(upbeat music) - One of the primary arc of frustrations was getting your child to sit for an extended amount of time.

- A child doesn't learn if they're hungry or if they're tired.

They also don't learn really well when they're mad and they just wanna like scream at the top of their lungs.

- Really was a reminder for us and a indicator for my husband and I that she's really found a routine and she understands how to govern herself and her time to study.

- Parents should really think about social emotional learning as a way to teach their children about how to manage themselves emotionally and to be able to manage themselves socially.

And when we have that, those are the most important tools that we need throughout our lives.

(upbeat music) The self-regulation is the ability to control one's behavior towards long-term goals.

And that depends of course on how old you are.

So if you're five and you can figure out how to sit criss-cross applesauce so that you can get ready for your school day and focus on yourself sitting quietly and doing a mindfulness exercise just for like 30 seconds, that if we can do that, that's actually regulating one's self.

- As far as helping the younger learners self-regulate during the online learning experience, one thing to keep in mind is pacing and opportunities to move.

So the younger learners should be able to get up and move at least once every hour, whether it's to walk around the house, get some fresh air, taking some type of mental break.

And a lot of the teachers will have that built in.

That is so important, giving them something fun.

Some teachers have 'em get up and dance.

We have a dance break.

We have a get silly break.

Anything like that is gonna keep them focused when they get back online.

- With remote learning, our biggest challenges have been keeping our small children attentive while learning for an extended amount of time.

We were able to overcome that just with organization, practice, and just positive intent.

- We know when we talk self-regulations, we want 'em to manage their emotions.

So what do they do when they get upset?

Some things that teachers do that's helpful is have the child count to 10, deep breathing exercises, movement, maybe there's soft music in the background.

Sensory things, if there's lighting, soften the lighting or make sure obviously they can see but all of those things can help with the self-regulation.

Positive affirmations, you know, providing that positive support and letting them, you know, repeat positive things, giving them the skills that if they feel frustrated, this is what you can do.

- Sometimes when they're getting frustrated, I have them step away for a moment or we try to learn the concept in a different way.

We're a team and while we don't always do it perfectly, we have figured out that it works better to ask for what we need.

(upbeat music) - Emotional granularity is being able to describe the feelings that you're having, first to yourself and then to other people.

And it is fundamental to being able to regulate yourself and to be able to understand the experiences that you're having for yourself.

And if you can actually articulate those things and describe them with more specificity, then you'll be able to understand yourself better and be able to then explain it to other people.

And your anxiety goes down.

And your emotional intelligence goes up.

- Sometimes we've had tears.

And sixth-grade tears and fourth-grade taunts aren't usually good in the same space.

So yeah, so we have taken the opportunity to give space as space is needed but we also have taken time to discuss the social emotional needs.

- You can create a mood board that I would love for you to think about doing with your child.

They can come up with the structures.

They can come up with the images.

And so what they're doing is that they have ownership over it with you and you're giving them the latitude that maybe they don't wanna have like a really big discussion with you or a check-in every day.

But it's a way just to take the temperature of how they're feeling.

So the granularity piece then connects to their ability to reach out for help.

People get older.

Being able again to be able to regulate so that you can then achieve your long-term goals and articulate what those are is really what the goal is as they mature.

- And the 11th grader, I would say success for her has just been staying active, staying attentive, and participating, right, in the discussion.

She's going to be entering into college pretty soon.

And you know, we tell her that college is all about independent learning and understanding how you balance out your day, right?

Nobody's gonna make you go to class.

Nobody's gonna make you actually study.

- We can focus on this as a continuum and that learning is a journey and that social emotional learning is one of the most important parts of learning.

But what we can do is be able to identify small things that young people can do now that build their skills for the rest of their lives.

- Just teaching our children better time management, better accountability, communication skills.

And these are things as parents that we have to champion because they're not in that physical structure.

But the power of remote learning for my children has been a great opportunity for them to get to know themselves better.

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