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Engaging Families With Social and Emotional Learning Strategies

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When teachers bring parents in to see what their children are learning, they strengthen the home-school connection and help the adults build skills, too.

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As Teen Stress Increases, Teachers Look for Answers

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Seventy percent of teens say stress is a major problem. Research backs that up—and teachers are beginning to offer solutions.

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL)

Simple art activities can help elementary and middle school students express how they're feeling, which is particularly useful in stressful times.

As we enter the final months of the 2021-22 school year, we're all feeling mixed emotions. Our students are experiencing the unpredictability of this time, and with that they're experiencing many disruptive sensations and feelings. The behavioral challenges teachers have observed this school year are the result of students' brains and bodies feeling overwhelmed-students are often anxious, worried, or angry.

These challenging behaviors can feel scary or dysregulating to all students who may be observing aggression, defiance, and other responses from peers. Adversity and trauma are personal and live in our nervous systems, manifesting in different ways.

We often try to protect students from these uncomfortable situations by not addressing the underlying conditions, and this can unintentionally create added anxiety, because the unknown is met with a student's personal interpretation of an outburst or a meltdown from a peer. Our brains predict experiences based on past experiences, and we have a visceral sensory response, which is usually a sensation experienced in our bodies when we're feeling uncomfortable or we see another person struggling.

If a young person hears someone yelling, a door slamming, a classmate sobbing, or tones of voice that sound harsh, their hearts may begin beating fast, and they can feel tension and tightness in their bodies. These sensory signals occur immediately, before students recognize how they're feeling. And emotions can be contagious, so other students in the room may begin mirroring or picking up on the dysregulation of classmates and possibly the teacher. But the nervous system is designed to protect us, and our students need to know this.

Students are resilient in their personal responses when adults are authentic and honest, and explain what lies beneath behaviors. Students benefit when we have open conversations with them when the environment is calm and collaborative. And through the expression of art as a daily ritual, we can begin to create predictable and safe practices that can help students access the cortex, where learning occurs.

Much like intentional breathing and rhythmic movement practices, the integration of art activities and practices can create a sense of safety and comfort, reducing stress. Art therapist Linda Chapman finds that "the inherent novelty of creation and self-discovery is life affirming and enlivening." Below are suggestions for art activities that can calm the nervous system.

When we hold morning or afternoon meetings, we can set these activities up by teaching students about the brain and the nervous system. We can talk about how impossible it is to think clearly or learn when we're feeling anxious, angry, or sad. We can discuss behaviors as clues or signals about an invisible injury or wound. We can share stories of times when we were feeling lonely, hurt, disconnected, or angry. And we can discuss how our brain is always trying to protect us when we begin to feel rough or dysregulated.

Drawing and creating art are powerful ways to help students express their sensations, feelings, thoughts, strengths, and preferences. Educator Ashlee Harmon and I share art practices we are integrating into our morning meetings and other procedures. Ashlee has created a Mindful Artists Club for her sixth-grade students, and they share and create art with younger students as well.

3 Art Activities to Help Student Express Themselves

1. What Do My Colors Say? Have students fill a sheet of paper with color, lines, and shapes for two minutes. Then ask questions like these: Which color is angry, which shape feels invisible or not seen? Which shape or color is tired or worried? What shapes or lines feel anxious? What name would you give your art? Why? You can ask how their images are like them, and how they are different.

2. Mapping My Favorite Place: Have students draw a map to their favorite real or imagined place, creating roads, paths, mountains, and hills, and showing the route to get there. They can use colors, lines, shapes, and symbols. Ask questions like these: In this place, who are the people you trust? What are the sounds, sights, smells, and colors? What feels calming or exciting about this place? Could you choose to go there in your mind when you're feeling anxious, upset, worried, or angry?

3. Colors of My Heart: Give each student a blank sheet of paper, and set out markers or colored pencils to share. Students will then draw a large silhouette of a heart, enough to fill their entire paper. After drawing the heart, students can choose three or four colors that represent the emotions and sensations they are experiencing. Using these colors, students will fill in the space of their heart in textures, lines, or patterns of their choice. If students feel comfortable, they may share the colors of their heart with a partner or peer group.

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Using Art to Help Students Find Their Calm

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Social & Emotional Learning (SEL) Simple art activities can help elementary and middle school students express how they're feeling, which is particularly useful in stressful times. As we enter the final months of the 2021-22 school year, we're all feeling mixed emotions.

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De-Escalation Spaces: Helping Students Manage Emotions

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Here is some important information from our national organization, Mental Health America, for parents and children understanding emotions.

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Matters Helping All Parents - Social Emotional Learning

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Here is some important information from our national organization, Mental Health America, for parents and children understanding emotions.

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Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a process that provides students' tools to use throughout life. Social and emotional learning teaches students many skills that they can use in the classroom and throughout their life! This resource is to help bridge the gap between social and emotional learning at home and at school.

Included is a two page, or double-sided hand out explaining what social emotional learning is, why it is important, activities, strategies, and conversation starters for parents to promote SEL at home.

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Social Emotional Learning Parent Handout

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Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a process that provides students' tools to use throughout life. Social and emotional learning teaches students many skills that they can use in the classroom and throughout their life! This resource is to help bridge the gap between social and emotional learnin...

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Individual Research Review & Analysis #2

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Matt Liguori Individual Research Review and Analysis #2

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Matt Liguori Individual Research Review and Analysis #1

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Matt Liguori Individual Research Review and Analysis #4

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Resource 3 Connections with greetings at the door 

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Making Connections With Greetings at the Door

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Research shows that greeting students as they come into class bolsters a feeling of belonging and readiness to learn.

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When you're walking down a school hallway, what do you notice? Does the environment seem inviting and accepting, or does it seem dull and neglected? Are the walls overpowered with color or bare and gray? My point is, bulletin boards are the billboards of classroom halls-they can capture a school's mission, display what students are learning, and be interactive for bystanders.

I'd like to share some strategies to use bulletin boards to promote social and emotional learning. The pandemic brought a wave of anxiety to teachers and to the students and families we care for. Consequently, social and emotional learning is even more important now.

Over the past six years, I have taught in environments with a high number of military children. I can recall growing up as one of these kids and experiencing a lot of anxiety and fear of the unknown, and with the pandemic we've seen even more anxiety, stress, and fear. The ability to recognize feelings and manage them is vital-prior to learning and teaching, our students and staff must first feel emotionally supported.

With the idea of supporting students, when I create bulletin boards I think about how to make them inclusive and helpful. They don't have to be extravagant, over the top with decorations, or overstimulating. If we are displaying student work, I want the work to be varied and not just focused on the "best." This helps every student feel seen and included.

I enjoy creating boards that catch students' attention and make them want to invest a few minutes into looking at what we are sharing. I believe bulletin boards are something that can get easily overlooked, and the right displays can be a helpful tool for students. Below are a few examples of bulletin boards to support students' social and emotional learning and inclusivity.

Supporting SEL and Inclusivity With Bulletin Boards

Breathing exercises: In social and emotional learning lessons, I always incorporate breathing exercises to promote self-regulation, and I believe these exercises make one of the best types of bulletin boards. Combining a visual that introduces students and adults to a calming exercise can be beneficial for all. When you teach breathing exercises, students will start to incorporate these strategies when they need to, like when they are taking a test or feeling anxious. I have used bulletin boards to share images that show students how to do "triangle breathing" and "mountain breathing," for example.

Student check-ins: Checking in with students is a great way to encourage them to express themselves, especially those who may be hesitant to speak up if they feel dysregulated. Connecting students to something like different characters in the Avengers movies is a great motivational tool to get students to recognize how they are currently feeling-are they feeling like the Hulk or Groot today, for example? So I have put up a bulletin board with "Which Avengers character do you feel the most like?" as a prompt above images of five or six characters with different facial expressions.

While students can be hesitant to share how they are feeling, it's important to know how they are feeling because it will affect their learning. You can construct this kind of board as a virtual board using Jamboard, or as a physical interactive board using sticky notes.

Self-reflection: I believe that as educators, we are constantly reflecting on ourselves and our work. A reflection can be a wonderful tool to recognize our accomplishments and a great way to celebrate them. To support this with students, I created a bulletin board-with a laminated background and dry erase markers handy-with the prompt "What have you done today to make you feel proud?" When my class showcased something they were proud of, more classes joined, and eventually students from all grade levels participated.

This board helps create a positive atmosphere and promotes empathy. One student wrote, "I felt proud when I helped someone up when they fell during recess." Having students be reflective is a great way to have them create goals and recognize that we all do something every day we can be proud of, whether it be big or small.

Building empathy: Empathy can be a difficult skill to teach and learn. It takes time to understand how others are feeling and requires being present and listening intently. It gives a sense of hope to see a student being empathetic toward another student, and it builds up the community. For these boards I love using emojis because kids can easily connect to them and they're gender neutral. They're a simple way to have students connect how someone's body might look or feel with specific feelings, and they can promote ways to self-regulate.

For example, a board I call Emoji Emotional Awareness has an angry emoji on the left and a relieved emoji on the right, with this prompt: "If you notice your body feeling like the emoji on the left, what is something that helps you to feel like the emoji on the right? Add a sticky note and give your suggestions."

Then if students are curious they can view the notes and suggestions that fellow classmates have given to help support each other.

Activities: When we engage students in activities, we can challenge them to work toward a goal. With a bulletin board similar to the game tic-tac-toe, students can choose what challenges they want to do.

To set this up, I make a big tic-tac-toe board and fill the spots with the following prompts:

Row 1: List 3 things you like about yourself; What is something you're thankful for?; Stretch up like a tree

Row 2: Write a positive note to someone you care about; Complete a breathing exercise; What is something you do well?

Row 3: Write a goal you have for the week; What is something you hope for?; What was the last thing that made you laugh?

Students can pick three activities in a row-across, down, or diagonally. When students have choice, we know it increases engagement and helps provide motivation to complete a task. This board is a great tool with a variety of tasks to complete that include physical movement, breathing exercises, and reflection.

Situations: When students are tasked to respond to a situation, they need to synthesize it and figure out if it's something positive or dangerous. For example, consider asking students to choose two of the situations below and talk to a partner about what they would do:

There's a new classmate and it's their first day at school.

During recess, a classmate called another student unkind names and shoved another peer.

You see two classmates arguing at recess about who gets to go first in a game.

These scenarios give students a chance to reflect on their own actions and start to recognize situations where they could bring something positive.

Billboards can be more than a tool to hang student work. When used effectively, they can help students embrace social and emotional learning and teach them tools to help reflect and build empathy and kindness toward themselves and others. Making social and emotional learning the first priority for students creates a positive and inviting culture that brings one classroom community together with everyone else in the school.

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When you're walking down a school hallway, what do you notice? Does the environment seem inviting and accepting, or does it seem dull and neglected? Are the walls overpowered with color or bare and gray? My point is, bulletin boards are the billboards of classroom halls-they can capture a school's mission, display what students are learning, and be interactive for bystanders.

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Social and Emotional Learning

A new survey by Education Week Research Center shows nearly half of teachers feel their schools do not have adequate support for their students' social and emotional needs.

William Graham / Alamy Stock Photo

The few workshops she attended on social and emotional learning left Arizona kindergarten teacher Ashley Toscas ill-prepared to help her students manage their emotions, writes Sarah Schwartz in " Teachers Support Social-Emotional Learning, But Say Students in Distress Strain Their Skills.

"There are so many students with so many mental-health needs, I [felt like I] needed a separate degree," Toscas told Schwartz, referencing her students' poverty and trauma.

Toscas isn't alone, according to Schwartz's article, which recaps Education Week Research Center's nationwide survey that found nearly half of teachers surveyed felt they their schools did not have adequate staff on hand to support their students' social and emotional needs-and as result, were left to intervene on their own but without the appropriate resources to do so.

Even if the necessary support exists, teachers don't feel they have received enough training-either through teacher preparation programs or professional development opportunities-to address student needs. Only 40 percent of those surveyed said they have "adequate solutions and strategies to use when students don't have strong social and emotional skills." Meanwhile, fewer than 15 percent of those surveyed said they felt "very" or "extremely" prepared to address student mental health needs.

Though national awareness of the value of social and emotional learning has increased, the survey suggests social and emotional training for teachers may be implemented half-heartedly in some districts or as an "add-on" for teachers who already struggle to fit everything into a busy day.

According to nearly a third of respondents, the pressure created by academic goals didn't leave enough time to focus on SEL, while 27 percent of teachers surveyed cited "lack of support from family or parents" as the main obstacle to social-emotional support. For others who had received training, a number reported its lack of relevance, specifically that the training tended to focus more on establishing routines than how to handle students' behavior in real-time situations.

Toscas developed some of her own classroom remedies, like looking for nonverbal signs in students' body language as an indicator that a student might need some one-on-time with her or quiet space alone to decompress, Schwartz writes. These homegrown solutions are fairly common among educators, according to the survey, which found that in the absence of trained assistance, teachers create their own responses to students in distress. "Seventy percent of teachers said they addressed their students' mental-health challenges by talking with them," Schwartz notes.

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Lacking Training, Teachers Develop Their Own SEL Solutions

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Social and Emotional Learning A new survey by Education Week Research Center shows nearly half of teachers feel their schools do not have adequate support for their students' social and emotional needs.

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What is the purpose of school? Many might say it’s to prepare students for their futures. But what happens if students feel hopeless about the future?

We know that many teens are currently feeling depressed, and what once was met with an eye roll is now met with collapse. In this crazy year, typical teenage stress is compounded with concern about Covid-19, election uncertainty, family strife, social isolation, and any number of legitimate challenges for our entire society. And since all generations are going through this simultaneously, teenagers have fewer adults around them to lean on because parents and teachers are sharing similar feelings of grief.

It really stinks right now to be a teen.

So I would argue that, at this time in history, the purpose of school is to help our students maintain hope. The purpose of our classrooms is to reach out our hands and pull our students up from the desolation that comes from feeling like there's nothing they can do to change things for the future.

Sue Arzola, the principal at South Pointe Middle School in Diamond Bar, California, wrote her dissertation on leading education with hope and discussed her research with me via email. Her work was based on Charles Snyder’s hope theory, which she says examines hope as a “positive motivational state based on a sense of successful agency and the various pathways you take to make it happen.”

In her dissertation, she stresses that, “especially during difficult times, as administrators and educators, we need to lead with optimism.” She goes on to say, “Hope engages both grit and perseverance as we strive to make our hopes or goals a reality. But hope also engages optimism and self-efficacy, as it includes the belief that the future will be better than the present, and within each of us is the power to make it so.”

So, in this time when so many of us out there—teachers, parents, and students— are feeling hopeless, how do we reverse it? Can it be done?

The answer, of course, is yes.

In fact, schools can play an active and intentional role in developing hope. Much like a smile, hope is contagious. So our classrooms, whether virtual or face-to-face, should be infused with it. Teachers can provide lessons and units to help students recognize their potential influence on the world around them.

Strategies to Inspire Hope

1. Use project-based learning: PBL is all about using what we are learning in school to make an impact on the world beyond school. It helps develop student agency by allowing teens to identify problems they most want to solve. It helps develop students who question by guiding teens to research multiple perspectives and come to their own conclusions. And PBL helps to develop communicators by honing skills like public speaking and persuasive writing.

2. Teach positive current events: True, hope is different than positivity, but committing to making students aware of positive current events can help create an environment more likely to make students feel hopeful. Help offset the smog of negative news by showing students that there’s good out there, too. CNN’s The Good Stuff newsletter is a great resource.

3. Study other kids who’ve made an impact: I’m not saying don’t teach about Albert Einstein, but maybe students need to hear about the achievements of someone their own age. School should be all about meaningful learning. Show students that there are teens out there moving the needle in their own communities.

4. Teach history through the lens of improvement: History occurs in peaks and valleys, but teens haven’t been on this planet long enough to experience or study these patterns with great depth. Focus on teaching moments in history when civilization was pulling itself out of darker eras. Help students see the bigger picture, and help them recognize that our darkest pits are mere moments in time.

5. Teach hopeful science: I am a California resident, and we’re living through a season of devastating fires. But my science teacher friend reminds me that after fires, the soil can be richer for life to grow. Find those examples in science that support the beauty after the storm.

6. Promote student activism: Help teens find organizations that might be accepting student volunteers. Whatever their interests or strengths, students can be active in their communities. Doing good for others can help defeat hopelessness. From a local Humane Society to the New Voters Project, students can leave an immediate footprint that does a service for those around them.

7. Embed mindfulness training: It’s difficult for students of any age to put hard times in perspective. They can’t regulate when to worry. Tweens and teens in particular feel more deeply and more sensitively than people do at other ages. Empower them. Help them to understand what they are feeling, and help them to build strategies to calm the storm in their hearts and heads.

Hope is about the belief that you can make an impact. Hope is about allowing students agency in their own learning. Hope is about ensuring that students are looking ahead, identifying for themselves what needs to be improved, and giving them the skills and confidence to go out and do it.

When I look at kids these days, I feel hopeful. When kids go to school, I want them to feel the same.

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7 Ways to Infuse Your Curriculum With Hope

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Young people dealing with the effects of the pandemic can be encouraged through lessons that inspire resilience.

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When it comes to grades, behavior, attendance, concentration, and memory, the nutrition and fitness levels of students are inextricably linked to positive academic outcomes. Mental health supports are also important, yet schools tend to compartmentalize health and physical education from mental health supports and social and emotional learning (SEL).

Some states are starting to recognize the connection and are realigning standards for school health. For example, the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) will expand in 2022 to include a number of new standards related to mental health and SEL.

While it's never too late to implement a coordinated approach to whole-child health, schools that offer this approach in early childhood set students off on the best possible start for a lifetime of physical and mental health. Preschool students can begin to understand how healthy choices, such as eating fruits and vegetables, can impact their emotions and mood.

Here are three ways that educators can un-silo the work of their wellness and SEL teams for a whole-school and whole-child approach that improves efficacy and efficiency.

1. Create a Whole-Child Wellness Team

Whole-child wellness is a team effort. The most effective way to bridge the work of those promoting nutrition and physical activity with those advancing social and emotional learning is to form a single committee that meets regularly to align with and support each other's work.

An ideal team is co-led by wellness champions-often the school's SEL and physical education team leads-and consists of a group of people in varied roles at the school. Typical team members include school counselors, physical education and health teachers, the director of nutrition services, a principal or assistant principal, and at least one classroom teacher who is passionate about whole-child education. You can also include parent and/or student representatives. Of course, you might not get all these individuals on board right away. It's fine to start small and build over time.

"I took the reins on an initiative I knew would be a challenge," says Valerie Gonzalez, a physical education teacher and wellness champion at Cayetano Cavazos Elementary in Edinburg, Texas. "I initially began planning strategies for schoolwide wellness with just my school principal. Once we got going and started seeing positive results, it became much easier to get buy-in and build our team."

Once you have a team assembled, make a plan to meet regularly-at least once per grading period. Use these meetings to discuss SEL priorities and health goals. Brainstorm ways to align the two, and make a plan to communicate the focus areas to everyone in the school community. Here are a few tips:

Encourage adults to model desired behaviors such as drinking water throughout the day.

Establish a schoolwide common language for SEL and health/wellness; for example, "Stop-Breathe-Go" can be helpful for managing stress and handling conflict.

Engage teachers and students in simple but specific tasks that reinforce positive behaviors such as taking a movement break during school-day transitions.

Communicate with families and the broader community, and invite them to get involved in promoting and reinforcing behaviors that support physical and mental health.

Celebrate success along the way.

Once you have some momentum, make sure to keep it going and build upon early successes. Document your work and start each school year with a reconvening that reflects on past success and sets new goals for the year ahead.

2. Link Physical and Mental Health

We know from research that the most effective SEL programs are those that are sequenced, active, focused, and explicit. The same is true for effective health and nutrition education. When we provide a common language and active ways to practice desired behaviors, outcomes improve significantly.

One program designed to provide schools with a road map for coordinating physical and mental health initiatives is CATCH (Coordinated Approach to Child Health), where I oversee program and product development. We use a common language related to a Mind-Heart-Body framework that helps adults and students think holistically about the interconnectedness of physical and mental health.

By providing anchor activities that prompt everyone to frequently reflect on their mind, heart, and body in a way that develops self-awareness, self-management, communication skills, empathy, and healthy decision-making, schools are able to connect core academics with SEL, physical education, and health.

For preschool, this might be associating healthy foods with positive emojis. At the elementary level, it might be a check-in where students think about their energy level (high, medium, low) and how food choices and physical activity affect it. Starting in middle school, students can benefit from explicit lessons on mental health and how nutrition and physical activity can impact brain development and overall well-being.

Beyond a common language, an environment that supports whole-child wellness should be something that everyone in the school can see, hear, understand, and participate in. Adult role modeling is essential. For example, a teacher who chooses to take the stairs instead of the elevator can talk to students about why they're making that choice. In addition to describing the health benefits of the stairs, they can also discuss how it takes self-discipline to make that choice.

Later, when they're encouraging students to perform a difficult activity (academic, physical, social, or otherwise), they can refer back to their own choice about the stairs as an example of an option that isn't easy but always makes them feel better about themselves in the long run.

3. Integrate SEL With Physical Activities and Health Education

Active SEL strategies help students not just talk about social and emotional learning topics but also physically embody ideas and skills. Embodied learning puts thoughts and ideas into our muscle memory, like riding a bicycle. This is one of the reasons that research supports yoga activities as an effective way of developing self-awareness, focus, and mindfulness.

Physical activity can be an excellent anchor for your SEL initiative, as it helps students develop their physical and mental health simultaneously. SEL is at the core of standards 4 and 5 of SHAPE America's national standards for health and physical education. These standards center on helping students develop the skills and mindsets to build strong and meaningful relationships while increasing confidence and self-efficacy.

The key is to help students see the connection between physical/health education activities and their overall happiness and success in school. We can best accomplish this by reinforcing and supporting the values of whole-child wellness in every aspect of the school day. As Valerie Gonzalez says, "It takes an entire team of educators, administrators, counselors, librarians, even custodians, to build a school culture that is authentically focused on the whole child."

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When it comes to grades, behavior, attendance, concentration, and memory, the nutrition and fitness levels of students are inextricably linked to positive academic outcomes. Mental health supports are also important, yet schools tend to compartmentalize health and physical education from mental health supports and social and emotional learning (SEL).

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The stress of the pandemic has impacted students and teachers alike, but taking a healing-centered approach in your classroom can help.

To learn more about the sources cited in this video, please see the following:

Children's Mental Health Is in Crisis, by Ashley Abramson for American Psychological Association, 2022

The U.S. Surgeon General's Advisory Protecting Youth Mental Health, 2021

Educating the Whole Child: Improving School Climate to Support Student Success, by Linda Darling-Hammond and Channa Cook-Harvey, 2018

Not-so Random Acts of Kindness: A Guide to Intentional Kindness in the Classroom, by John-Tyler Binfet, 2015

Effects of Physical Exercise on Cognitive Functioning and Wellbeing: Biological and Psychological Benefits, by Laura Mandolesi et al., 2018

Emotion-Related Self-Regulation in Children, by Nancy Eisenberg and Michael J. Sulik, 2012

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How to Make Your Classroom a Healing Place

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The stress of the pandemic has impacted students and teachers alike, but taking a healing-centered approach in your classroom can help. To learn more about the sources cited in this video, please see the following: Children's Mental Health Is in Crisis, by Ashley Abramson for American Psychological Association, 2022 The U.S.

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activating the brain with movement breaks 

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activating the brain with movement breaks 

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Research has shown that short movement breaks help students get focused, improving both skill-building and knowledge retention.

January 14, 2019

This video is part of our How Learning Happens series, which explores teaching practices grounded in the science of learning and human development.

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Activating the Brain With Movement Breaks

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Research has shown that short movement breaks help students get focused, improving both skill-building and knowledge retention.