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Speaker 3Hello, Andrew. Welcome to the How Not to Screw Up Your Kids podcast. So, pour yourself a cuppa, find a comfy seat, and enjoy the conversation. This is episode 89, and today's episode, social and emotional development, is all about those crucial components that help safeguard our children's well-being. Now, focusing on their social and emotional development is not a guarantee that they won't struggle with their mental health later in life, but it does mean they'll be better equipped. To navigate it, because we can never be ever really truly say never. Now, there's a huge body of evidence that the first five years of a child's life are really important and crucial because of the explosion in terms of brain development and neural connections. We have this phenomenal opportunity to lay down those foundations that our children need for an emotionally enriching, happy life. In the United Kingdom, the Princess of Wales has launched her own campaign focused on the first five years of life through the Royal Foundation. And my not-for-profit One Million Moments is all about that basic premise that prevention is better, well, easier and much less messy and challenging than cure. So, this podcast is all about ways we can develop these important qualities in our children from the get-go. And yet, do not fear. If you are listening with children that are older than five, because this is all about stages of development and the skills rather than their actual chronological age, I'll talk about all of the aspects of that social and emotional development that are important to master at any age. So, I guess what's probably a sensible thing to do is start by being really clear about what do we mean by social and emotional development. It's the end goal that we're all working towards. Social and emotional development is made, of the skills, I guess, which help children develop their resilience, manage their thoughts, feelings and behaviour. So, it could include all sorts of different aspects. But when they melt together, the melting pot is that they help create a child that has got, that we've basically helped safeguard because they've become resilient around their emotions. They're able to understand their thoughts, their feelings and then choose behaviours that are most supportive of them and their well-being. Now, I've got just a little request. So, I'm going to talk about the factors that are really important in terms of our children's social and emotional development. And then I'm going to talk through some activities that you could use to help support your child in terms of that, kind of them acquiring those skills. Now, I'm hugely passionate about prevention in these really early years and all the years in terms of those moments that we've had in our lives. and the best decision that they can in that moment. rather than children who can sometimes become slightly paralyzed with this idea of for fear that they're not making the right decision other children don't have any problems at all with making decisions and are quite quick with with doing that and for some it may be helping them be a bit more reflective before they make a decision so making those decisions in that moment part of their social and emotional development is this notion of building resilience self-esteem and confidence they're all wrapped up in the same thing because when we talk about resilience we're talking about our children's ability to bounce back from setback so that maybe with a toddler you know a lot of children when they're very young demonstrate huge amounts of resilience it's often really when we start having language and we attach thought to things that we begin to see that potentially for some children waning but our children have resilience because they when they're learning to walk they get themselves back up and they keep trying and they keep trying and that's the epitome that kind of is the whole essence of resilience is that ability to pick yourself up and try again and when they're able to do that that help builds their self-esteem and confidence is not the belief that you can do anything but the belief that you are fundamentally a decent person and that you are able to play to your strengths that there are certain aspects of your character and things that you do that are not quite where they want you want them to be but that's something that you can work on so that's a really crucial part and we can foster that with our children from a really really young age and if you're listening to this podcast with older children then 13 16 18 year old we can still be beginning to to work in these areas it's ideal in those early years because we're setting the foundations in which we can layer the next set of experiences but it is never ever too late another aspect of social and emotional development is is our children being able to think positively about themselves and how they perceive the world around them so it's this notion that they can see themselves as a likable individual and that they are able to see the aspects of their qualities that are strengths as well as qualities that are areas that they can develop on but that overall they can see themselves in that reflective piece but also see themselves in that positive light but also that they're able to see that the world in which they inhabit is inherently a safe place to be in that they're not caught up too much in the fear factor of the things that can go wrong but that actually that the world that they live in is one that can help nurture them and that they can explore and try new things so those are kind of the the core qualities that we want to think about when we're looking at social and emotional development and we'll make sure that you have those qualities available because whilst i'm going to talk about some specific activities that i use quite often to help encourage and bring that up and and also it's part of the training that i do for a nanny agency freckles in terms of training their nannies in terms of emotional development how can we if we know that these aspects of social and emotional development how can we create activities and games that help foster those and bring that on for children so that then we can we can be helpful with that as well so it's just keeping that in mind because whilst i'm going to talk about some activities there are so many things that we probably don't even think about that we do regularly with our children that we don't realize can foster this social and emotional development if we're able just to talk a little bit around some of the things that we're doing so we're you have children that help out laying the table or if you have children helping out with responsibilities around the house then that is an aspect of being self-aware it helps them make make decisions because you're asking them to complete a particular task but they're able to do it maybe in their in within a specific time frame so they're making decisions you're building resilience and self-esteem and confidence because they're because of this contribution they're thinking positively about themselves because they're part of this wider network you're helping them build and manage healthy relationships particularly if you end up with their contribution around the house or the games that they play at home involve turn-taking so it's really if we know that these are the areas we can really be thinking around some of the things that we do ordinarily and how we can kind of develop some of the conversations around that so how do we instill these skills in our children in my view it's really through games and activities and capitalizing on those slightly cliched but those teachable moments in our day-to-day it's being aware of these how important this social and emotional development is and those core components and then where we get an opportunity and we're aware and you know life happens and we're busy and we don't always think to have those moments with our children but when we are aware we're then able to capitalize it and it's this idea you know if you can do it two times out of ten then that's what we're going for and that is absolutely brilliant so let's look at some of the activities that i would sort of look at doing and i think one of the real core foundations when we're talking about social and emotional development is really focusing in on our children's ability to identify their emotions how it shows up for them and how they can make choices around their behavior so the activities that are really important to us are the activities that are really important to us are the activities that are really helpful can be things like which emotions so if you've got really young children you can use paper plates and on those paper plates you can draw eyes and a nose and depending on how creative you are you can put hair on you can put ears all the rest of it but what you're really doing is you're helping them identify those early stages the kind of rudimentary ways of being able to tell emotions in different people and in themselves based on their facial expressions at the basic level you've got the paper plate where you've drawn the eyes the hair the ears and the nose but you haven't yet done the mouth because what you can then do is you can bring play-doh into it and then they can play around with what the mouth might look like for if they're happy if they're sad if they're surprised if they're angry maybe don't draw the eyebrows on and you can use the play-doh to play around with that but it's really trying to get them to engage in a task that they're going to love that's really sort of tactile with their fingers but also helping them identify emotions and maybe you can model for them what a happy face looks like or an angry face pointing out specifically the eyebrows and the mouth so that they can then have a play around with that that can be at the basic level you can have you can make stress balls i'm a big fan of making stress balls with balloons and you can fill them with flour i generally fill them with quinoa not because i'm being particularly funny and it can only be quinoa it's not it's because quinoa is round and generally you're going to be there's going to be less prickly than maybe using rice or other things that have sharp edges you can use flour but whatever it is that you fill their balloons with stress balls are really great anyway and balloons are really great for that particularly if you use two balloons so they're slightly double double bagged but what's really great about the balloons is that you can make them into characters if you tie a knot in the balloon with the surplus bit of the balloon at the top then you can then start to create hair you can add some ribbon or some pipe cleaners to make hair and then you can draw on the actual the main part of the balloon you can draw sort of facial expressions or emojis and this you can use with really young children because you can use that in terms of happy sad and angry at the very basic level and then they can identify and use those as a way of communicating by telling you how they're feeling but you can also use it with older children 13 14 15 year olds that are then able to use those stress balls as a way of communicating their emotion but also as a way of relieving any excess sort of energy from that emotion that they want to try and go from that state of agitation to a state of a little bit more calm so you can use you know some of these activities are ideal for really young children but they can also be great in terms of adapting for older children and the stress ball ones are amazing they're really good you can identify and label emotions regularly talk about your emotions talk about you know you could be sitting in a car in traffic with a young child in the car or an older teen in the car and just talk about the fact that you're feeling frustrated because you're going to be late getting the children to school or you're frustrated because you're sitting in traffic and there was a job that you wanted to do after school drop-off that you're not now not going to be able to do and you can then talk about not only have you labeled your emotion and the subtle nuances you know quite often we get caught up in some very very rudimentary aspects of language so we talk about i'm happy i'm sad i'm cross i'm scared i'm nervous but actually there's a lot of subtle nuances to being angry is you're not just angry there'll be an aspect so there might be an anger with a bit of embarrassment or a bit of nervousness
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Speaker 3Or a little bit of jealousy. So it's being able to talk about the subtle nuances around language so our children then begin to understand the vast array of the language that we use to express our emotion. But also, we need to be able to talk about the subtle nuances around language. So we can talk about how that level of frustration we might have with traffic, what we might then do, or maybe let's put some music on and see if we can sing a song or become distracted, or maybe let's listen to a channel where we can listen to a podcast or a story or something. But we're then modelling for our children this idea about being able to identify emotions, but then those choices of behaviour that are particularly helpful. And then the other thing to talk about emotions, and this is a really great way, with really young children, but also as our children get older, it's a great way for them to be able to decompress and talk through their emotions, is to use teddies, dolls, characters to talk about emotions and what those particular teddies, dolls or characters might do in terms of resolving a particular feeling at that time. And as I say, it's a really great way for children to sort of decompress. And it doesn't have to necessarily be teddies and dolls if your children don't play with those. My daughter was never massive. In fact, I don't really. She had the odd doll that I think was bought for her by her grandmother who was desperate to have her being traditionally girly, but she absolutely wasn't. She much preferred her trains and her cars. But that didn't mean that she didn't talk about emotions and talk about those, the sort of that storyline development that you would do to typically with a teddy or a doll. You just do it with something else. So whatever it is that your child is interested in, whether it's characters, superheroes, whatever it might be, you can still talk about this notion about how they're feeling and what they might do and talking through those stories. So there's lots of ways, there's lots of scope around how we tackle that kind of aspect around emotions. So what do we do about this? I've called it this sort of concept of self because when we're talking about being self-aware, when we're talking about resilience, self-esteem and confidence, thinking about themselves, positively and how they perceive the world, a lot of it is related to this concept of self, how they see themselves. And one way you can do that is through a simple, you know, starting really when our children are really younger, but then feeding through till they're older. So when they're really young, you can talk about things like I am, and you can start with some really simple aspects of them. I am a boy. I am a girl. I am. tall. I am funny, kind. So it's helping them begin to understand some of the qualities that make them who they are. And you can start with some of the sort of very concrete things like I am someone with brown eyes. I am someone with blonde hair because that's an easy thing. And with this aspect of I am, it's something that's really helpful to do quite regularly because what we can then do is we can build on that. Because what I often talk about is this idea about building blocks and this notion that I've talked about lots of times that our children are a building under construction. But we can talk about what are the building blocks that make us who we are with really young children and then continue that discussion well into their teens and into that early adulthood is what are the things that make me who I am? What are those building blocks? If you've got Jenga and you're happy to write on the Jenga blocks, you can start talking about what are those qualities that make you who you are. Make me who I am so that they can begin to get used to this idea of I am funny, I am kind, I am loyal, I am trustworthy, I am generous, I am sensitive so that they can really see themselves for all that they are. And you can then talk about the aspects that they're not yet. So again, this capitalises back onto this idea about growth mindset. So rather than this, oh, I wish I was or I'm not that, it's language around that I'm not that yet. And then we can encourage that problem solving. So it may well be that I am loyal and trustworthy, but maybe they don't view themselves as organised. And so it's like, how might I do that? Maybe they don't think they're particularly funny. So what might I need to do in order to be funny? So I'm not yet funny, but what does a funny, what are the things that embody a funny person? What does a funny person look like? What does somebody who is funny, what are the things that embody a funny person? What are the things that they are doing and they're saying? Because sometimes when we talk about this, I am, our children will have one view of what they think that is that may be very different to ours. So it's really important that we unpick that. But obviously this will be for older children, but helping them with that concept of self, I am is a really good one. And actually, if you really want to make it fun, or at least I think it's fun anyway, I'm a huge, huge fan of lining paper. So if you've got wallpaper that you can hang on your walls, but you can also from DIY shops, get lining paper. And I used to use lining paper all the time for my children when they were younger. It's basically how we use craft things. I didn't buy sort of craft paper, but I bought lining paper. What can be great to do with any age child, and obviously you could do this. Oh my goodness, it's just come to me as I'm talking about it. You could do it at different ages and stages with your children so that they can begin to see that. So you'd rock. Have the lining paper, you'd roll it out on the floor. You would get your child to lie down and then you would draw around or get their sibling to draw around, however you want to do it. But you would draw around them. At the top, you would write, I am. Once you've got their outline, they can draw their face and all the other parts so that makes that drawing that you've done. So it becomes them. And then with a big I am at the top, you can then get them to start writing, some of the qualities that they have. I'm kind, I'm loyal, I'm funny. So that they begin to see those and maybe you write them in lots of different colours or maybe you write the qualities that they are in one colour and then you start getting them to consider some of the qualities that they would like to have. So the qualities that I am not yet in a different colour and those become the things that you're working on. Maybe you do one for each of your children and they do those and then you have those. But I think it's a really useful exercise. It's that making that concrete, this is who I am and being able to recognise that and think positively about themselves and becoming that, really becoming self-aware. So that's a really great one. The other part of this idea about concept of self and then being able to kind of resolve conflict is it's really, this whole idea and it isn't always possible, I know, because as families we can be really busy but where we can have family meal time and sometimes family meal times may well be that you and your partner come home at different times and it may well be that you eat with the children. When my children were younger, I always ate with them and their dad came in later and then he would then, bless him, he had leftovers for many years. But that was just the way that we operated it and it worked really well because it meant that the children, it wasn't a case of me sitting at the table and them eating and me watching them but it was actually a case of that we ate together. And then at the weekends we always ate together but the reason why I'm talking about family meals is that it's such a great opportunity to have discussions. So we have always had discussions and sometimes those discussions have been particularly heated as the children have got older and they've got different views, differing political views, different opinions on different things. That's such an important aspect of helping our children get that concept of self. You know, what are my views on and homework, you know, you can, you can orchestrate discussions and I sometimes would take a deliberately obtuse opinion or an obtuse view to encourage that kind of discussion and it's not about being provocative because you want to stoke a reaction in your children it's more a case of of being able to kind of get them to think about well actually what is my opinion how do I feel about this but also so that encourages them to have that concept of self but it's also great at resolving conflict of being able to listen and understand another person's viewpoint and then to be able to express your viewpoint in a way that helps them become articulate with that viewpoint but also helps them to have that healthy respect that others have a different viewpoint than themselves and and how you manage that and obviously you do you adapt that and you modify that depending on how old your children are but you can throw in really random sort of you know comments if you if you were going to be in charge for a whole day what would you what would you do so you don't they don't have to be huge deep and meaningful conversations when you've got younger children in that because those aren't necessarily appropriate around political views or opinions on things but you can start with really sort of simple discussions or just and really fun ones like you know we should only we should always eat dessert first discuss so it's those sorts of things and what we will be gifting what i will be gifting in this podcast episode is going to be my conversation starters because it has some of those sorts of things that can start discussions that are really helpful for that concept of self but also helpful in terms of resolving conflict but also helpful in terms of self-control and helping build and manage your own self-control and that's what i'm going to be talking about healthy relationships so those are also some really good activities and then there's a really good activity in terms of communication so part of being able to build and manage healthy relationships resolve conflict a handler overcome difficulties and a lot of those sorts of people aspects of the social development is around our children's ability to communicate and it's communicate ideas which they can do in terms of discussions but also communicate in terms of turn taking i am one of three i do also think it's a cultural thing so i talk very fast and my entire family we are really bad at interrupting people and i think i'm convinced it's a cultural thing where you have to kind of get your opinion in quickly because someone else is going to say something i will certainly remember being back home in egypt with lots of aunties and lots of uncles and everybody talking over everybody else and i think it's a cultural thing so i've had to work really really hard at not doing that and i still i do it a lot so i am very very aware and young children quite often do this as well so there is the really simple turn-taking game that you can play and you can do this with really really young children and you can do it as they as they get as you get older i've done it with mine as an older thing when we've got ourselves into a bit of a habit of constantly talking over each other and i think it's a really good thing to do and i think it's a really good thing to do and i think it's a really good thing to do is you basically use a wooden spoon it can be the talking spoon you can give the talking spoon a name you might not call it the talking spoon you might call it the i'm in charge whatever you want to call it but in essence the idea is that you can only speak in a discussion if you are holding the spoon so it encourages active listening so this idea of active listening is something i think a listening so that you would be able to paraphrase what that person has told you rather than what most of us do which is listening with an answer in mind you know listening with our response already in place so it really helps to to encourage listening and it also encourages this idea about turn-taking so that that spoon the idea is that that spoon needs to be constantly moved around you can't have that spoon and then commandeer it and then you can't have that spoon and then commandeer it and then be the person who speaks so it's this idea that if you then want to have the spoon because you want to say something you agree what that indicator is going to be that you now want to speak whether it's a nod whether it's a hand up or whatever it might be so that as a group you're all then finely tuned to what everyone else is doing so that you can make sure that you take turns and you can obviously you can make the game as complicated or as easy as with older children you can have penalties you could have certain time periods with a buzzer that goes off so you can't have the spoon after a certain amount of time but for younger children it's really helpful in terms of encouraging them to wait because that's impulse control and having that self-control and then being able to speak and what i would also add as a really good activity to encourage children not to interrupt or to have that level of self-control that they can when you're speaking so really young children are desperate because they're so in the moment and so present to tell you something they they're just absolutely bursting to tell you so what can be really helpful is what can often happen is that children would just interrupt you could be mid conversation with somebody about something that's really important maybe it's the plumber you're talking to or you're dealing with somebody on the telephone is what is really good is to encourage children so that when they want to speak to you they place their hand maybe on the phone maybe on your wrist so that you know that means i want to speak what you then do is you place your hand on your child's hand to say i've acknowledged and recognized that you want to speak and i'll be with you in a moment now when you're practicing this if this is something that you want to introduce for your children and it is such a beautiful way of helping children feel that they're then able to communicate that they want to say something rather than mom mom i want to say dad can i just and instead they just place their hand when you then place your hand above and what i would suggest if you're going to practice if you want to do this is to practice it and when you practice it make sure that when you place your hand on your child you do have a bit of a pause before you respond but you try and respond relatively quickly because what you're when you're practicing it what your child then learns is ah there it doesn't take too long before i'm listened to because what you can then do is by doing that regularly in the practicing and then in the early stages when you use it is that children are going to be much more inclined to continue using that because they've learned that you respond relatively quickly to them and that's a really beautiful and helpful way of beginning to instill that and you can do that with really young children but equally you can if you've got older children who are constantly interrupting and you're trying to encourage taking turns within a discussion and you don't want to get the whole wooden spoon out then that's also another great way particularly when you're out and about or there are other people involved that are distracting you from from being ever present in terms of your child's attention i hope that you found that helpful i could talk for ages about activities and and games so if you have enjoyed this sort of more practically real that sort of game side then do subscribe to my channel and i'll see you in the next video do sort of send us a message through contact at drmaryhand.com because that is really helpful for us to understand if you want more of these because it's it's kind of like my little superpower i love creating activities for us to use as parents to help develop some of these skills and it was certainly a huge part of my doctoral thesis and the part of my doctoral thesis that has been published and is being used in research all over the world so it's definitely an area that i can talk more and more about so my give this week is going to be those areas of development in terms of social and emotional development as a prompt but what we're also going to include is going to be my conversation starters as an activity that you can begin to use at mealtimes or any time to begin having those discussions and we will also be giving you the link to one million moments for you to consider making a donation so that you can access other resources they're video resources as well as downloadable resources so as usual i'll ask you to head over to the free resource library drmaryhand.com forward slash library where you'll find the link to download the resources all you need to do is pop in your email address and you'll get instant access not only to this week's resource but all the other free resources across all my podcast episodes as ever if you have enjoyed this episode i would love it and be so so grateful if you could follow and review this podcast so that others can find us and we can spread the love so until next time sure you've been to deep ellen for the nightlife but you've got to
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