How To Teach Social Emotional Learning At Home

Fostering social emotional learning at home is a powerful way for you as a parent to support your children’s overall development.

Beyond the traditional academic education, social emotional learning (SEL) can equip your child with essential life skills, including self-awareness, empathy and effective communication.

This holistic approach acknowledges the significance of emotional intelligence in navigating life’s challenges and building meaningful relationships.

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By intentionally weaving SEL into the fabric of family life, you can contribute to the cultivation of resilient, empathetic and socially adept individuals.

Get ready to embark on a journey of intentional parenting that goes beyond textbooks, focusing on the heart of a child’s education—the development of their emotional intelligence!

How to Teach Social Emotional Learning at Home

Most parents would agree the quality of their children’s education plays a key role in their overall development. While parents are optimistic about the future of education, just like you, they also recognize children have educational needs beyond what is considered the standard.

According to a Harris Poll survey, 83% of parents prioritize raising children with strong social-emotional skills, 84% stress the importance of teaching children to treat others with kindness, and 83% believe kindness should be a fundamental value in education.

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Recognizing this shift, parents like you are now seeking a focus on social-emotional skills, mental health, kindness and understanding differences.

It’s time to make sure you teach social emotional learning at home to your own children. You can actively promote social and emotional learning in your children using these several strategies:

Practice Emotional Literacy at Home

Disagreements with parents or siblings are going to happen. It’s inevitable!

But you can turn these moments into opportunities for your children to develop emotional literacy.

Encourage your child to identify their own feelings and recognize the emotions of others to foster empathy. A terrific place to start are these childrens books about empathy. We also read childrens books about caring for others.

It’s also important to create an emotional safe space for your child to share their big emotions so they can learn how to manage them.

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This enhances your child’s ability to understand the connection between emotions and actions.

For example, we have a set way of saying sorry in our house that makes the other person really think about how they’ve hurt the other.

SEL at Home: Incorporate Mindfulness into Daily Activities

When you integrate mindfulness into your daily routines, it helps your children understand and regulate their emotions.

Simple activities such as reading a book, listening to calming music or practicing deep breathing can instill a sense of mindfulness.

We often have quiet moments cuddled up in bed to talk about the highs and lows of the day.

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It’s a great way to review and consider what brought us joy or upset us that day and why.

Make this a regular practice in your home — it helps establish it as a habit and supports emotional well-being ongoing.

Encourage Unplugged Socialization

Actively promote activities that involve in-person socialization without screens.

Get your children engaged in both indoor and outdoor group activities that foster natural curiosity, creativity and essential social skills.

Get them involved in clubs or extracurricular activities that interest them.

If your child is young, find a play group you might be able to join or create your own.

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When my boys were little, we had a moms group where we visited a new outdoor park every month. It was a terrific way to get our kids socialized and experience a new setting.

These kinds of unplugged experiences contribute significantly to a child’s social and emotional development.

Following these tips, it’s easy to start teaching social emotional learning at home!