How Social-Emotional Learning Classes at School Helps Children to Reconnect With Their Parents

Inez Lozano, a contributor to Parents, said that it could be too easy to dismiss kids, especially when they talk about what they think is important-things that parents might consider unimportant compared to adult difficulties such as jobs, bills, and life. To adults, young ones' concerns might appear as just kids' problems that they won't even bother discussing.

Inez encountered such problems as she was more focused on herself and had many things to do than giving all her time to her children. She once remembered yelling at her child when she called her over from the other room just to yell out what she wanted so she won't have to go over to her room and thinks: "If I get up and she shows me another Dhar Mann video, I'm going to lose it." She remembers it as a day full of workloads, and she was juggling house chores.

Her child gave up as she could not only hear the disinterest in her mother's tone but felt it. When she heard her child saying "never mind," it was enough to move her both emotionally and physically. She thinks she instantly loses her connection and communication with her daughter.

One mom risked the loss of communication with her kid

That day, she went straight to her daughter's room, realizing that she had almost risked her connection with her child. When she got into the room, her daughter showed her a text message from a fellow student asking her to be his girlfriend. She asked herself if is this a grand revelation but soon realized it was not, but it laid the foundation for an open line of communication between the world of parents and a tween's world. Lozano knew her daughter went from feeling dismissed to feeling seen.

Her daughter kept on opening things up with her and came up with topics they tackled in the Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) class at school. SEL Class may appear a political battlefield for many, but for the mom, she was thankful that it's one of her child's subjects as it helped her find the right words to describe what was happening inside.

The young woman could unpack feelings of low self-esteem and anxiety with the help of the mentioned class. The mother observed that her child continues to love her SEL class as it provides her continued reinforcement they need to support efforts.

According to National University, supporting the mother's claim, SEL helps students become more productive, better, self-aware, and socially-aware citizens even outside of the classroom in the years ahead.

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is a process and its important

According to research, SEL improves achievement by an average of 11 percentile points and expands prosocial behaviors, including kindness, sharing, and empathy. Furthermore, it also enhances children's attitudes toward learning and reduces mental health issues that may include stress among students.

For SEL class to be effective, it has to involve coordinated classroom, schoolwide, family, and community practices that will surely help students to develop essential skills, Edutopia says.