School Journal | Log 6 | Social & Emotional Skills(Before School)

In log 1 I had listed out 7 key skills that children seem to pick up during their first 5–6 years. In log 2, log 3, log 4 and log 5 I covered how they seem to develop motor skills, language skills, cognitive skills and creativity & imagination. Now I shall attempt to understand a very human side of learning, social and emotional skills, as it is developed in children during the first 5–6 years of their life.

Once again, I started with a generic question, “how do children develop social and emotional skills”. And as usual the AI generated answer provided a useful starting point.

Many of the actions that promote social and emotional development seem a little repetitive. But this provides me with a starting point from which I can create a sort of overall structure of dimensions which help develop social and emotional skills. On the one hand, a lot of the dimensions look like simply allowing children to practice their social and emotional skills until they become adept. That isn’t far from the answer which seems to be emerging, but there is a little more nuance that I see.

• Exposure — It is probably useful for children to see other people socialising. This includes adults interacting with each other, and other children. It is probably most useful to witness children only slightly older socialising (as is the case with many skills). Exposure also includes exposure to a loving and nurturing environment created by parents and other caregivers.
• Variation in setting and context — Desirable social behaviour and emotional skill is hardly something that we could define, even if we tried to list it out in the form of rules. But given the opportunity to see enough different permutations of group size, context, role etc, one can infer what the expected norms are in most situations. Similarly, providing children with gradual access to a variety of different social settings is likely to be useful.
• Feedback — As with any learning process, the learning happens through trial and feedback. Feedback probably doesn’t have to always be direct. It could come in the form of instruction, observation, reward and punishment just to name a few. It is important for there to be consistency in feedback. While different scenarios warrant different reactions, if they aren’t consistent, it could confuse the learning process.
• Opportunity to practice — While the first few dimensions will likely offer plenty of opportunity for practice, it is important to state this explicitly. It is important to ensure that children aren’t left only as observers, but are encouraged to talk and interact with others as well as to express and process their feelings. Only by engaging in these activities themselves will they be able to tie it together with their learning from observation and feedback.

I of course followed a few interesting links from the google search. In particular the following 4 links together answered a wide range of questions about social and emotional skills:

• Very well mind .com article
• Pathways .org article
• Help me grow mn.org article
• Virtual lab school .org article

Some of the interesting questions which these articles help answer are below.

What is social and emotional development?

Social and emotional development seems to include the process through which children start to understand who they are, what they are feeling and what to expect when interacting with others. It therefore involves the process of developing the skills to:

• Form and sustain positive relationships
• Experience, manage and express emotions
• Explore and engage with the environment

What are the benefits of social and emotional skills?

The benefits are probably many and intricately linked with other skills developed at this stage of life and later. However, some of the thematic benefits which are called out frequently include:

• Developing confidence in oneself and resilience
• Having a positive attitude
• Ability to self regulate and maintain discipline
• Empathy for others
• Maintaining positive social relationships
• Responsible and effective decision making

What are some key experiences in building social and emotional skills?

Social and emotional skill development may saturate a little with age, but always continues. Thus, there’s a huge range of experiences which help us develop these skills. However, at a very young age, it is possible to point out to a few types of experiences which shape our social and emotional development to a great extent.

• Overcoming fears
• Temper tantrums — and how they are dealt with
• Learning to share
• Playing with others
• Paying attention and following instructions
• Interacting outside of close family members

What specific skills are developed as a part of social and emotional development?

There are a lot of rather specific and important skills which are mentioned across different articles. However, I quite liked a framework which expressed a sort of hierarchy of 5 dimensions of skills which are relevant here. Each of these of course includes a much wider range of specific skills.

1. Self awareness
2. Self management
3. Social awareness
4. Relationship skills
5. Responsible decision making

What are some key social emotional milestones?

Once again there is a sort of useful guide of what milestones one could expect children to reach at what age. In this context however, I couldn’t find multiple sources to corroborate across. So, I am simply pasting the useful graphic from the pathways .org article.

This time, whether I realise it or not, I will inevitably continue to refine and develop my social and emotional skills. However, at my age, it probably won’t be directly through any of the methods mentioned above. And with that, I shall now move on to understand the breakdown of the next few skills which children pick up before attending school.