(upbeat music) - So when we talk about self-awareness in our social and emotional learning, what we're really talking about is a child's learned ability to recognize his or her own emotions and thoughts, and how they relate to the identity that they have as a person in a family, in a community, and their own emotions and how those emotions and thoughts influence their behavior.

- Self-awareness is helping a child understand who they are, what they're good at, what their strengths are, what makes them special and unique, things they like to do, that might be different than other kids.

- Self-awareness is a child's ability to recognize what's happening inside their bodies and around them, and how those two things are connected.

And that's important because if they understand the connection between their decisions, and their emotions, and their responses, they can be really empowered to change things that aren't going the way they want them to.

If they don't have good self-awareness, then oftentimes they will interpret the things that are happening around them, and outside of them as disconnected and someone else's fault.

Self-awareness really equips them and empowers them to take ownership and get the results that they want.

(upbeat music) - Parents can help their child be more self-aware by giving them the opportunity to explore things they like to do, whether it's a sport, whether it's arts and crafts, whether it's an activity at home or a random hobby, we just want them to explore what they like to do and what they're good at.

- So some activities that you can do at home to develop that self-awareness are very similar to what we do in a school setting.

So journaling is a great one.

Kids can keep a diary or journal across different activities, daily journal.

It's also great to do some self-affirmations, talking to yourself in the mirror, saying those positive statements is really important to kind of ingrain in your kids from a young age.

We want our kids to be confident and feel strong and valuable.

(upbeat music) - It's important that students learn how to self-regulate and learning the SEL competency of self-management helps them to be able to work under pressure and maintain a positive disposition, knowing how to navigate and regulate their emotions, but at the same time, learning how to work in environments that may seem complex.

- So self-awareness, and self-management really go hand in hand.

They're kind of two steps.

The first step is being aware of our feelings and the emotions.

And then the next step is being able to manage and control them to become, to be effective and be productive.

- Self-management is the ability to make choices with your own behavior to accomplish a task, having good self management skills means being able to take responsibility for the choices that I'm making and manage those or complete those in the ways that we are taught.

(upbeat music) - For self-management it's important to have a routine and a schedule and teachers always have a routine posted, a schedule for the day, and kids do well with routine and a checklist and a plan.

So you can also do that at home with routines and plans for the day.

- How do you as an adult express frustration and deal with challenges?

Your child sees that and they will model their behavior after that.

You face a challenge, something is frustrating, you get a flat tire, were late this morning.

How are you emotionally handling that in front of your young children?

They do see everything and you are their most important teacher and they will follow your lead.

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