Page 30 - 101 SEL Activities

Inner Critic (7+)
Time: 5-10minutes
Purpose: This activity helps your child learn to identify unhelpful self-talk and work to be kinder to themselves.
Instructions: Help your child learn how to identify when their inner critic comes out. Ask your child to draw a picture of what their inner critic looks like. Search the Internet, if needed, to find an image to print out. Once you have a picture of the critic, name it with something your child will identify with. Whenever you hear the inner critic come out, identify it and find a way to squash it (the inner cheerleader can be helpful in this area).
If your child struggles with unhelpful self-talk (perfectionistic tendencies, lacking confidence, etc.) help come up with numerous ways to “fight” or squash their inner critic.
Fake News (7+)
Time: 5-10minutes
Purpose: This activity can help your child identify unhelpful thinking patterns and open themselves up to alternative ways to look at situations.
Instructions: When your child is telling you a story with an unhelpful or disempowering narrative let them finish and listen. Once they are done, validate their feelings. Then work with them to identify exaggerated, overly negative, unhelpful aspects of the story. Define these as “fake news.” Have them work to identify fake news when it comes up in their thinking or narratives.
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