Teaching Emotional Intelligence to Children: Part 1

Today we’re feeling our feelings, kiddos! Social-emotional learning (SEL) is one of the most important parts of early childhood education, in the classroom and at home.  

If we formally incorporate SEL into lessons for toddlers, preschoolers, kindergarteners, and in early elementary, we equip children with the resources to handle social-emotional challenges - and save them lots of frustration (and potentially lots of money in therapy) later on in life.

In the next few weeks, we will delve further into different elements of teaching emotional intelligence to young children, such as vocabulary, games, and tips for parents and caregivers. Today, the bee in my bonnet is the importance of building social-emotional learning into the curriculum. (See below for a free printable version of the worksheets and ideas for using them.)

Social skills, and emotional intelligence, are vital for getting a job, forming and maintaining friendships, finding a spouse, just about any human interaction. And tens of thousands of teachers incorporate this learning more formally into their class. Yet somehow many larger-scale curricula still seem to view social-emotional learning as a side benefit of being in a classroom, and spending time around other children. And that’s part of it! But that’s not all of it. ​

We encourage children to spend time with books, but we don’t expect them to read any words out loud until we’ve taught them letter sounds and phonemes.
​Why treat social-emotional literacy any differently?

Without the understanding, self-awareness, and vocabulary, it’s not fair to expect children to magically be able to independently resolve conflicts, identify and work through their emotions, empathize with and help others, and solve stressful problems. We take the time to teach them calculus, but not how to communicate in a healthy way with another. More schools are implementing programs which address these issues, but we as an educational system have a long way to go.

Doesn’t it feel like an achievement every time one of your kids expresses their emotions clearly? Jesse says “I’m mad” instead of throwing the toy cup. Victory! Ali says “I’m upset” instead of making that mysterious high-pitched whining sound. Success!

​To ensure these victories happens as often as possible, children deserve to get the same level of instructional scaffolding and preparation for handling social-emotional challenges, as they are given for handling any other academic or physical challenges.

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Download a free copy of the faces worksheets above without logo:

How Do I Feel Bitty City Players Printable.pdf
File Size:	2367 kb
File Type:	pdf

Download File

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Some ways to use this printable: 

• Tape up the pages in the dramatic play area for reference during play
• Pin up the pages in a "problem-solving corner"
• Cut out the images (laminate first if you wish) and let a small group of children (1-4) lay out the images on a table or rug and try to match together the images of similar emotions. 
• Now try to sort the images into pairs of opposites
• How else can you sort them?

Bring a Bitty City Players SEL workshop to your school! Contact us here

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