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School can be full of joy, growth, and discovery—but it can also bring stress. Tests, social pressures, transitions, and even loud or overstimulating environments can all overwhelm a child’s emotional system.
The good news? Stress management is a teachable skill. And when kids learn healthy ways to manage stress early, they build habits that support emotional well-being for life.
Let’s explore stress management activities for students that are simple, age-appropriate, and rooted in everyday classroom routines. These strategies not only help children feel more balanced but also improve focus, classroom engagement, and overall learning outcomes.
Why Stress Management Matters in Elementary School
Stress doesn’t only show up as tears or tantrums. It can look like:
Withdrawing from peers
Acting out or disrupting class
Zoning out or appearing disengaged
Complaining of headaches or stomachaches
Without support, chronic stress can impact a child’s ability to learn, concentrate, and build relationships. That’s why it’s essential to give kids tools they can use—not just when things boil over, but before stress takes hold.
That’s where Social Emotional Learning comes in. By weaving SEL into the school day, educators help students build awareness, practice emotional regulation, and make choices that align with well-being.
Explore our full Elementary SEL Curriculum andSocial Emotional Learning resources for deeper integration of wellness strategies.
Stress Management Activities for Students (Grades K–6)
Here are low-prep tools you can use right away to help students calm their bodies, focus their minds, and process emotions in developmentally appropriate ways.
1. Movement Breaks
Short bursts of movement help release pent-up energy and regulate the nervous system. Try:
Stretching arms to the ceiling and wiggling fingers
Cross-body taps or “brain buttons”
Simple yoga poses like “tree” or “child’s pose”
Silent disco (dancing in place with invisible music)
Why it works: Movement resets the body’s stress response and helps bring students back to center.
2. The “Stress Thermometer” Check-In
Create a visual chart with levels of stress from 1 (calm) to 5 (overwhelmed). Invite students to identify where they are and pick a calming activity accordingly. This builds self-awareness and encourages autonomy.
Pair it with ourTools of the Heart program for even more emotional regulation strategies.
3. Journaling & Drawing Emotions
Offer short journaling time or reflection sheets with prompts like:
“Something that helped me today was…”
“Right now, I feel ______ because ______.”
“One thing I can do when I feel stressed is…”
For younger students, use an “emotion wheel” or feelings chart and let them draw their mood.
Tip: Link to our Feelings Poster to support emotional vocabulary.
4. Visualization and Breathing
Teach students to imagine a calm place (like a beach or peaceful forest) while taking deep breaths. Try “box breathing” (inhale 4, hold 4, exhale 4, hold 4) or simple “smell the flower, blow out the candle” breathing.
This helps students develop calming techniques in the classroom they can return to when emotions feel big.
5. Coping Cards
Have students create small “coping cards” with reminders of things that help them feel calm (hugging a stuffed animal, taking deep breaths, counting to 10, etc.). Keep these in a “Calm Down Corner” or desk pouch for quick access.
These make abstract coping skills for kids more concrete and personal.
Building a Wellness Routine Into the School Day
Stress management becomes second nature when it’s woven into daily rhythms. Here’s how you can build a culture of calm without adding more to your plate:
Morning Meetings: Start the day with a short SEL check-in or calming ritual.
Quiet Time After Lunch: Offer 5 minutes for silent drawing, reading, or breath work.
Closure Activities: End each day with a gratitude circle or mindfulness minute.
Consistency builds emotional safety. Over time, these micro-moments add up to real behavioral shifts.
Family Partnership: Extending Wellness Home
Stress doesn’t stop at the school gate. Empower families to reinforce strategies at home:
Send home wellness tips or breathing exercises
Offer a simple stress journal page for weekend reflection
When kids see stress managed consistently at school and at home, they begin to trust that they are capable of handling hard things.
Stress Is a Signal—Not a Failure
We don’t need to eliminate stress. What we can do is help children recognize it early, respond to it kindly, and return to calm with confidence.
By teaching students how to identify stress and respond with tools—not shame or silence—we prepare them not just for school, but for life.
With programs like Elementary SEL Curriculum and daily practices grounded in empathy and emotional awareness, we can make stress just another part of growing up—not something that holds kids back.
Life is full of ups and downs—and school is no exception. Whether it’s a tough test, a friendship hiccup, or an overwhelming change, every student faces challenges that test their emotional strength. The question is: how do we help them bounce back?
The answer lies in resilience.
Resilience is more than just “toughing it out.” It’s the ability to adapt, recover, and grow from adversity. And it’s a skill that can be nurtured through daily practice—both in the classroom and at home.
In this post, we’ll explore resilience activities for students, how to model student perseverance, and simple ways to create a learning environment where students feel empowered to face life’s curveballs with courage.
Why Resilience Matters for Learning and Life
Resilient students:
Stay motivated even when tasks get difficult
Learn from mistakes instead of shutting down
Handle stress and change more constructively
Bounce back after setbacks with greater confidence
This emotional strength is not something students either “have” or “don’t have.” Like a muscle, it can be built through supportive relationships, emotional awareness, and intentional skill-building.
According to CASEL’s framework, resilience is supported by several core SEL competencies, especially:
Self-awareness: Recognizing emotions and triggers
Self-management: Regulating thoughts, actions, and stress
Responsible decision-making: Learning from consequences and choosing healthy responses
Explore how resilience is supported in our Elementary SEL Curriculum and in our approach toSocial Emotional Learning.
Resilience Activities for Students (K–6)
The following are in-classroom activities that can support students in building their resilience muscles.
1. “What’s In Your Control?” Chart
Draw a big circle and divide it in half:
One side: Things we can control (attitude, effort, actions)
Other side: Things we can’t control (weather, others’ choices)
This visual helps students sort their stressors and shift focus to what they can change.
2. Growth Mindset Pep Talk
Use phrases like:
“Mistakes mean you’re trying something new.”
“You haven’t mastered it yet.”
“You can do hard things.”
Reframing struggles helps kids see effort and setbacks as part of the learning process.
3. “Bounce-Back Stories” Circle
Have students share stories of a time they:
Faced something difficult
Tried again
Learned from it
Celebrate their grit and emphasize that bouncing back doesn’t always mean getting it “right”—just that they kept going.
4. Classroom “Try Again” Zones
Create a space where students can regroup and reframe. Include:
Affirmation cards
Breathing tools (like a pinwheel or stress ball)
Journaling pages
This model promotes healthy self-regulation and gives students permission to pause, reflect, and return with a renewed perspective.
5. “Resilience Chain” Class Project
Each time a student tries again after a setback or shows perseverance, add a link to a paper chain in the room. Watch it grow as a visual reminder that resilience is a community strength.
Daily Practices That Nurture Student Perseverance
Model Emotional Honesty
When things don’t go as planned, share your own process: “I felt frustrated when that didn’t work, but I’m trying again. I’m proud I didn’t give up.”
This teaches students that adults feel big emotions too—and move through them in healthy ways.
Normalize “Failure Moments”
Start the week with “Mistake Monday” where students (and teachers!) share something they got wrong—and what they learned. Turn these into class lessons about courage and curiosity.
Encourage Self-Talk Shifts
Teach students how to reframe inner dialogue:
Instead of “I’ll never get this,” say “This is hard, but I’m learning.”
Instead of “I’m bad at this,” say “I’m getting better with practice.”
These micro-shifts in language make a major impact over time.
Resilience at Home: Tips for Families
You can help families support resilience by sharing these take-home strategies:
Create predictable routines: Structure helps kids feel safe enough to try, fail, and try again.
Praise effort over outcome: Celebrate what your child did, not just how they performed.
Talk about feelings openly: Let your child know that frustration, sadness, and anger are normal—and manageable.
Model perseverance: When something is hard, narrate your process (“I feel stuck, but I’m going to keep working on it.”)
These small shifts add up to a home environment that reinforces what you’re teaching in school.
Teaching Resilience is a Long Game
You won’t always see the results right away—but with consistency, you’ll start to notice:
Students recovering more quickly from disappointment
Fewer meltdowns when things don’t go as expected
A classroom culture where effort is celebrated, not just perfection
Resilience doesn’t mean kids stop feeling discouraged. It means they learn how to keep going anyway—and feel proud of themselves for doing so.
In classrooms across the country, a quiet revolution is taking place. Teachers and educators are expanding their lessons beyond math and reading to include something just as essential: Social Emotional Learning (SEL). At the heart of SEL are five key areas, known as the core SEL competencies. These competencies form the foundation for helping children develop into compassionate, responsible, and resilient individuals.
Let’s take a closer look at what each of these SEL competencies means, how they show up in everyday learning, and why they matter so much—both in the classroom and beyond.
What Are SEL Competencies?
SEL competencies are research-backed areas of development that support a child’s ability to understand and manage emotions, build strong relationships, and make thoughtful decisions. Developed by the Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), the five competencies are:
Self-awareness
Self-management
Social awareness
Relationship skills
Responsible decision-making
These areas offer a framework for educators to build a supportive and emotionally intelligent classroom culture. The following outlines why these competencies matter and the ways they can be incorporated into classrooms.
1. Self-Awareness: Knowing Yourself
Self-awareness is the ability to recognize your emotions, thoughts, and values—and understand how they influence behavior.
For example, a student who realizes they’re feeling frustrated before a test is practicing self-awareness. With that insight, they can use tools to calm themselves before it escalates into anxiety or avoidance.
Children who develop strong self-awareness are more confident and more likely to advocate for their needs. They learn to identify their strengths and areas for growth, which supports academic performance and overall well-being.
Activities that can include journaling, vision boards and strength spotting
2. Self-Management: Handling Emotions and Behaviors
Self-management is the ability to regulate emotions, control impulses, and persist in the face of challenges.
This competency helps students manage stress, delay gratification, and maintain focus—especially when things get tough. Whether they’re taking turns in group work or bouncing back from a low grade, self-management empowers kids to respond rather than react.
This doesn’t mean kids will never feel upset or angry—it means they learn how to manage those big feelings in healthy, productive ways.
Social awareness involves recognizing and respecting the feelings, perspectives, and experiences of others.
It’s what allows students to build empathy, appreciate differences, and act with kindness. In diverse classroom settings, social awareness is key to creating inclusive environments where every student feels like they belong.
This skill helps students understand how their actions affect others—and encourages them to respond with compassion.
Activities that explore culture, identity, and inclusion
Discussions that normalize different points of view
4. Relationship Skills: Connecting with Others
From making friends to working in teams, relationship skills help children form positive connections and resolve conflicts peacefully.
These skills include active listening, clear communication, cooperation, and conflict resolution. When students develop relationship skills, they learn how to build trust, handle disagreements, and support one another.
Role-playing common peer conflicts and resolutions
5. Responsible Decision-Making: Choosing Wisely
Responsible decision-making involves making thoughtful, ethical, and constructive choices about personal and social behavior.
This competency teaches children to evaluate situations, consider consequences, and reflect on their values. It’s the difference between reacting impulsively and choosing with intention.
As students grow, these skills become vital for resisting peer pressure, setting boundaries, and navigating real-life situations with confidence and integrity.
Opportunities to make choices and evaluate outcomes
Why SEL Competencies Matter
When SEL is woven into the fabric of daily classroom life, students thrive. These five SEL competencies equip students not only to succeed academically, but also to grow into caring, capable, and community-minded people.
Educators who center these competencies help children learn how to:
Understand themselves and others
Express emotions constructively
Navigate conflict with empathy
Make thoughtful decisions
Create stronger relationships with peers and adults
And when that happens, classrooms transform into places of safety, connection, and possibility.
Bring SEL Competencies to Life with Soul Shoppe
At Soul Shoppe, we offer engaging, age-appropriate resources to help teachers bring these core competencies into their classrooms with ease and heart.
Explore our full range of programs and tools to support SEL:
Teaching the five SEL competencies is more than just a checklist—it’s an invitation to create a classroom rooted in compassion, self-discovery, and resilience. When children feel seen, supported, and capable, they carry that confidence with them for life.
Social Emotional Learning helps kids become the kind of people who make the world a better place—and that’s a lesson worth teaching every day.
In the daily whirlwind of classroom life—tests, transitions, and tricky social dynamics—students carry more than just books in their backpacks. They carry self-doubt, pressure to fit in, and fears of failure. That’s why one small yet powerful tool can make a big difference: positive affirmations for students.
More than just “feel-good” phrases, affirmations are a way to build confidence, resilience, and emotional grounding. They help students see their worth, especially when the world feels uncertain.
In this post, we’ll explore how affirmations support Social Emotional Learning (SEL), promote student confidence, and contribute to a safe, inclusive classroom culture. Plus, we’ll share ready-to-use affirmations you can start using right away.
What Are Positive Affirmations for Students?
Positive affirmations are short, encouraging statements that students say or hear to reinforce their strengths, values, and potential. Think of them as internal messages that rewire how students view themselves—especially in moments of doubt or challenge.
Instead of: “I’m not good at this.” Try: “I can improve with practice.”
These statements aren’t magic. But when repeated consistently, they begin to shape how students respond to setbacks, peer pressure, and internal criticism.
How Positive Affirmations for Students Support Social Emotional Learning (SEL)
Positive affirmations align beautifully with core SEL competencies like self-awareness, self-management, and resilience.
Here’s how they help:
Build Emotional Vocabulary: Affirmations give students the words they may not yet have to express hope, strength, or calm.
Strengthen Self-Image: Repeated positive self-talk nurtures inner beliefs, helping students see themselves as capable and worthy.
Encourage Growth Mindset: Affirmations shift the focus from fixed ability (“I can’t do this”) to effort and learning (“I’m growing every day”).
Calm the Nervous System: In anxious moments, repeating affirmations can reduce stress and re-center attention.
Discover ourTools of the Heart program, which helps children recognize and respond to big emotions with kindness and confidence.
Ready-to-Use Affirmations for the Classroom
Here’s a list of affirmations that are developmentally appropriate, inclusive, and ideal for classroom use. These can be used during morning meetings, transitions, or even written on the board.
Self-Worth Affirmations
I am enough, just as I am.
I have important things to say.
My voice matters.
Growth Mindset Affirmations
Mistakes help me learn.
I can try again.
I am always learning.
Empathy and Kindness Affirmations
I choose to be kind to others.
I treat people the way I want to be treated.
I am a peacemaker.
Confidence and Courage Affirmations
I believe in myself.
I can do hard things.
I am brave, even when I feel nervous.
Emotional Regulation Affirmations
I can take deep breaths when I feel upset.
My feelings are valid.
I can pause and make a good choice.
You might even invite students to write their own affirmations and share them during class meetings.
Making Affirmations a Daily Habit
To create lasting impact, affirmations should be consistent, intentional, and visible. Here are a few simple ways to integrate them into daily classroom routines:
Affirmation Wall: Dedicate a space on the wall where students can add their own positive statements.
Morning Mantras: Begin each day with a class-wide affirmation said aloud.
Journaling Prompts: Ask students to write an affirmation and reflect on how it applies to their day.
Peace Corner Cards: Include affirmation cards in a calming space where students can reset emotionally.
Partner Practice: Pair students to take turns saying affirmations to each other—helping both the speaker and listener internalize positive messages.
These small practices can shift the classroom culture from one of performance pressure to one of emotional safety and encouragement.
Browse our Elementary SEL Curriculum for tools that support daily positive affirmations for students and emotional check-ins.
Creating a Classroom That Believes in Every Student
When children repeatedly hear, “You are safe. You belong. You matter,” they start to believe it.
Affirmations aren’t about ignoring challenges or sugarcoating emotions—they’re about reminding students that they have tools, worth, and inner strength to face whatever comes their way.
Imagine a classroom where children encourage themselves, comfort each other, and meet setbacks with compassion. That’s the power of affirmations. And that’s the kind of culture Social Emotional Learning is built to foster.
Let’s give students messages that stick with them long after the bell rings.
Bullying can be one of the most devastating experiences of a child’s life. Studies have shown that there are several negative effects of bullying that impact everyone involved, including the child on the receiving end as well as the child who does the bullying behavior. (MentalHealth) Bullying can have long-lasting, detrimental effects on a person’s self-esteem and general emotional well-being.
The reality is that most classroom settings can make bullying difficult to monitor and counteract. Students in a classroom outnumber their teachers, often thirty-to-one. Simple math makes it clear how hard it is for a teacher to even know about every instance of bullying behavior, let alone have the capacity to intervene. Therefore, being proactive can help mitigate the issue before trouble starts.
It’s important for teachers to recruit their students into a classroom-wide anti-bullying effort.
Anti-Bullying Activities for the Classroom
The fundamentals of teaching anti-bullying include (GSE):
Encourage students to be part of the solution. Children often rise to the occasion when they’re invited to do so.
Have honest conversations about the effects of bullying. For children, awareness of the consequences of their actions will help them make more empathic decisions.
Find opportunities to strengthen community and friendship. Stronger community ties help children both avoid bullying behaviors themselves and feel like they have choices when it comes to doing something about bullying when it occurs.
Use role playing. Learning through role play helps children use their imaginations and provides the opportunity to experience life in someone else’s shoes for empathy and understanding. It also involves problem-solving in many scenarios which helps prepare them for challenging social encounters.
Reinforce positive behavior. Children often look for reinforcement. Providing clear reinforcement of positive behavior through acknowledgment, rewards, etc. helps children to evolve.
These principles can be incorporated into anti-bullying activities.
Anti-bullying activities give students the chance to develop and practice the skills of empathy, fairness, and kindness. These activities will create a foundation for conversations about bullying and help children learn how to take care of each other.
Here are a few ideas for anti-bullying activities for elementary students to get started.
Anti-bullying Activities
Tube of Stuff Activity
The purpose of this activity is to demonstrate that actions have consequences that can’t be taken back. It’s appropriate for small children in kindergarten or first grade.
In this activity, children are given a tube of paint or toothpaste and a long roll of butcher paper. Children take turns squeezing the contents of the tube in a long line. When the tube is empty, they will be asked to put the paint or toothpaste back into the tube.
The teacher can then explain that what we say is like that paint or toothpaste. You can’t take things back. (MeraKilane)
Pledge Activity
Providing children with chances to take ownership of their actions creates opportunities for growth. Children, if given the chance, will often rise to the occasion if they’re asked to act with integrity.
Teachers can create an anti-bullying pledge that their students all sign. This helps show students that what they do matters. It also creates buy-in when implementing an anti-bullying classroom culture.
Gamify Kindness
Giving positive reinforcement for acts of kindness helps students feel excited about being kind to their fellow classmates. It also creates a precedent for children to carry kindness outside of the classroom, and into adulthood.
If educators create positive feedback loops for their students to receive small rewards for acts of kindness, it can help encourage a culture of kindness.
Create an “Acts of Kindness Chart”:
Acts of kindness receive gold stars.
Multiple acts of kindness within a specified period might lead to a classroom celebration.
Kids might play “I spy” to report acts of kindness that they see each other carry out.”
Compliment Circle
This activity turns the practice of kindness into an interactive game. Have students sit in a circle. Students take turns saying something complimentary to every member of the classroom. Depending on the age group, encourage students to go beyond superficial compliments such as “I like your shoes,” to more meaningful compliments such as “You are always nice on the playground.” Go around the circle until everyone has had a chance to compliment the entire class.
Reading Books
Find reading lists that include books about understanding bullying and what to do about it. (WeAreTeachers) Books are some of the best ways for children to think through complicated social and emotional situations like bullying. Then, through questions and guided conversation, children can talk through solutions.
Anti-bullying through Social and Emotional Learning
At Soul Shoppe, we use social and emotional teaching techniques to help educators and parents. It’s important for all students to see the classroom as a safe place. Our Peacemaker Training teaches educators how to build anti-bullying environments in schools. Contact us with questions about creating anti-bullying activities for the classroom.
If you’re a parent or teacher, you know your small kids experience big feelings. Sometimes they seem to come out of nowhere, while other times, your kids have emotional responses that you can easily trace to some prior moment in the day. Regardless of how their feelings are stirred up, we must normalize talking about them.
Children who are taught that talking about feelings is healthy will learn not to bottle up their life experiences. Instead, they’ll learn to share them and process them. Just like adults, when kids begin to understand their emotions and name them, they have a fighting chance of working through their feelings.
This article will discuss talking about feelings and teaching your child to identify and express them.
Talking About Feelings
What Is The Difference Between Emotions And Feelings?
While emotions and feelings are used interchangeably, they are slightly different. Emotions are bodily reactions that occur through neurotransmitters and hormones in the brain (iMotions). Feelings, on the other hand, are a conscious experience.
Talking About Feelings Helps Children Process
Though emotions can be as unique as the children who experience them, there are generally four big emotions in which everyone’s feelings are grounded: anger, sadness, fear, and loneliness. We could easily break down each of these big emotions into resulting feelings, but for the sake of this article, we’ll focus on the main ones.
Suppose you are looking for a more extensive representation of the full array of emotions to help teach your child that talking about feelings doesn’t have to feel overwhelming or frustrating. In that case, you can check out our feelings poster.
The Big Four Feelings and Emotions for Kids
Let’s discuss the big four feelings and emotions for kids and how you can help your child identify them.
Anger
In general, anger is secondary to hurt, fear, frustration, or injustice. Sometimes your child will feel triggered to anger by one of these emotions, and sometimes they will feel all four of these emotions at once.
Anger is an uncomfortable emotion for both adults and children. It’s also an uncomfortable emotion to witness in another person. Anger for children often manifests itself as a temper tantrum, hitting, grabbing another child’s toy, or having an emotional outburst such as crying coupled with screaming.
It’s important to understand that anger triggers your child’s fight or flight response. Jaclyn Shlisky, PsyD, writes, “Anger may seem irrational, but for a child that hasn’t yet learned how to regulate emotions, it’s an immediate natural reaction to some sort of wrongdoing your child feels” (Parent.com). To help your child recognize and self-regulate when talking about the feelings and emotions that are stirred up by anger, you can do the following:
Identify and explain the feeling using age-appropriate language and materials, such as songs, movies, pictures, or facial expressions.
Teach your child different ways they can deal with their feelings.
Praise your child when they talk about their feelings.
Reinforce your child’s attempts to discuss their feelings by incorporating feelings into game time, car rides, when you’re sharing a meal, etc.
Using anger as an example, you can help your child identify and explain the emotion. For instance, if your child doesn’t want to follow their bedtime routine one night and begins to have a temper tantrum, you might say, “It seems like you’re feeling angry about having to brush your teeth tonight. You are crying, and your face looks like this. What can you do? I think you can ask for help or take some deep breaths and try again.”
Acknowledging your child’s emotions not only helps them identify their feelings using self-awareness skills, but also helps them understand how they can deal with them. The next step is to praise your child when they acknowledge the emotions they’re experiencing. Additionally, praise them when they decide how to handle that emotion. While at the beginning, you might provide examples of solutions for them, they will eventually learn to come up with solutions on their own.
Later, when their emotions have settled–this could be an hour later or even a couple of days later–you can reinforce your child’s attempts to discuss their feelings. You can also discuss the choices they made to process the emotions. For example, “Last night, you seemed angry about brushing your teeth. I was so proud of you when you figured out you were feeling anger and then took some nice, deep breaths before finishing brushing. You handled your anger so well!” This kind of reinforcement lets kids know what they did well, and it can help build their confidence during future moments with difficult emotions.
Sadness
When you’re teaching your child to identify and express emotions, sadness is one of the first you will want to explore. We all experience sadness at one point or another, and children tend to present sadness in similar ways to adults.
The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning at Vanderbilt University suggests playing the game Make a Face to begin conversations about emotions with your child or student.
This is a great way to open a conversation with a child who feels sad. The game begins when you say, “I am going to make a face; guess what I am feeling by looking at my face.” This game helps the child assign a name to the feeling and then allows the adult to reinforce their connection in the moment. Once the emotion is established, you can ask the child what has caused their sadness and then follow the steps above (identify and explain, teach them ways to deal with their emotions, praise the child, and reinforce their attempts).
When children deal with difficult emotions, it’s essential to let them know that while their feelings belong to them, they are common among children and adults alike. They are not alone.
Fear
In most educational materials on feelings and emotions for kids, fear is at the top of the list. The reason for this is obvious–just think back to when you were a child. Perhaps you had a fear of the dark, or big animals, or loud noises. Much of this fear is rooted in feelings of uncertainty and the vastness of “the unknown.” Often, children express fear in uncertain ways and this can lead to anxiety later in life.
If your child or student is having a hard time identifying and expressing fear, here are some tools you can give them to help them express it more productively:
Encourage them to ask for help.
Invite them to say the emotion instead of showing it. (For example, “I am feeling scared,” instead of crying, hiding, or throwing a tantrum.)
Relax and try again. (For example, if a child fears reading aloud in class, invite them to take some deep breaths and try again.)
Tell a grown-up.
Teaching your child to identify and express emotions allows them to connect with you and with others in a way that keeps them safe and gives them a greater sense of confidence when they are not with you. It also builds camaraderie and community because it teaches them that we are all in this together.
Loneliness
The final emotion we’ll discuss here is loneliness.
Research shows that children form attachments to other people right from the start. Children who have a secure attachment with at least one adult experience benefits and learn that connection to others is a positive thing. Conversely, when children feel disconnected from others, they can experience loneliness.
Unfortunately, loneliness in kids has skyrocketed as a result of the pandemic. As you might imagine, kids attending classes online or being taken out of their normal activities has resulted in an epidemic of loneliness.
Loneliness is a complex emotion but helping your child identify it in themselves and then process it, benefits them greatly. Bethany Vibert, PsyD, a clinical psychologist at the Child Mind Institute, suggests some helpful strategies to talking about the feeling of loneliness with your child. Dr. Vibert writes:
Ask open-ended questions. For example, if your child says they miss spending time with someone they used to see a lot, you can ask questions about that. “What did you really like doing with her? What do you miss the most about seeing her?”
Make observations. Sometimes comments are a good alternative to questions. So, if you notice that your child isn’t spending time with people as much as they used to, you might point that out. Then leave space for them to talk.
Validate their experiences. Showing genuine interest goes a long way. Do your best to listen without judgment (or visible panic) to whatever they have to say. Try also to avoid overreacting with too much sympathy or emotion, since that might make them feel even worse. You can show that you’re listening by reflecting back on what they’re saying (“It sounds like you’re having a hard time”), or saying supportive things like “That sounds tough. Would you tell me more about that?”
Talking about feelings and emotions with your children or students teaches them that their experiences are valid, they can manage their feelings, and that you care about them.
