Social & Emotional Learning at Mealtime                     By Katie Shinn

With all of the rain we have had lately, school snack time and lunch recess have had its fair share of indoor time.  Food and conversation naturally go hand in hand so I have taken the opportunity to add a little social emotional learning in with our usual “chit chat”. Developmental psychologists stress how important family meal time is for healthy child development because it gives children better prosocial behaviors which can result in less antisocial ones.

Conversation is always very lively during our “family meal time” so we do our best to practice our meal-manners when we are together. These include no “potty talk”, taking turns when speaking, attentive listening, and no criticizing anyone’s food choices. 

Here is one of my favorite things for bringing social & emotional learning into snack/lunch time in the class:

Pick an emotion or feeling (i.e frustration, embarrassed, scared, etc)                                                

TEACHER: start telling a story about that time. You can talk about your feelings, what you did and how you resolved your situation. For example, if you wanted to talk about “forgiveness”, you could talk about a time when you hurt someone’s feelings or made a mistake and was worried you would get into trouble. 

ASK STUDENTS:  Have you ever been forgiven? Were you scared to admit your mistake? Why?  Have you ever forgiven someone for something? What did they do?  Did you feel better after you forgave someone?

This type of talk will help your children develop their emotional language and be able to express themselves beyond just mad, happy, sad, etc. We also draw examples from the kids’ experiences in school as a way to give them a better understanding through real life situations. They will also have more tools in their social and emotional toolbox to better handle a situation if it happens again. It is important for children to see that adults can have a myriad of emotions just like them and that we too have to recognize them and work through them.

Families can also practice this at home during their mealtimes and it is a great way for your children to see that you may have struggled with some of the same situations that they have.  Talk about a time when you were a kid and had to work hard to overcome something or faced a situation where you didn’t know what to do. I promise, it can be a great time of reflection and kids are fascinated that the adults in their lives were kids once too! 

Lunchtime at school is an important time for kids to develop their social skills and build relationships on their own so we don’t ride the social & emotional train every indoor recess but when we do, it can be a very rewarding experience for both the students and me.  

Below are some links that can help you practice Social Emotional Learning at home:

Feelings Wheel: Gives you a wide range of vocabulary for your feelings https://ytp.uoregon.edu/sites/ytp2.uoregon.edu/files/Feelings%20Wheel%20in%20PDF.pdf

Social & Emotional Games for Kids: If you need a game to “break the ice” https://proudtobeprimary.com/social-emotional-learning-games/

The Importance of Family Dinners                                https://thefamilydinnerproject.org/about-us/benefits-of-family-dinners/