Everybody can help children avoid a summer slide in Social Emotional Learning by sprinkling life skills lessons throughout their daily household activities: Here are some ideas that can be shared with families:
- Cook a meal together and talk about the planning and time management you used.
- Take a walk and relate it to practicing coping and relaxation skills.
- Garden and relate it to patience and dealing with frustration. (Maybe that’s just our garden.)
- Encourage self expression through writing, drawing, dancing, karaoke, whatever works for your kids.
- Play games. Pictionary is great for working on teamwork, chess works on planning, I Spy works on focus and Simon Says works on self control.
- Read aloud. “Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day” focuses on how we cope when things don’t go our way and starting fresh every day. The Harry Potter books and the book “Wonder” encourage acceptance and celebrating our different strengths.
- Learn a new skill, which requires self awareness and perseverance. Remember to talk about the skills you are developing along the way.
- Watch videos and talk about different skills, asking occasional prompting questions like, “What problem is the person dealing with” and “What do you think they will do to solve their problem?”
- Encourage free play, which allows kids to work on decision-making, social expectations, problem-solving and conflict resolution.
- Just chat. Family discussions are a quick and easy way to start learning about these skills.
Resources:
15+ Ideas for Social Emotional Summer Learning – The Pathway 2 Success
Give Your Kids a Healthy Body and Mind This Summer (cdc.gov)
How to address the mental health ‘summer slide’ for K-12 students | K-12 Dive (k12dive.com)
