SEL Day is recognized during the second week of March to promote the importance of social-emotional learning. Here at Housman Institute, we’re dedicated to promoting the building blocks of emotional intelligence all day, every day. We believe that educators and parents should be equipped with the tools they need to support children’s emotions in seamless and continuous ways throughout each day both at school and home.
Supporting children’s emotional intelligence promotes their emotional, cognitive and social learning, which ultimately fosters their ability to manage their emotions, regulate their behavior, and develop their prosocial skills and empathy – all foundational to academic excellence.
Parents and educators are paramount to teaching emotional intelligence as they are children's socializers, providing the framework and support for children’s development and growth. They too need support, and important and appropriate feedback in enhancing their own emotional well-being in order to be the models, guides and responsive relationships necessary for promoting children's healthy brain development, and their social and academic success.
Presently there is significant pushback by some officials, schools, teachers and parents against prioritizing teaching SEL. As Peter DeWitt noted in a piece of his recently published in EdWeek, “If people are against teaching social-emotional learning, it’s probably due to one of three reasons. The first is that they don’t really know what it is. The second is that they might be uncomfortable on how to teach it. The third and final reason could be because they are going through something in their personal life and teaching SEL is a mirror they don’t want to hold up to their own issues.”
In order to help address these real concerns, the manner in which social and emotional skills are taught needs to first take into consideration the needs and emotional well-being of the educator - the oxygen mask rule. Without this training and support, the teachers who teach won’t be able to do what they do best and accomplish their goal of promoting children’s learning.
The more we understand about teaching emotional intelligence - the ability to identify, manage and regulate emotions and understand the emotions of others - during the earliest years when the brain is developing most rapidly - the more we’re going to dedicate ourselves to prioritizing teaching it in classrooms and at home. One thing that’s important to be mindful of is that a brain overwhelmed by dysregulated emotion cannot learn. Teaching and learning are interrelated. If the brain can't learn because of dysregulated emotion, then the goal of teaching - to impart learning - is not able to be achieved. If we want to enhance children’s learning, we need to teach the skills of emotional intelligence - every day, not just on SEL day. Also, Housman Institute provides the very tools caregivers need to teach emotional intelligence in an intuitive, fun and developmentally and age-appropriate manner.
With supporting children's emotions every day, all day, they become lifelong better learners, better friends and better people - unlocking their potential in becoming their best selves.
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