SEL Toolkit

Social Emotional Learning is the process through which CHILDREN AND ADULTS acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships and make responsible decisions.

We’ve never experienced a global pandemic before. It is new for all of us. Keep the following in mind as we learn and evolve together during this time.

Pay close attention to your own feelings of stress or anxiety. Practice continued self-care strategies, including eating healthy, getting enough sleep, exercising, and finding time to take breaks. If you find yourself overwhelmed by negative thoughts, find ways to reframe your thinking. Seek out needed mental health support for yourself or loved ones.

Acknowledge and support children in processing their full range of emotions and concerns, while offering calm and reassurance. Consider how children will react at different ages and identify appropriate ways to respond. Find ways for children to express their feelings through conversation, music, art, dance, writing, or other activities. Tune into how they’re feeling throughout the day, and offer quiet time or breaks as needed.

Provide age-appropriate information and accurate answers about the news while limiting excessive television or social media. Help children assess facts from misinformation and stereotyping related to the disease.

Share with children what you’re doing to keep them safe. Help children learn about and practice proactive strategies, such as frequent handwashing, to stay healthy. In addition to promoting healthy practices, this can help them feel a greater sense of control.

Whenever possible, provide consistency in daily routines including meals and bedtimes. While school closures or changes in schedules may be inevitable, consistent routines can help foster a sense of safety.

Practice patience when routines are necessarily disrupted, which can lead to potential behavior issues or meltdowns. Try to comfort children while setting boundaries. This is also an opportunity to create new schedules and routines that promote family time and healthy practices, such as taking a morning walk together, creating a “coping kit”, or adding favorite family songs to handwashing routines.

1. Help children and adolescents think of creative ways to maintain their friendships and social connections. This may include writing emails or letters to friends, or scheduling time to use the phone or age-appropriate technology to communicate with peers. Remember that your own social connections are important as well, and make time to reach out by phone or virtually to family and friends.
2. Come up with fun alternatives to show signs of affection while minimizing the spread of germs. For example, elbow bumps or footshakes.

Sourced from: https://casel.org/covid-resources/

Why is a Daily Routine Important?

All children need some type of routine to establish normalcy, a way to get things done and a sense of security.

Children often fear the unknown – whether it’s the broccoli on their plate – or a big life change like moving to a different house or gaining a new sibling. The current COVID 19 quarantine presents several unknowns - and let’s face it; is a big change for all of us.

While change is a learning opportunity, it can also be stressful. A normal routine brings comfort and consistency to a child’s life.

Daily routines might include:

• Time to get up in the morning
• School time (use Tiger Plan or Orange Plan supplied by classroom teachers for this time)
• Mealtimes
• Housework, cooking and cleaning schedules
• Play time, family time and outdoor time
• Reading time
• Bed time

Together, we are Tiger STRONG. We live this mantra in the Princeton area community, and our students, teachers, and community members are doing amazing things even during this time of social distancing and "staying home". We encourage you to follow our District Facebook page to see the latest news, inspiration, or for some friendly faces!

Here are some other resources to help you stay connected:

• The Importance of Staying Connected
• Maintaining a Human Connection in a Time of Social Distancing
• Community Care: An Indigenous Response to Coronavirus

• What are SEL Core Competencies?
• 9 Ways to Improve Cooperation From Your Kids Article
• The Most Effective Way to Teach Your Child a Lesson Article
• Self Awareness SEL Video
• Self Management SEL Video
• Responsible Decision Making SEL Video
• Relationship Skills SEL Video
• Social Awareness SEL Video
• Future Self SEL Video
• Self Regulation for Grades K-2
• Self Regulation for Grades 3-5
• Impulse Control for Grades 6-8
• Summer Scholar Activity
• 6 Ways to End the School Year Strong

• Suggestions from the National Association of School Psychologists
• NPR: Just for Kids: A Comic Exploring the New Coronavirus
• The New YorkTimes: 4 Ways to Help Your Anxious Kid
• Naming Feelings: Feeling Better by Making the “Invisible, Visible” - Article SELskills.com
• Helping students process feelings through COVID-19 - Resource from Move this World
• Use these Pinterest Prompts to talk about feelings
• SEL Scavenger Hunt - Resource from Move this World
• Piggy and Bunny & the Stay-At-Home Plan - Children’s read aloud by Author Holly Belgum
• Teens Around the World Get Their COVID-19 Questions Answered from a Harvard Professor - YouTube Video

Resilience is our ability to bounce back from the stresses of life.

• What is Resilience?
• 5 Pillars of Resilience
• Video: Resilience During a Time of Fear
• 10 Ways to Build Your Emotional Resilience - Article by psych2go
• Self Compassion & Compassion Resilience - Article by Gary Loch
• YouTube Video Maya Angelou - Rainbow in the Clouds

Got 19 seconds of spare time? Good. Let's practice a quick breathing exercise to help bring you back to the present moment.

• Take a slow and deep inhale through your nose for a count of six while keeping your shoulders relaxed. Pay attention to how you are breathing. No keeping your tummy sucked in! You want your abdomen to expand with the inhale. You know you are inhaling properly if your tummy ruses with the inhale and your chest barely moves.
• Hold the breath for a count of two.
• As you exhale for a count of 8, keep your jaw relaxed while you purse your lips just slightly. The effect is similar to how a musician's lips are positions when playing the flute! That soft whooshing sound you h ear as you exhale is totally normal.
• Repeat this breathing exercise once more before taking stock of how this positively powerful technique has helped reduce your stress levels.

Additional Breathing Exercises:

• 5 fun breathing exercises for kids
• Why does breathing help reduce stress?
• Virtual Calming Corner - GoNoodle Activities to do right now

When we express gratitude and receive the same, our brain releases dopamine and serotonin, the two crucial neurotransmitters responsible for our emotions, and they make us feel ‘good’. They enhance our mood immediately, making us feel happy from the inside.

By consciously practicing gratitude everyday, we can help these neural pathways to strengthen themselves and ultimately create a permanent grateful and positive nature within ourselves.

• Why does practicing gratitude help reduce stress?
• Write a Gratitude Letter
• 3 Good Things Exercise
• 20 Ways to Practice Gratitude for a Happier Life - Article
• Podcast by David Steindl-Rast — How to Be Grateful in Every Moment (But Not for Everything)

• How Does Exercise Help Reduce Stress?
• Progressive Muscle Relaxation for Kids (video)

Almost everything will work again if you unplug it for a few minutes. Including you.

• What is Mindfulness & Self Care?
• 5 Ways Mindfulness Can Improve Your Life - Article by psych2go
• Virtual Calming Corner - GoNoodle Activities to do right now
• 10 Tiny Self Care Practices To Try Today - Article PsychCentral.com
• Benefits of Mindfulness
• 6 Trauma-Sensitive Yoga and Mindfulness Tools to Support Youth
• Self Care for Parents, Educators, Caregivers
• First Nations Ceremonial Practices

• CNN Health: The power of family dance parties when the world is falling apart
• Affirmations for Difficult Times
• Tips from a Therapist for Coping with Coronavirus Anxiety
• Experiencing Insomnia? Insomnia In Times of Stress
• You’re Allowed to Grieve the Year that Would’ve Been
• 7 Reasons Some People Actually Feel Better and Happier During the Pandemic
• 50 Simple Ways to Connect With Your Kids - list
• 7 Habits to Nurture a Positive Mindset - Article by psych2go
• Alicia Keys sings “Good Job” - Video CNN
• Make a Classroom or Family Mix Tape
• Regulating Emotions in a COVID-19 World

• 5 Important Brain Facts Every Parent Needs To Know - Article
• Do Nothing for 2 Minutes Soundtrack
• That Discomfort You’re Feeling is Grief - Article
• Coping Skills for Reducing Anxiety - Article by Gary Loch
• How to Help Students Manage Anxiety - Article SELSkills.com
• How to Build Resilience From the Stress of the Coronavirus - Article AARP.org
• How to Manage Anxiety and Isolation During Quarantine - Article AdultMentalHealth.org
• One Tool for Managing Anxiety During Covid and Beyond - Article Psychcentral.com
• https://www.self.com/story/reframing-existential-anxiety

The Minnesota Department of Health provides the following recommendations to reduce your risk of contracting COVID-19:

• Wash hands for 20 seconds. Washing hands often under clean, running water can help prevent the spread of germs. If you cannot wash your hands, use alcohol-based hand sanitizer with at least 60-95% alcohol.
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth. Germs spread this way.
• Avoid close contact with people who are sick.
• Stay home when you are sick. If possible, stay home from work, school, and errands when you are sick. You will help prevent others from catching your illness.
• Cover coughs and sneezes. Use a tissue to cover coughs and sneezes, then dispose of the tissue. When a tissue is not available, cough or sneeze into your elbow.
• Clean and disinfect surfaces or objects. Clean and disinfect frequently touched surfaces at home, work or school, especially when someone is ill.

• Pfizer - https://www.pfizerrxpathways.com/learn-about-programs
• Novartis - https://www.patientassistancenow.com/?usertrack_filter_applied=true&NovaId=2935377031736705249
• Roche - https://www.rxhope.com/PAP/info/PAPList.aspx?companyid=124&fieldType=companyid
• Merck - https://www.merckhelps.com/
• Johnson&Johnson - https://www.jjpaf.org/
• GlaxoSmithKline - https://www.gskforyou.com/
• Sanofi - http://www.sanofipatientconnection.com/
• Abbvie - https://www.abbvie.com/patients/patient-assistance.html
• Bayer - https://www.patientassistance.bayer.us/
• Lilly - http://www.lillycares.com/assistanceprograms.aspx

• Resources to Help

Social distancing means reducing close contact between people to slow the spread of infectious diseases. Slowing the spread of the virus will help our hospitals be able to care for patients. If too many people get sick at once they might not be able to care for everyone who needs help.

Avoid

• Playdates / Playgrounds
• House Parties / Group Hangouts
• Bars
• Non-essential travel
• Museums, Arcades, Malls
• Church Services
• Sleep overs
• Concerts, Sporting Events, Theater
• Gym
• Weddings

Use Caution / Limit

• Grocery Stores
• Take Out Food
• Pick Up Medications
• Contact a neighbor, friend or relative to ask if you can drop off groceries/medication at door.

Safe to Do

• Watch TV or movie at home
• Read a book
• Play video games
• Listen to music
• Game night
• Yard work
• Video chat
• Take an online class
• Virtual tour a museum
• Paint
• Cook
• Offer your skills to others electronically
• Be creative
• Take a walk*
• Go for a hike*
• Play in your yard*

*alone or with members of your household