Uncertain. Unsettled. Worried. Afraid. Frustrated. Unnerved. Enraged. These are the emotion words that I keep hearing these days from colleagues, friends, and family members and, unfortunately, children. I’ve heard a lot of comparisons to how people felt in the early days of COVID when there was so much uncertainty.  

A big part of social emotional learning (SEL) is helping children and youth begin to label their emotions – to try to go beyond the big three (happy, sad, mad) to more a more nuanced understanding of what they are feeling. And then teaching them strategies to navigate those emotions and identify action steps to manage them when they are bigger than the child is comfortable with. Yet for adults, it is often scary to identify what we are feeling. Many of us prefer to avoid big emotions, or to reserve them for when we are alone or with close loved ones. But we can’t do that right now – our emotions, whatever they might be, are close to the surface. They show up during tense budget meetings, in interactions with colleagues whose opinions don’t match ours, in conversations about what we can and can’t say in the classroom, and in our interactions with the children we parent and teach.  

What I keep trying to remember is that, as we navigate the coming months, our children are watching us, looking for signals of how to feel, how to manage stress and anxiety, and how to treat each other. It is time for us to pull out every social emotional skill we have –  to put our self-awareness to the test, really examining what we are feeling and how it is affecting our behavior. To use our social awareness to think about what others might be feeling and experiencing. To use that self and social awareness collectively to help us navigate our relationships and make caring and ethical decisions about how we treat other people. It might look like sending someone a quick note after a tense interaction to let them know you are sorry for losing your temper. It could include taking two deep breaths before you respond to a student who is frustrating you because they might be worried too. It might involve reaching out to 3 parents each day to let them know something great about their kid to shine a light on the positive. Or it might be as simple as telling the children you work with that you are feeling uncertain too and that you are there if they want to talk about it.  

SEL may not solve all the problems immediately. It doesn’t make people get along or eliminate anxiety or cure bias. But it does create opportunity. It equips children, youth and adults with skills to navigate their worlds and the people in them. And it just might help us create the kind of community we truly want – one where we can have difficult conversations respectfully, co-exist in difference, ALL feel we truly belong, and where children still feel hope instead of fear about their future.  

 –Elizabeth Devaney

Director, Whole Child Connection