Recently, 20 national organizations announced that they had formed a group called Leading With SEL to offer “research-based information on social and emotional learning and help broaden awareness of the benefits of supporting the social, emotional, and academic development of all children.”
EQuip Our Kids! is a member of Leading with SEL.
Though dissenters would have you believe otherwise, SEL has strong support among a variety of groups and across party lines. As evidenced by several studies, educators, principals, parents, young people and employers see the value that SEL brings to students.
City leaders feel a special responsibility to nurture their communities, so times like these are especially hard. Constituents tend to look to elected officials for answers and to provide leadership for the community.
It’s easy and understandable to wonder what real steps can be taken to bring some happiness and well-being back into the world.
The US has averaged a school shooting every month of every school year for the past 20+ years (see list). We’ll soon be starting on our second generation of students raised on active shooter drills and bullet-proof backpacks.
Clearly, public awareness and legislation are not the complete answer.
What more can communities do to reduce or eliminate school shootings?
In 2018, GOP politicians promoted social and emotional education as a tool to stop mass shootings. Now some conservative activists are arguing those programs are not a solution to school violence, but a cause.
“It’s sort of ironic that these groups are throwing social emotional learning under the bus when these are the very things that our kids need now, and they need them now more than ever before,” said Donna Lord Black, who leads the Social Emotional Learning Alliance for Texas, a nonpartisan group that advocates for these programs in schools.
Emotional Intelligence is completely learnable. It’s a mindset. It can be transformed.
Find this podcast on Audible or wherever you get your podcast.
Kids that have a trusted adult, that are taught coping skills and social and emotional competence, kids that love and accept themselves, are not going to want to hurt themselves or others.
Fostering those relationships and skills makes common sense and is also backed up by decades of research.
To build the more human workforce of the future, we need to start teaching all kids Emotional Intelligence skills right now. Emotional Intelligence is often call EQ. It’s like IQ for your heart.
A workforce that is curious, empathetic, imaginative, motivated, and purposeful doesn’t start with someone’s first day on the job. It starts in schools and families and communities. Businesses need to get behind this effort in a big way, or else they’ll be way behind the curve very quickly.
Social and emotional learning (SEL) is a longstanding educational concept aimed at teaching children skills like managing stress, treating others with respect and empathy, working cooperatively, and recognizing emotions.
But even as some educators have turned to social-emotional learning as a tool to help students navigate the loss and disruption brought about by the pandemic, conservative groups and lawmakers who have sought to restrict how race and gender are discussed in school have also turned their attention to SEL, arguing that it too can be a vector for discussions about identity and equity.
Reframe interactions as opportunities.
Each interaction with your child is an opportunity to deepen your caring connection. It can also be an opportunity for you to build a social and emotional skill in your child and in yourself if you view it in that way. Instead of being annoyed by your attention being pulled away from work to your child, you can see the chance for investment in their development.
Subscribe to our weekly email to receive fresh tips about how to boost your child’s EQ life skills. It’s free, fun, and easy!
EQuip Our Kids! is a national nonprofit campaign raising awareness about EQ life skills, especially among parents and businesses. Our goal is comprehensive EQ life skills instruction in every preK -12 classroom in the US by 2030.
