Incorporate social emotional learning (SEL) into your child’s first year of school
Over the past few weeks there’s been tons of chatter about the G&T test scores that were recently released by the NYC dept of ed. Now that parents are focusing on the first day of G&T kindergarten you want to make sure your child is equipped for the social emotional learning required in the gifted classroom. If you’ve never heard of social-emotional learning (aka SEL) it’s the newest trend in education across the nation. Districts across America are now developing curriculum specifically for SEL.
As parents our goal is to make sure our child is a lifelong learner and become completely independent as they grow into adulthood. We also need to make sure we focus on the emotional well being of our children as they enter the classroom, especially the first day of kindergarten.
Scheduling is very important to young children and creating the routine for school the weeks before school begins. Make sure you’re focusing on going to bed early and waking up at the same time school starts so your child’s internal body clock is fully adjusted on day one of G&T kindergarten. It’s also important to teach your child that when they start school they will have classmates that may look different than them or believe in different things. A good tip to tell your child is “wouldn’t it be boring if everyone in the world was exactly the same?”. Of course it would be! The first days of school are a great way to educate your child on differences and similarities with their new classmates.
As parents it’s important we create early learners that want to collaborate with others and learn from other kids along with supporting others. When we present our child with hard, challenging problems, what do they do when they fail? How does your child handle failure? Now’s a good time to start discussing failure and explain that it’s part of the learning process. Don’t be afraid of failure, rather use it as a learning tool for your child’s long term educational success.
In today’s world there are no jobs where collaboration with others isn’t happening and working on a team is required. During the early years in school it’s about your child having a chance to learn about themselves and about other classmates. How to work well with others and being part of a team.
As the NYC G&T school placements are announced good luck to your rising G&T student! Make sure you add social emotional learning to your home curriculum. Also, bring it up to your child’s teacher and I’m sure the teacher will agree how important it is for a child’s success in and out of the classroom.
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