Page 7 - 101 SEL Activities

Introduction:
In the same way we teach any skill to our children, this activity book is designed to encourage and assist you to teach social emotional skills in an intentional way in your home. Social emotional learning (SEL) involves integrating these eight skills in order to gain effective management of our emotions, including using them to build healthy relationships with others. In the following guide I will link activities to specific SEL skills, although there are benefits to the activities beyond just the ones I mention. For the sake of being concise, I will link the activity to one main SEL skill.
Listed below are the eight skills we will focus on:
Emotional regulation Self-talk Resiliency/grit Empathy
Assertive communication Accountability
Internal validation Gratitude
Without a healthy understanding of these fundamental skills we remain vulnerable to struggle and limit our potential for growth. Getting an early start on skill building as a child has implications for one’s entire life. Here’s an example: An extremely smart person loses a chance at a promotion because he/she is unable to deal with adversity or is unable to handle constructive criticism. If this person had built a strong social emotional skill set as a child, the outcome may have been more favorable.
Throughout my years as a therapist I have found that providing activities for families and their children
beyond our sessions is helpful. As a result, I’ve created this list of SEL activities, some more involved
than others. Some of the “activities” are less activities and more parenting approaches to be woven into
your repertoire. This is intentional because, if possible, we don’t want to be putting more on your
already busy agenda. This guide is less about “doing more” and more about tweaking what you are
already doing. I hope that some of these activities will become part of your everyday life, further
strengthening your child’s SEL skills.
As you proceed, try to avoid over achieving- a little bit goes a long way! Knowing that repetition is key,
start with finding a few that you can easily weave in to your every day life. That would be a great
achievement. In my home we repeat the same 3 to 5 skills on a regular basis. As my children grow, so
do the activities we engage in. Many of these activities can be modified for a variety of age ranges.
Although repetition matters, remember to emphasize quality over quantity. I would rather you spend 3 minutes on a quality activity than 30 minutes on a grueling one. Additionally, as you approach any of these, feel free to be flexible and go with changes as they occur. The main idea is to consider what you are teaching—how you teach it is less important. Feel free to adapt and morph these activities to make them your own. Your child/ren will likely have the best ideas on how to modify these skills. Empower them to do so and have fun with it!
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