Written by Cindy Hovington, Ph.D. Founder of Curious Neuron.

Written in partnership with Placote Games.

Social-emotional learning (SEL) begins to develop in infancy. For instance, an infant trying to look at their parent or smiling at them is a social-emotional milestone (here). When an infant cries, they are communicating with us as well as expressing emotion. When we respond to their cry, they are understanding that communication is 2 ways and they feel soothed by you.

Past parenting advice focused almost entirely on cognitive and language milestones such as school readiness skills, however, recent research now highlights the importance of SEL skills (Denham and Brown 2010). Children will not develop SEL skills entirely on their own, a child’s environment, including their interactions and relationships with caregivers, will play a pivotal role in building the brain’s foundation for SEL.

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is defined as an “integral part of education and human development. It is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions” (CASEL, 2020).

Past research has shown us that children who are more competent in social and emotional skills have greater levels of happiness, confidence, and a stronger ability to grow and sustain relationships, school success all key components of well-being in life (Albright & Weissberg, 2010; Jennings & Greenberg, 2009; Elias et al. 1997).

There are steps we need to take as of infancy as well as behaviors we need to model during the early years to help lay the foundation for strong social-emotional skills in childhood.

5 evidence-based parenting practices that build children’s SEL skills (Russell et al. 2016):

There are a few small changes we can make in our home environment that have been shown to build our child’s SEL skills.

Responding to a baby’s needs (i.e. crying) by soothing them provides our baby with a state of calm and reward.
Knowing when to regulate our child’s excitement to avoid overstimulation.
Providing sensitive child-caregiver interactions (sensitivity towards their emotions and experiences)
Scaffolding or “teaching” social and emotional skills. For instance, knowing when to offer advice and when to step back and allow them to make their own decisions when arguing with a sibling about a toy (blog post about this coming up).
Home environments that focus on positive models of social-emotional learning (i.e. using books, pretend play, or games to teach and model these skills). I will elaborate on this below.

Building SEL skills through play:

Let’s break SEL learning down by age level and see what this looks like with regards to playing with our children, arguably one of the best ways to model SEL with younger children, most of which could be done through play and interacting with our child in preschool. Please note that we can’t move the process along faster than a child’s brain develops. For instance, the concept of empathy is much more complex than identifying an emotion.

Ages 0-18 months: Being sensitive and responsive to their needs.

When a 1-year-old plays peek-a-boo with you or is shy when they see a stranger, they are working on their SEL skills. At this stage, the best way to promote the development of SEL skills is to be sensitive and responsive to their needs and behavior. As infants, this means comforting them when they cry or when they are scared.

Ages 18 months -3 years: Having temper tantrums and showing defiance.

Tantrums are a normal part of SEL development (Sravanti et al. 2018). Tantrums occur because children have not learned how to identify or communicate their emotions and do not know how to regulate them as well. This stage continues to include the importance of being sensitive and responsive to our child's emotions. A tantrum isn’t a time to discipline, it is a time to listen to their needs and teach them the skills and language they need to regulate their emotions. In order to regulate our emotions, we need to first understanding and recognizing what emotions we are feeling at the moment. This is why it is important to introduce our children to the languages around emotions at this age as well.

During pretend play, you can pretend a stuffed animal is sad and model comforting the bear. You can also model your own emotions and narrate how you feel (i.e. I am so disappointed that it is raining and we can’t go to the park). You can also include games such as Seek and Find (available in French here and English here). This is a Search & Find game that is specific to emotions. It is a perfect way to start including the language around emotions such as “worried” or “angry” while linking it to the facial cues a person has while feeling these emotions.

Ages 3-5 years: Managing/articulating emotions, understanding other people’s emotions.

Through storytelling, research has shown us that we can ask questions and guide our children in the development of SEL skills. Using books, we can ask children questions about how the character may feel, how they should behave, what they should say to someone which builds their emotional intelligence, social awareness, empathy, and reflective functioning.

Board games such as Monster School by Placote (available in French here and English here) take this method and apply it to a board game to help guide your interactions with your child. I enjoy playing this game with my 3 and 5-year-olds because there is lots of discussion around “how you should behave” in a given situation. Part of the game involves teaching the monsters which types of behaviors are socially acceptable. I love how this company literally follows the developmental steps of social-emotional learning. Once your child has understood the concept of decision-making around emotions, you can move on to the game called Mission: Emotions! (available in French here and English here). This game allows your child to develop a sense of empathy by helping them understand other people’s emotions. An integral part of building relationships.

Ages 6+ years: Developing empathy and confidence.
What is the link between confidence and social-emotional learning? Remember the SEL definition above? The last part states that a child will “make responsible decisions”. Part of making a decision is having confidence in yourself. Research has shown that children with lower confidence tend to wait for others to make decisions for them (Esen-aygun et al. 2017).

Studies have shown that risky play/outdoor play can foster a child’s problems solving skills, self-esteem, and confidence (Little 2010). However, many parents admit to avoiding risky play for fear of being judged by other parents or risking their child getting injured (Jelleyman et al. 2019).

Placote has created a board game called Mount Confidence (available in French here and English here) that can help your child build their confidence by answering questions about themselves. This gives them more insight into who they are and also allows for important child-caregiver conversations that build a child’s confidence.

There are many ways we can help our children build SEL skills. Follow @curious_neuron on Instagram for more tips or listen to the Curious Neuron Podcast for more tips and @placote_jeux for more educational boardgames.

Meet Cindy

Cindy is the founder of Curious Neuron, an evidence-based parenting resource. As parents, we all receive unsolicited advice about what is best for our children. As a mom of 3 and a neuroscientist, I take the time to sift through scientific studies and create simple bite-sized pieces of information relevant to parenting and child development. Evidence-based parenting is what can help inform parents in their decision-making! I collaborate with experts in pediatrics and research to offer parents science-backed advice through my blog, online courses, podcast, membership, weekly parenting support groups, and social media. I believe that there are 3 steps to becoming a confident parent. First nurture yourself, then your child, and lastly, we need to nurture each other as a community. Fostering this parenting style will help our children thrive!