✨"Parenting: Nurturing Social and Emotional Intellegence (SEI) in Children"

Introduction:

In the ever-evolving parenting landscape, one timeless truth remains steadfast: a parent's influence on their child's emotional and social development is immeasurable.

What Is Social and Emotional Intelligence(SEI)?

It is crucial for the education and overall development of all individuals. It refers to the process of acquiring knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop a healthy sense of self, manage emotions, achieve personal and collective objectives, exhibit empathy towards others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and compassionate decisions. 

🦜What Are Social-Emotional Intelligence (SEI)Competencies?

The Five Core SEI Competencies

Core Competency #1: Self-Awareness🤳

Awareness refers to an individual's ability to comprehend their own emotions, thoughts, and values, and how they impact their behavior in different scenarios. This includes the capacity to be aware of the importance of the body, mind, and spirit as unity.  This allows us to be in relationship with yourself.

🦋Self-awareness Strategy:  Assess and Monitor emotions

You can help your child develop this awareness by teaching them to use a scale to assess and monitor their emotional response in various situations. This allows the child to reflect on and articulate their own thoughts and feelings.

How it works: Consider a challenge you are facing today. Identify where you are currently responding on the Positive Pivot Scale. Then, ask yourself: What would I need to do to move to a higher number on the Positive Pivot Scale?

Core Competency #2: Self-Management 🧚

Self-management is the ability to manage one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations. This includes the capacities to delay gratification, manage stress, feel motivation, and accomplish personal and collective goals.

👏Self-Management Strategy: Positive Self-Talk

Self-talk is "the act of practice of talking to oneself, either aloud or silently and mentally." Generally, negative self-talk makes us feel worse, but positive self-talk can make us feel better because it triggers positive energy in our minds.

e.g.:You have an important question for the teacher, but the teacher tells you that he/she doesn’t have time to answer it. "I can't figure this out by myself!" to "It will take time, but I can learn this."

Core Competency #3: Social Awareness💫

Social awareness is the ability to understand the perspectives of and empathize with others, including those from diverse backgrounds, cultures, and contexts. To understand and to feel what others are feeling. This allows us to enter into relationships with others. 

🤹Social Awareness Strategy: The Listening Circle

Participating in a Listening Circle is an effective way to develop empathy and understand different perspectives. In a Listening Circle, children/family members have a safe and supportive environment to share their thoughts and ideas by responding to prompts such as “Who do you admire the most and why?” or “What advice would you give yourself today and why?” "How do you think your teacher will feel if you......." "How do you think John feels when he gets bullied on the school grounds?" 

Core Competency #4: Relationship Skills 💫

Relationship skills are essential in establishing and maintaining healthy and supportive connections with others, as well as navigating diverse social and cultural settings. These skills include the ability to communicate clearly, actively listen, cooperate, work collaboratively to solve problems and conflicts, provide leadership, and seek or offer help when needed. 

🤹Relationship Skills Strategy: Rose, Bud, Thorn

Rose, Bud, Thorn is a strategy that encourages students to identify positive moments and areas that require support. During this activity, students share: 

• Rose: something positive that happened in the past week 

• Bud: something they are looking forward to in the upcoming week 

• Thorn: something they need help with in the next week 

Core Competency #5: Responsible Decision-Making 💞

Responsible decision-making is crucial in ensuring that our choices align with our values and have positive outcomes for ourselves and those around us. By developing responsible decision-making skills, we can make informed choices, consider ethical implications, and take responsibility for our actions. 

Responsible Decision-Making Strategy: The POOCH Protocol

This is a process for problem-solving that can help children thoughtfully generate solutions to problems by thinking through possible options and outcomes. The steps are as follows:

1.   Identify the problem.

2.   Explore different options to solve the problem.

3.   Discuss an outcome for each option.

4.   Choose an option.

5.   Reflect on how things went.

🌟🤹Conclusion

But it's not just about parenting your child; it's also about self-growth as a parent. We'll delve into the importance of self-care and self-awareness, acknowledging that our emotional intelligence as parents directly impacts our children's development..🤟