your home routine.  It’s likely you’re with your kids more than ever right now,  but remember that having presence and being present are not the same.  In these overwhelming times, take a moment to be intentionally present with your children.  Use that time to help them become the amazing little humans you know they’re meant to be.