Socio Emotional Well Being

It is the ability to express emotions, understand how others feel and be able to function well in the society. Socio emotional development follows a sequence. It is influenced by environmental, genetic and life experiences. A child raised in a safe and nurturing environment can handle stress later in life better. But a child exposed to stress and traumatic experiences, early in life may suffer from consequences in the future.

Healthy socio emotional development ensures adequate development across all other domains of a child’s development.

An important 21st century skill is socio emotional wellbeing. It becomes difficult to function if we don’t understand our own emotions and others, managing them at times of crisis/exhilaration. When we can’t problem solve, we can’t have healthy relationships.

Thus for long term success we adults should groom our kids well and be a good role model for them to emulate. For eg teaching basic emotions- happy, angry and sad. How to express these emotions properly (self management). Use everyday interactions as teachable moments (like how we express, when we are angry ourselves).

We need to validate the kid’s feelings, use correct words to describe the feeling and act appropriately (such that we respect others feelings and also express ourselves).

NIMHANS Bangalore also has a beautiful manual for promoting socio emotional development for pre-schoolers.

https://www.kimochisway.com/free-resources-early-childhood/free-resources-early-childhood-challenging-behavior/

Our research on socio emotional learning among pre-schoolers using the Kimochi tools was also published in the prestigious journal of Indian Paediatrics. Our study showed that even a small session of socio emotional learning can be beneficial. It was successful thanks to the efforts of the school and parents as well.

It’s important to teach your child to handle conflict especially in the current stressful times. Children are exposed to stress or conflicts when they are teased or they end up fighting with other kids when they are angry.

We need to use these teachable moments to help them understand that we all get angry. That time this powerful feeling of anger makes us sweat, breathe heavily and our heart beats fast but this powerful feeling doesn’t last long.

At this point of time they should be taught to stay calm, not to hit or break things but to use words to label their feelings.

For this they should understand the feeling of anger and learn to stay calm. Staying calm can be breathing, counting, listening to music etc and thinking of ways to fix the problem- not fighting but explaining themselves better.

American Academy of Paediatrics (heathychildren.org) best describes it as- teach your child the acronym ACT CALM, to cope with conflict-

A- Acknowledge.

C- Calm down.

T- Think and talk.

C- Calm down.

A- Avoid name calling.

L- Listen calmly and ask what they really want.

Move on-ways to solve problem.

Sometimes for children with developmental concerns (autism , ADHD ), we need to explicitly teach the social skills. Some of the research based tools include-

1. The Incredible 5 point scale- Developed by Kari Dunn Buron (M.S Autism Education specialist), it is a teaching tool that breaks socio emotional components such as how to stay calm, manage anger etc into 5 parts. It was created to help children with autism understand the subtle concepts of behaviour and emotions by making things visual.

When things are available to see to them, it makes them express themselves better and react better when they experience anxiety and stress.

This incredible tool can be used for all kids likewise. www.5pointscale.com is free and downloadable. Their social times and blogs extremely useful.

2. Social stories- Developed by Carol Gray. It is collection of stories about the social situations for children with autism. Why and where, what others feel and how they will react.

Can also be helpful for other developmental challenges - social skills deficits, teaching self help skills and temper tantrums.

Parents can develop their own stories by using pictures, audio, text and video. Check www.thegraycenter.org to write about the social story. Also check the big book of social stories.

Book of social stories by Carol Grey is available on amazon kindle.

Others include

www.socialthinking.com by Michelle Gracias Winner.

Zones of regulation by Lhea Kuypers.