This week’s focus is on active listening, and acknowledging others. Let’s start with the concept of active listening. I think this symbol is very cool! It is the Chinese symbol for the word “listen”. Notice that listening contains several parts. We listen with our eyes, which doesn’t always mean direct eye contact, but it means showing that you are thinking about the person with your eyes - thinking with your eyes, facing towards a person. We listen with our ears to not

Self-Management This week, the focus is self-management. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL) defines self-management as “the ability to effectively regulate one's emotions, thoughts, and behaviors across different situations” As you read this definition, if you are like me, you are thinking “that is extremely hard!” As with all SEL skills, we dig in, practice, and know it’s a lifelong process. When we are intentional about building this

Building Blocks of Healthy Communication SEL skills focus on both the interpersonal and intrapersonal. Interpersonal means “between people”, and intrapersonal signifies “within oneself”. This week, I continue to focus on the domain of self-awareness (intrapersonal). As you may recall, I've stated how challenging it is to tease apart social and emotional skills since they are inter-related “puzzle pieces”, and it’s also helpful to think about them as “building blocks”. H

Recently at a dinner party, I was describing the theme of a children's book I am writing (stay tuned!), and then the guests turned to me and said "this applies to adults too!" Adults consistently ask me about helping them with social and emotional skills. Many people tell me “I wish I had this class as a young kid, none of us did”. This is precisely why social emotional learning (SEL) is increasingly prevalent in schools. There are state standards for SEL, and a plethora of

Thank you to all my readers who have commented on my holiday time blogs from the past two years. I continue to hear from many readers how you appreciate some holiday family tips, so I am adding some new thoughts and some reminders. The holiday season may hold impactful memories, thoughts, and emotions for many of us. However one chooses to celebrate, I try to pause during this holiday season to bring awareness to how I am feeling, and how my feelings affect others. I am Je

With a new school year well under way, our calendars quickly fill with play dates, school events, fundraisers, parent socials, and...