Students go through a lot. They deal with tons of things – parents, siblings, friends, classmates, even teachers. This can take a toll on them.
Making it a point to put their emotional wellbeing at the fore, helps them to mentally and emotionally cope while having a balance in their school and social life.
Teachers, by virtue of their profession, are trained to provide support for students in this case but the purpose of this article is to guide them through.
Here are the 3 ways that have proven to be fast and effective when it comes to helping students strengthen their emotional capacity.
Age-focused SEL
Teachers should figure out avenues to integrate foundational SEL skills in ways that are age-appropriate for students, developing educational framework of core SEL competencies that correspond to the age and stage of development of the students.
You can encourage younger students to explore central themes of core competencies related to self-management and self-awareness — including the ability to handle emotions in productive ways — across SEL frameworks.
Helping students express and identify their feelings helps them cope with their emotions and successfully manage them.
Understanding Emotions
Teachers can invite students to share how they feel and why they feel that way.
You can aid them in identifying and communicating their feelings by designing a Feelings Chart labeled with a vocabulary of emotions and accompanying photos of children’s facial expressions or mood meters that help identify and sort emotions for people of all ages.
Expanding emotions vocabulary
You’ll begin to notice a change in the vocabulary of students regarding their emotions as they become more expressive with words.
Once students understand how to identify emotions, you can talk to them about the strategies they can use to change their feelings positively.
This could be in form of using the right words to express displeasure, seeking help from the teacher or an adult, creating their own safe space, etc.
Teachers will begin to see a gradual change in the classroom’s atmosphere and in students’ vocabulary during conversations and collaboration — students will begin to sort their issues by having conversations about them instead of avoiding them altogether.
Combining classroom management with SEL
This means a lot to classroom management because, when teachers devote time to social and emotional subjects, they are sending a message to students that their emotional well being is important and that their emotions are valid.
When teachers emotionally check in with their students on a daily basis, they will be able to respond to the trauma a student might be facing by offering them support.
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