Social emotional learning (SEL) is an educational method that helps children foster and develop social and emotional skills, like self-awareness. SEL includes skills like emotional regulation, maintaining friendships, and managing stress.
Each of the 5 primary competencies are interrelated and build off each other.
Research shows that children who learn SEL have more positive relationships, have greater academic success, and better long term life outcomes, even up to 18 years later.
When children learn how to become aware of themselves and their behavior, they can more easily regulate their impulses and behaviors. When kids have more emotional regulation they get into less conflict with peers, have more positive attitudes, and more concentration. This not only leads to calmer classrooms, but students who are less stressed and more engaged, leading to improved academic success.
SEL also teaches children important life skills, like how to build and maintain friendships, an important protective factor that increases social support and healthy development. Combined, the academic and social benefits that SEL provides to kids can last well beyond school-age, with some studies finding benefits extending up to 18 years later. There is research, too, that suggests SEL may benefit children throughout their adult lives.
Meditation is the practice of focusing your attention for a period of time. It’s a centuries old practice that dates to ancient Vedic times and recently has been the focus of hundreds of research studies.
There are many different types of meditation, like guided meditations and body scans, and each serve a slightly different purpose. Any style of meditation can be practiced by children and for as long, or short, as they wish.
There is a growing body of research that has found that micro meditation, which is smaller, more frequent bursts of meditation, can be just as effective as longer forms of meditation. This is especially good news for kids, who may not want to practice for longer than a few minutes.
There are so many benefits of meditation, ranging from lowering blood pressure to improving creativity to enhancing memory and boosting overall mental health.
Some of the most widely-known benefits of meditation for children are:
Meditation and its benefits often work like a domino effect, meaning the more a child practices meditation, the more they will benefit.
SEL and meditation are natural complements of each other because both practices teach similar skills, like self-awareness, and have similar benefits, like better academic success. The skills learned in meditation enhance the skills developed in SEL and vice-versa. For example, meditation teaches kids how to observe their thoughts and feelings, without judgement, leading to increased self-awareness.
Meditation teaches many other complementary skills, like focus and empathy, which help kids develop their self-awareness and other skills developed in social emotional learning.
Meditation promotes self-awareness through various practices that teach kids how to non-judgmentally recognize one’s thoughts and emotions. For example, certain meditation practices, like guided stories, help children learn how to notice how emotions feel inside their bodies. This practice of self-inquiry, helps children develop the ability to recognize their emotions, leading to greater self-awareness.
Meditation has been found in several studies to help modulate the emotional responses to negative stimuli. For little ones, this means that a meditation practice may help them have better control over behavioral impulses and critically think about the decisions they want to make. Meditation also boosts emotional regulation, helping kids assess their decisions with more calm and objectivity.
Meditation increases social awareness through empathy and enhanced communication. Meditation boosts empathy by teaching children how to become aware of other people’s perspectives and feelings. Similarly, meditation helps children learn how to communicate more effectively through more openness and better listening skills.
Similar to social awareness, little ones build better relationships because meditation teaches kids how to reduce their impulses, recognize their own feelings, communicate more effectively, and approach others with a greater sense of empathy.
By reducing stress and increasing self-control, meditation helps kids develop better self-management skills. Increased focus is one of the most well documented benefits of meditation. When children learn how to control their focus, they have a greater feeling of self-control. In time, this results in a better ability to regulate their impulses and have better self-management skills.
