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Social-Emotional Learning and Why it's Important.

Updated: Jan 11

Certain skills and approaches are central to the ability of children to interact effectively with their ever-diversifying environment, develop healthy relationships, and thrive in school, career, and life.


One such skill involves a model known as social-emotional learning (SEL). It helps children to develop positive attitudes, face academic challenges, learn more deeply, and navigate adult life.

Although there isn't a set recipe for raising successful kids, certain models such as the SEL framework and executive function strategies are effective in cultivating a safe and positive environment that enhances students' learning and development.


Students who take part in SEL show superior academic performance and are approximately 50% more likely to graduate from high school, be twice as likely to earn a college degree, and find a job by the time they are 25.


In this article, we will explore what social-emotional learning is and why it's so important.


What is social-emotional learning?


Social-emotional learning (SEL) is an educational and human developmental process through which children and adults acquire social, emotional, behavioral, and character skills that support success in school, the workplace, relationships, and the community.


It is a foundational process through which skills that improve students' social and emotional intelligence are identified, learned, practiced, and applied.


Why is social-emotional learning so important?


Social-emotional learning as an educational model is unique from the standard curriculum approach because it helps to build a safer and more interactive learning environment that fosters positive connections and healthy relationships.


A key objective of SEL is to develop skills such as self-awareness, self-management, responsible decision-making, social awareness, and relationship awareness among children and adults.


And these are known as the 5 SEL-Core Competencies.


5 Social-Emotional Learning Competencies


The five key competencies of social-emotional learning offer specific guidelines for educating abilities that will help students throughout their life in settings ranging from academics to careers and society.


These skills increase the chances of children succeeding in various facets of life ranging, from accomplishing academic goals to feeling more at ease in social situations.

  1. Self-Awareness

  2. Self-Management

  3. Social-Awareness

  4. Healthy Relationships Skills

  5. Responsible Decision-Making

Self-Awareness


It is the ability, to be honest, and conscious of one’s feelings and emotions and to label, describe and identify what triggers these emotions.


Teaching self-awareness helps children to recognize their strengths, limitations, and needs and assists them in gaining the important skills of self-confidence and self-advocacy.


Self-Management


Self-Management entails helping kids to acquire skills that foster goal setting, overcoming obstacles, managing stress, taking feedback, and monitoring the progress of short and long-term goals.


It assists them in gaining strategies to self-regulate and self-monitor. It equips students with determination and perseverance while knowing when to ask for help, how to cope with setbacks and master resilience which promotes a growth mindset and an expression of executive functioning.


Social-Awareness


Building social awareness means shaping the skills that help children to think about others. It also means they can pick up on social cues that enable them to assess their environment.


With social awareness, children become flexible thinkers, appreciative of diversity, and empathic towards the varied viewpoints of others.


Healthy Relationships Skills


When kids learn to form healthy relationship skills, they can maintain friendships, work with teams, acquire leadership skills, and communicate effectively.


Healthy relationship skills include listening actively, cooperating, resisting inappropriate social pressure, negotiating conflict constructively, and seeking and offering help when needed.


Responsible Decision Making


Decision-making skills help children to form action-and-consequence links, make quality decisions, solve problems in real-life situations, and assess how present choices will affect their future.


It teaches them to take stock of themselves, evaluate their actions, make moral judgments about what to say and do, and be mindful of the effect of their actions on others.


Conclusion


Social-emotional learning as a process teaches students essential skills that they need for their academic careers and post-college working lives. These skills improve their social and emotional growth and position them for a bright future.


At Good Hope Tutoring, we help your child thrive through SEL

All students require SEL, but most teachers are unable to provide it due to the sheer number of students requiring their attention at any given time.

With Good Hope Tutoring Services, you can be confident that your child will be able to hone his or her SEL skills because we incorporate SEL into our tutoring process. They would also be able to learn the SEL vocabulary required to express themselves effectively.


Book a FREE 15-minute consultation with us today to get started!


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