Why Do Social and Emotional Literacy Matter?
Children’s social and emotional well-being is a very important factor for their development. Children who have good social and emotional learning are often healthy mentally. They also tend to be happier, show interest in attending school, learning, and take part in extracurricular activities.
Whereas children with unsteady social and emotional health are likely to lack behind in all those things. They tend to have lower self-esteem and some might suffer from an inferiority complex as well.
So, the growth of a child’s social, emotional health, and physical health is as important. It helps them to grow, learn, develop and live a fulfilling life.
It is very important to develop a critical mindset within children so that they can deal with harmful information provided online. Especially in this online world, where a child spends most of their time online. It helps the children to tackle all the cons that come with the internet.
How to Develop Your Child’s Social and Emotional Literacy?
Teach Boundaries From a Small Age
As the kids grow older, the range of contents they watch, their exposure to social networks will expand drastically. Therefore, to save them from the adverse effect of the internet, it is better to set the boundaries before they are in actual need of them.
It is very important to teach them their limits on the web world. The best way to not get in any trouble in the internet world is by accessing it as little as possible. Kids of this generation need to understand that there is a world beyond the internet.
Guide Your Children to Make Informed Choices
Before your kids enter the world of the web, make sure you share a healthy and friendly relation with your child. So, whenever anything goes wrong you’re the first person they come to. Make sure that they come to you before making any decisions or before discussing their problems with anyone else.
Communicate At Home
Communication is the main tool for solving problems, whether it is at home or the workplace. In every household, parents should communicate with their kids about the positive and adverse sides of the internet.
In the online world, talking to strangers, making new friends should not be taboo. Healthy discussions and open debates must be encouraged in every house.
The parents must teach them how to deal with emotional and critical situations that they may face in real work or the virtual world. Build your children’s trust so that they can share anything without the fear of judgment.
Use Parental Control Apps
Every child is different from the other, even twins can have different personalities and points of view. They take their own time to develop their social and emotional skills. Hence, it is very important to limit the apps according to age-appropriate guidelines, here’s where parental control apps come to the rescue.
The child should not be shown things that they’re not mature enough to understand. With parental control apps, the parents can block inappropriate sites which they don’t want their children to access.
As they grow mature and develop social and emotional skills the restrictions can be released. In this way, you can find a balance between independence and security. Some of the best parental control apps that you can use are fenced.ai, Bark, Qustodio, and so on.
Online Materials to Learn From
Guidance Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning
This is a PDF format that provides special tips to the parents about the social and emotional learning of their children. This includes interactions with the parents, books, and programs they can refer to.
Deals with Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning
This project guides the parents on how to develop relationships with their children. It also helps the parents to identify their children’s emotions, communicate effectively.
Developing Emotional Intelligence: Techniques to build Inner Strength in Children
Social and emotional learning experts have created a guide to help the children find their peace and manage their emotions.
Parent Effectiveness Training:
This Program is to Raise Responsible Children and it offers lessons and strategies to the parents. It provides the parents with all the handbooks that can be used for the physical and mental development of a child.
Strategies/Tips to Support Social and Emotional Development
Practice What You Preach
Children are very naive and innocent beings, they don’t follow your words or instruction instead they follow your actions. Subconsciously they do whatever they see their parents doing. Therefore it is better not to instruct them what to do, instead, you should set examples for them to see and learn from it.
Before doing anything in front of the children, parents should always remember the impact of their actions.
Respect The Differences
Every child is different and has their own thinking capabilities and perspectives. Be it in academics, athletics, or any other field don’t compare them to other kids. Try to encourage them to do what they love to do and congratulate them for any of their achievement either big or small.
Listen To Your Kids
Often due to the busy schedule of parents, they don’t have time to know what their children are dealing with. Many times parents may say let me later on and ignore their kids’ problems, which can dishearten kids.
You as a parent should take at least an hour to spend with your kids to communicate with them know their problems. You should try to understand your child’s point of view and accept where they’re coming from.
Listen to their smallest of things, treat them as your friend, and then only they’ll be able to reciprocate it back.
Benefits of Building a Child’s Social and Emotional Literacy
In this 21st century, it is very important to build social and emotional knowledge among kids. The learning process must start from a very young age. Here, are some of the benefits of building a child’s social and emotional literacy at a young age:
- Helps the children in the healthy development of their brain from a small age.
- It also helps them to succeed academically.
- Early teachings can save them from getting into any trouble later on in the future.
- If they face any kind of problems in the future, then they’ll be able to face them with resilience.
- Since they’re children, they can be molded as per the desire of the parents.
Conclusion:
The first step to build children’s social and emotional literacy is by establishing a healthy bond between a parent and a child. Thanks to the internet, there are so many sites, PDFs, programs that help parents to understand their children better.
In this internet-dominated world, it is crucial to make your children resilient. They must be able to deal with any situations without showing vulnerabilities.
