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 only hear others,...

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 skill, it does...

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”. Here’s a generic...