What SEL Looks Like in Our Schools

Today, many of our schools utilize evidence-based programs that focus on teaching specific competencies. These programs, which are often integrated into morning meetings, counseling sessions, or even academic subjects, focus on five core areas. These are defined by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL):

1. Self-Awareness: Identifying one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values.
2. Self-Management: Regulating one’s emotions, thoughts, and behaviors effectively in different situations (e.g., managing stress, self-motivation).
3. Social Awareness: Taking the perspective of and empathizing with others.
4. Relationship Skills: Establishing and maintaining healthy and rewarding relationships (e.g., communicating clearly, resolving conflict).
5. Responsible Decision-Making: Making constructive choices about behavior and social interactions.

These structured programs are essential for teaching children the explicit skills they need to navigate school and peer relationships. They are designed to support all students and provide critical intervention for those who are struggling.

But here is the truth that often goes unsaid: This is often an intervention that starts years too late.

We need to stop asking schools to re-wire behavior that was already cemented in the foundational years. The most powerful SEL curriculum a child will ever receive isn’t in a classroom; it’s in the co-regulation of their home environment.

The Myth of Self-Soothing: Why Child Emotional Regulation Starts with the Parent 🧠

For decades, many parents were encouraged to “let babies self-soothe.” We now know this concept is a biological impossibility for a young child.

A baby’s pre-frontal cortex—the part of the brain responsible for self-control and emotional management—is highly immature. They are born requiring an external regulator to help them manage stress. That external regulator is you.

This scientific concept is called co-regulation. When your child is distressed, they are sending out a nervous system alarm. If you respond from a place of calm, your regulated state literally helps sync their nervous system back to a quiet, safe baseline. You are teaching their brain, through repeated experience, how to calm down.

When we react to a child’s meltdown with our own uncontrolled frustration or anger (i.e., parental dysregulation), we are not teaching regulation. Instead, we are modeling and transmitting escalation. Research consistently links high parental stress and non-adaptive emotion regulation with higher rates of social, behavioral, and mental health issues in youth.

The Prenatal SEL Curriculum: It Starts with the Parent 🧘

If co-regulation is the lesson, then the prerequisite must be the parent’s own self-regulation for child SEL. This is why our focus needs to shift, starting before a child is even born:

💡 Parental Self-Awareness: Identifying the Real Emotion

Before we teach a child to recognize their “big feelings,” we need to teach parents to recognize theirs. This means identifying internal stress cues—the tight jaw, the hot chest, the impulse to yell—before they erupt into a reaction. Crucially, this training must help parents understand that anger is very often a symptom of suppressing another, more vulnerable emotion, such as fear, overwhelm, inadequacy, or grief. If a parent can recognize that their rising anger is actually a mask for deep anxiety about being a “good parent,” they can address the true need instead of reacting punitively.

🎯 The Circle of Control

Prenatal and early-parenting training needs to equip adults with strategies like understanding what they can and cannot control. You can control your response and your effort. However, you cannot control the duration of a tantrum or a baby’s need to cry. Reducing this anxiety is foundational self-care.

⚓ The Calming Anchor

Every parent needs a rapid, go-to self-regulation strategy, like Square Breathing or a quick grounding exercise. This allows a parent to down-regulate their own system in seconds. Thus, they can approach their child with calm instead of conflict.

🚶 When to Walk Away: The Ultimate Self-Regulation Skill

All of these skills culminate in the powerful knowledge of when walking away is the kindest, safest response. If you cannot find your calming anchor, the most responsible action is to temporarily exit the situation. This means placing your child in a safe space (like a crib or playpen) and giving yourself a few moments, or even a minute, to calm down completely—even mommies need time-outs!

Taking a break is firmly identified as responsible, proactive parenting—not neglect or “giving up.” Walking away when you are dysregulated prevents you from passing on that distress or reacting in a way you will regret. By doing this, you model the highest level of self-control for your child.

We must recognize that a parent who is emotionally supported and regulated is the most effective preventative measure against future maladaptive behavior. The early investment in parental self-regulation for child SEL is far more cost-effective than the long-term societal cost of special education, behavioral intervention, and juvenile justice.

📢 An Urgent Call to Action: Advocate for prenatal SEL

We are asking parents to teach a skill they were often never taught. This is not about blame; it is about providing the missing instruction manual. Parental self-regulation is the prerequisite for child SEL.

I am asking you, my fellow SLPs, educators, and concerned parents, to use your voice to advocate for this foundational shift.

The Ask: Contact your State Representatives and State Department of Health officials to urge them to mandate and fund the inclusion of an evidence-based Parental Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation Module as a standard component of all state-funded prenatal and early postnatal care programs.

We are not asking for a new program; we are asking for essential SEL skills to be taught at the right time, to the right person.

Here is a template email you can adapt and send to your elected officials today. Let’s make parental self-regulation a public health imperative.

Subject: Urgent: Fund Foundational Parental Self-Regulation Training for Child Health & Preventative Care

Dear [Representative/Senator/Official Name, or State Department of Health Leadership],

I am writing to you today as [Your Title/Profession: e.g., a School-Based Speech-Language Pathologist and concerned resident of District X]. My work with children in schools across [Your County/Region] consistently reveals that the most effective interventions for social, emotional, and behavioral challenges begin not in the classroom, but with the parent.

The Foundational Challenge: Current efforts in school-based Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) are essential but often start too late. The true foundation for a child’s ability to self-regulate is built through co-regulation—the consistent, calm response of a regulated adult. When parents lack the skills to manage their own stress and emotional triggers, they are inadvertently modeling and transmitting dysregulation to their children, leading to long-term issues.

The Preventative Solution: I urge you to mandate and fund the inclusion of an evidence-based Parental Self-Regulation and Co-Regulation Module as a standard, reimbursable component of all state-funded prenatal and early postnatal care programs.

This funding is not for generic parenting classes. It is an investment in specific, psychoeducational training that teaches parents:

1. Self-Awareness: How to recognize their own internal stress cues (e.g., anxiety, overwhelm) before they escalate into frustration or anger.
2. Calming Anchors: Rapid self-regulation techniques (like deep breathing or grounding) to stabilize their nervous system under pressure.
3. Proactive Parenting: The necessary skill of safely walking away to self-calm when feeling dysregulated, which models the highest level of emotional control for the child.

Cost-Effectiveness: Investing in parental self-regulation is the most powerful preventative measure available. Research consistently shows that early family interventions are dramatically more cost-effective than later remediation efforts (such as special education services, extensive behavioral interventions, or juvenile justice system involvement).

I ask that you prioritize this foundational SEL training. By supporting the mental and emotional health of parents, we are proactively building resilient children and stronger communities.

Thank you for your time and commitment to the health of our state’s families.

Sincerely,

[Your Name] [Your City/Town] [Your Contact Email or Phone Number]

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In the realm of speech-language therapy, engaging clients in meaningful activities that foster communication skills is paramount. However, maintaining motivation and enthusiasm throughout therapy sessions can sometimes be challenging. By infusing elements of play and competition into therapy activities, gamification not only makes learning more enjoyable but also enhances participation and accelerates progress. 

This is where gamification comes in as a powerful tool, a new term for something that most therapists have been using for decades.  Just about every pediatric therapist uses games like Bingo, “Feed the Monster”, and various board games to help motivate students.  But let’s really delve into how gamification can transform speech-language therapy into a dynamic and effective journey towards improved communication skills.

Goal of the Game

Before diving into gamification strategies, it’s crucial to establish the goal of the game in the therapy session.  Are we wanting to use the games to simply keep the student(s) motivated and engaged during the session, as a reward at the end of the session, or to help them take responsibility for their learning by tracking their correct vs their incorrect answers?  

Motivation and Engagement

For many of our kids, the games are simply a way to keep them motivated and engaged. These may be a range of various board games or free online games like four-in-a-row or snakes and ladders. These can be found at various websites such as calculators.org or coolmathgames.com. abcya.com is a favorite for younger games like making a cookie (following directions or using adjectives) or saving chicks (following/using positional words).

There are some modestly priced subscription sites as well, such as pinkcatgames.com, or ultimateslp.com. These are nice because the speech and language stimulus materials are integrated with the games.  You can make your own Jeopardy style game on Bamboozle for just about any subject (check out my growing collection), or use one of the many pre-made ones.  Educaplay also has many styles of games under the free tier that you can make or search for.  Genially is another platform that has many free game and lesson templates and is FERPA compliant.  Even simple push-button buzzers that kids can use when they know the answer makes question and answer activities more “gamey”.

Self-monitoring or effort

However, some students do really well with a bit more of a “push” in which they are given both positive and negative points (or teacher gets points).  Jeopardy-style, tally score, or scoreboards might be best for these students.  These work amazingly for those kids who are working on self-monitoring skills, or who are not giving thoughtful answers.

Additional Benefits

The beauty of gamification lies in its versatility. You can create a custom folder game based on student interests, if you are working in-person, or you can find free games online easily.  Open-ended games such as snakes and ladders can be used with mixed groups and create friendly competition.

Gamification can also promote collaboration and healthy competition among students. Group activities such as word games, role-playing scenarios, or collaborative storytelling encourage peer interaction and communication exchanges. Additionally, friendly competitions, whether in the form of timed challenges or team-based quizzes, inject an element of excitement and camaraderie into therapy sessions, and great opportunities for practice of social skills.

Gamification holds immense potential to make learning enjoyable, engaging, and effective.

Happy playing!

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Motivators

Just like our younger clients, older students love a good reward at the end of a challenging session. The beauty? They’re experts at navigating YouTube, so they can easily cue up their favorite vids. But wait, there’s more! I love introducing them to some lesser-known gems that pack a powerful punch:

Flexible thinking and how the mind learns new things:

Backwards bicycle: this was mind-blowing to watch!

How mistakes are okay and help you learn:

OK Go Rube Goldberg Machine (I talk about how you can see the evidence of how many previous tries – 85 to be exact – they had to get it right, but how awesome it was when they got it right.  BTW, the song itself has a great message of how bad things are only temporary.) It’s also useful to see the TEDTalk on how it was engineered. (Caution, the TEDTalk has one minor cuss word and the band is having a drink of champagne at the end.)  If you don’t know what a Rube Goldberg machine is, it is a YouTube rabbit hole.  I warned you.

The Power of a Stutter

A TedTalk on how accepting your insecurities and even embracing them allows us to become better communicators.  How it frees us from worrying about hiding them to think about how we can speak to and help others. (BTW, she has a very noticeable stutter so this is an excellent video for your fluency students.)

Teaching Support

How to make sounds

I’m probably not alone when I say that I turn to these when I have a kid I just can’t get to make the sound, especially now that I am wholly teletherapy.  My camera just isn’t as professional as what I can find on YouTube.  The two best sources for sound instruction I’ve found are Sharon Turner, who has a animated video model of the tongue inside the mouth for each sound, and Peachie Speechie, who has great teaching videos for each sound.  But there are many, many options to choose from.

Read-Alouds

I’m using short stories in most of my older groups.  When we first read a story, I want it to be a dramatic, cohesive reading, so I actually don’t want the students to read it.  I want them to listen and be drawn into the story.   But you know, a day of that and my voice gets tired.  Cue YouTube read-alouds!  You can find an audiobook of most popular short stories on YouTube pretty easily.  And bonus – most you can turn on Closed Captioning so students can read-along if you don’t have a text that matches well.  And the students actually love being read to.  If I have a student who needs to read for a goal, then I can stop and have them read a paragraph or so, then return to the read aloud. I have playlists of some of my favorites at http://www.youtube.com/@Mrs.Speech-wk4mr.

Background Knowledge

To go along with the read-alouds, a well-made video to give background knowledge is worth so much more than me droning on about what life in a lighthouse is like.  You know what they say, “A picture is worth a thousand words.”  Well, a video must be worth a million, right?!  And they are so much more willing to watch a video than listen to me (and let’s be honest, it gives my voice a break).

Movies

And if at all possible, I like to find at least a clip of a movie or animation to go with the story.  It provides so many opportunities for language-rich discussion, with opinions (Which did you like better, and why?) comparing and contrasting, and inferencing (Why do you think the director made this change?).

Social Skills

There are SOOOO many social skills videos out there.  Some of them are tailored toward our autistic population, some are more for introverted young adults, and some are for the ESL population.  Don’t just stick to the videos that tell how-to do something.  Sometimes the awkward videos offer great teaching moments too.  This one is one of my favorites.  While I do touch on what he does wrong, I mainly use it to talk about other people’s responses, and how they are generally kind about it and make an effort to not make him feel bad even though everyone feels awkward.  People are typically kind, so you might as well go out there and try.

Pro Tips 

Now, I mentioned in Read-Alouds to turn on the Closed Captioning if you don’t have a text that matches the reading.  It might be useful to do so with the other videos as well, to make the speech/text connection and fill in any missing gaps in the auditory information.  

I also suggest you turn the speed to 75%.  This is usually not noticeable to the kids, but it allows them more time to process what is being said so they get a better understanding of the information.  

I have more tips in my previous post: Unlocking Language Learning with YouTube: A Speech Therapist’s Guide.

Update 12/24

I recently found the free internet browser Brave and have been using it the past couple of weeks.  It was simple to move my Google bookmarks into Brave, and I am using it solely for use with the kids, so it streamlines my therapy sessions too.  I haven’t had a single youtube ad, and I haven’t noticed other ads popping up on websites.  I will say that, while it does block the ad on a website, there is often still the space where the ad would be.  Often, a reader extension like ReadBee will remove those spaces and focus on the text.

So, there you have it, folks! These are just a few ways to leverage the power of YouTube in therapy sessions with older students. But hey, the possibilities are endless! Got some killer ideas of your own? Drop ’em in the comments below!

Until next time, my e-speechies – keep on clickin’!

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Ever wonder why we can teach a child “happy” and “sad,” yet they still struggle with deeper emotional understanding? It might seem simple at first; after all, they’re just feelings, right? But truly understanding and managing emotions involves learning the real language of emotions – a complex inner dialogue we must learn to speak fluently, both within ourselves and with others.

This “emotional language” goes far beyond simply recognizing happy, sad, and angry faces on a chart. It delves into the intricate world of our internal experiences, the thoughts that fuel our feelings, and how we communicate those feelings through more than just our expressions. 

At its core, Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) encompasses skills like understanding our own emotions (self-awareness), managing those emotions effectively (self-management), recognizing the emotions of others (social awareness), building positive relationships, and making responsible decisions. It’s about understanding the subtle cues of body language and tone of voice, and ultimately, about developing a rich vocabulary to navigate our emotional landscape.

So, how do we help children learn this vital language of emotions? It starts by looking beyond the surface and exploring the deeper layers of what it truly means to feel these emotions.

The Internal Landscape: More Than Just a Feeling Word

Think about the last time you felt truly nervous. Did you have to stop and think, “I am nervous”? Probably not. You might have felt butterflies in your stomach, sweaty palms, or a racing heart, and you had already learned the somatic expression (bodily sensations) of the emotion of nervousness. For children to truly grasp their emotions, they need to connect these somatic experiences with the feeling words.

Try this: When your child says they feel [emotion], gently ask, “Where do you feel that in your body?” or “What does that feel like inside?” Encourage them to describe the physical sensations.

The Thought Detective: Uncovering the “Why”

Often, the surface-level situation isn’t the real trigger for an emotion. As we discussed, a child angry about not being invited to play might actually be feeling rejected, fueled by the thought, “They don’t like me.” Helping children become “thought detectives” and develop the language to uncover true feelings is crucial.

• Ask: “What were you thinking when that happened?” or “What story are you telling yourself about why that happened?”
• Challenge unhelpful thoughts: Help them explore if those thoughts are entirely true. Could there be other explanations? (“Maybe they’re playing a game with a limited number of players right now.”)
• Practice reframing: Guide them to replace negative thoughts with more balanced ones. (“I can ask if I can join next time.”)

The Power of Self-Talk: Where Emotional Language Gets Real

Once children can identify their feelings and the thoughts behind them, we can introduce the powerful tool of self-talk. This is the internal dialogue we have with ourselves that can either escalate or soothe our emotions.

• Model positive self-talk: Let your child hear you talking to yourself calmly through a frustrating situation (“This is tricky, but I can take it one step at a time”).
• Brainstorm helpful phrases together: For feeling frustrated: “It’s okay to feel stuck. I can try a different way.” For feeling nervous: “I feel a little worried, but I’ve practiced, and I’ll do my best.”
• Practice using self-talk in low-stakes situations: This helps them build the habit for when big emotions hit.

Beyond the Face: Tuning into the Whole Message

Emotions aren’t just expressed through the face.  Other powerful communicators of feeling include body language (slumped shoulders, crossed arms, open posture) and tone of voice (soft, sharp, shaky).

• Observe and discuss: “I noticed your voice sounded a little sad and your mouth was turned down when you said that. Are you feeling okay?” or “Look at how their body is all hunched over and they aren’t playing. I wonder if they might be feeling lonely.”
• Consider context: Emphasize that the same body language or tone can mean different things in different situations.

Learning Emotional Language in Real Life: The Power of “In-the-Moment” Coaching

Abstract scenarios in workbooks have their place, but the most impactful learning happens within the context of a child’s own life. Trusted adults can act as emotional guides, narrating feelings and thoughts as they occur.

• Make it personal: “I saw your face get red and your body got tight when your friend took your toy. It looked like you were feeling angry.”
• Model your own emotions healthily: Instead of “Be quiet so I can talk,” try, “I need you to be quiet so others can hear. Thanks for understanding.” Instead of “I’m angry you broke the rules,” try, “I’m feeling upset because I’m worried about your safety when the rules aren’t followed.”

It Starts With Us: The Adult’s Role in Emotional Learning

Here’s a crucial truth: effectively teaching SEL to children begins with our own emotional awareness and regulation. We might even need to re-learn some of our own ingrained beliefs about emotions. Were we taught to suppress certain feelings? Did we receive messages that some emotions are “bad”?

Drawing inspiration from frameworks like Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) can be incredibly helpful. DBT emphasizes understanding the somatic experience, expression, body language, and thoughts associated with emotions, as well as offering practical strategies for managing intense feelings and reframing negative thought patterns.

Adults who haven’t explored their own emotional landscape may find it challenging to guide children effectively. It requires us to open our own hearts and heads and be vulnerable with children, creating a safe space for them to explore their feelings without judgment, as well as modeling those things we are trying to teach them

Moving Forward in Teaching the Real Language of Emotions:

Teaching emotional literacy is a journey, not a destination, and this journey of emotional learning for our children is deeply intertwined with our own emotional landscape. By moving beyond simple facial recognition and focusing on the internal experience, thoughts, communication, and the power of our own modeling, we can equip children with the skills they need to navigate their emotional world with confidence and resilience.

This is just the beginning of exploring the fascinating true language of feelings. What other aspects of SEL would you like us to delve into in future posts? Let me know your thoughts!

Want more SEL content? Try these articles!

• Tips for Parents: Fostering Language Development in Preschoolers
• Empowering Kids Who Stutter: Practical Tips & Resources
• Speech Therapy Wins! Building Progress Power in Kids

Here’s to a more emotionally connected world!

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The post Beyond Happy and Sad: The Real Language of Emotions appeared first on Mrs. Speech Online.