Part 1. What is social emotional competencence?
Introduction
This lesson will be available on January 1, 2024.
Part 2. Positive social and emotional climates
Introduction
This lesson will be available on January 1, 2024.
Part 3. Learning about and managing emotions
Introduction
This lesson will be available on January 1, 2024.
Part 4. Social competence
Introduction
This lesson will be available on January 1, 2024.
Part 5. Developing self-regulation and executive function
Introduction
This lesson will be available on January 1, 2024.
Part 6. Neurodivergence and social-emotional competence
Introduction
This lesson will be available on January 1, 2024.
Part 7. Challenging behaviour and social-emotional skills
Introduction
This lesson will be available on January 1, 2024.
Part 8. Conclusion
Introduction
This lesson will be available on January 1, 2024.

Introduction

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Welcome to the first part of the course. In this part, we provide you with a general overview of social and emotional competence, and the range of interconnected capacities and skills involved. As we progress through the course, we will revisit each of the components of social and emotional competence in greater detail, and look at specific contexts and challenges related to developing social and emotional competence.

The aims for this part of the course are: 
  • To understand and reflect upon the importance of social and emotional competence
  • To become familiar with the different terminology used to describe the different components of social and emotional competence
This will involve:
  • Reading an introduction to social and emotional competence
  • Reflecting on children’s social and emotional competencies in your own setting
  • Watching a video in which Professor Sir Peter Gluckman explains why the development of social and emotional competence in early childhood is so important
  • Considering the social and emotional competencies you use on a given day

We also provide a list of links to further reading should you wish to pursue these introductory ideas to social and emotional competence further. 

Watch a video

Watch a video

SURPRISE! Here’s a workbook testing area: (when it gets a green line around it, it’s saved!)

You just insert the shortcode you’ve created for each part of the course and hey presto, job’s a good un.

As you have heard, I feel strongly about the importance of social and emotional learning in effective early childhood education and I believe it is a crucial component that supports children’s learning and wellbeing. So let’s get started by looking at social and emotional competence in a little more depth.

Kia ora, ko Vicki Hargraves ahau, and welcome to this course on social and emotional competence in early childhood education. Many children have difficulty with social and emotional skills, and when they do, this can lead to problems with learning, but also problems with challenging behaviours. Perhaps they may have no friends, and they may be rejected by their peers, and receive very little in the way of positive attention from teachers. And all of this can lead to a poor sense of self-esteem. 

Without appropriate support these children can flounder in educational settings, and when they go to school, there may be not as much support for social and emotional learning. 

One of my own children has struggled with learning social and emotional competencies, and this has got me really interested in coming to understand what it is that children need to learn, and how they learn it, and what we do if they don’t pick it up naturally. So, in this course we’re going to have a look at the neurological aspects of social and emotional competence, and this is really important because it offers some really clear guidance around the kinds of supports we can offer children.

Self-regulation is a really hot topic here, and for good reason, because the ability to regulate, or to control and manage our responses to our thoughts and emotions, is crucial across a number of life activities, and also really important in learning, when we’re trying to navigate difficult situations as we’re trying to learn a new skill, and that involves lots of social interaction, perhaps, but also dealing with some tricky emotions that come up for us as we’re learning new skills.

However, teaching social and emotional competence is a little bit different to teaching counting, or teaching how to mix colours, for example. It requires that we have really strong relationships with children, that we really know our children well, but also that we have an understanding of what social and emotional competencies look like and how they develop, so that we can offer just the right type of support at the right time for children to help them learn.

Let’s get started! I’m really wishing you a great experience with this course. Ka kite.

Read

Read this introduction to social and emotional competence, which provides a good overview of some of the concepts and ideas we will cover in the course. As you read, note the different facets of social and emotional competence, and how these are defined. 

What is social and emotional competence?

Social and emotional competence involves successfully managing emotional arousal and engaging positively in social settings. It is generally thought to include:

  • Emotion knowledge such as awareness of one’s own emotions and those of others
  • Emotional regulation (particularly understanding how to calm down in times of heightened emotion) and appropriate emotion expression
  • Social skills including perspective-taking, empathy and social problem-solving
  • Self-management and responsible decision-making.

Children’s social and emotional competence varies with their age and developmental stage, and also according to the sociocultural expectations, values and norms of their whanāu and community. As the expression of emotions varies across cultures, and as different groups use different repertoires of strategies for conflict resolution, children’s social and emotional competence primarily involves adapting to a particular social group’s ways of acting. This means there is no single model of appropriate social and emotional behaviour.

Children’s social and emotional development also varies according to their temperament or typical way of approaching and reacting to the world, and learning how to manage emotion can be more challenging for some than others. Children who are prone to negative emotions (sadness, fear, anger and frustration) or have an impulsive temperament are more likely to have difficulties with emotions and social behaviours and a greater challenge in learning to regulate their emotions, whereas children with easy, more readily soothed temperaments will have less difficulty and are more likely to demonstrate social and emotional competence. Children are also at greater risk of difficulties when they grow up in families and communities that are characterised by stress, conflict, or negative emotion, and when there is a lack of support for children’s emotional expression. 

Emotional competence

Emotions are crucial to all kinds of cognitive and social activity and behaviour, and emotional competencies help children to accomplish goals, meet challenges, and engage effectively in social groups and environments. Emotion knowledge or emotional literacy enables children to identify, express and understand their own feelings and those of others, while emotional regulation involves having control over which emotions are experienced, as well as when and how they are experienced and expressed. 

Emotionally competent children demonstrate culturally accepted ways of expressing emotion, which might involve masking or minimising emotions, or substituting one emotion for another. They can identify emotions that are helpful and retain, enhance or intensify these, while inhibiting less productive emotions and the negative behaviours that flow from them through strategies such as seeking support, reframing problems, reinterpreting situations, problem solving, and distancing or distracting themselves. Children can also utilise emotions for constructive purposes, such as utilising the energy that comes with anger for asserting themselves in a positive way.

Social competence

Social competence involves the use of a range of sophisticated skills for forming and positively managing social relationships and interactions with others. While these skills will vary according to the emphasis of children’s home cultures, for example, in regard to behaviours such as self-assertion, independence and group participation, socially competent children are able to engage, sustain and elicit positive responses from other people. They are able to cooperate and work collaboratively in play and activity, with skills such as making suggestions for play and giving compliments, as well as sharing, turn-taking, and negotiation skills. Socially competent children are also able to solve social problems and manage conflict, through abilities to understand social situations, take other people’s perspectives, and consider alternative solutions.

Self-management

Self-management refers to a set of cognitive skills that support learning, including focusing and maintaining attention, persevering, ignoring distractions, planning and decision-making, which work alongside emotional regulation (such as managing anxiety or boredom in relation to learning activities) and regulation of social interactions (such as seeking help when needed or avoiding invitations to negative behaviours). Self-management enables thoughtful behaviours and intentional decisions in a range of cognitive, social and emotional contexts.

Self-managing children pay attention to their own behaviour and employ appropriate and productive behaviours to engage in play, learning and interaction. They can suppress impulses long enough to consider the consequences of intended actions and possible alternatives, and engage in responsible decision-making by employing and reflecting upon constructive actions that take into account issues such as ethics, safety, and social and cultural expectations. For example, self-regulated, self-managing children not only understand that they should use their words instead of hitting, but are able to do so in the heat of the moment.

How are social and emotional competencies interlinked?

These emotional and social competencies are linked and often viewed as one integrated construct because

  • Emotions motivate the use of skills for social competence and self-management
  • Children learn about how to manage emotions through their social experiences and appropriate emotional expression is socially and culturally determined
  • Children’s emotional literacy and emotional regulation influence their success in social interactions
  • Emotional regulation is important for effective social problem-solving
  • Self-management involves understanding the emotions that occur in diverse interactions, as well as an ability to handle emotions in productive ways
  • Self-management skills lead to improved social behaviour

Social and emotional competence and self-management all draw on children’s executive function skills for self-control, working memory and flexibility that give children ‘executive’ control over attention, emotion, thinking and action. For example, skills for paying attention, for keeping track of what they are doing, or for remembering rules or conditions of activities and tasks are crucial for self-management but also for children to be able to engage effectively in social activities such as conversation and collaborative play. 

Why is social and emotional competence important?

Substantial research evidence links social and emotional competencies to better outcomes for children in a range of areas. For example, positive social interactions, self-control, emotion knowledge and regulatory skills, are associated with

  • long-term positive social and health outcomes, including high self-esteem and positive mental health, wellbeing, happiness, higher rates of employment, quality of life and life satisfaction, as well as lower rates of school dropout, delinquency, criminal activity, substance abuse, and public assistance. 
  • positive peer relationships and better relationships with adults. Children with prosocial skills, self-regulation skills and good communication are more likely to be accepted and preferred by peers. 
  • health and wellbeing, as emotions influence physiological processes and interactions between neurological, endocrine, metabolic and immune systems.
  • greater school readiness, positive attitudes and greater attachment towards school, and more positive transitions to school. 
  • greater success in learning and later school achievement, particularly in language, communication, literacy and numeracy. Five-year-olds’ emotion knowledge predicts both social and academic achievement at age nine, and self-regulation skills more accurately predict reading and mathematics achievement in school than measures of IQ.

Children who struggle to deal with negative emotions and have difficulties eliciting positive interactions with others might not have the resources to focus on learning, and may avoid challenging learning activities. Difficulties regulating stress are related to mental and physical health issues such as a weakened immune system, depression, and anxiety. In addition, feelings of stress or anxiety are found to reduce activity in areas of the brain responsible for higher-order thinking and learning and to disrupt cognitive processes such as focusing attention, problem solving, and social skills. Children who are unable to regulate their social and emotional behaviour experience greater peer rejection and social isolation, leading to low self-esteem and low motivation for learning, declining participation, a decrease in achievement, and later mental health issues and difficulties at school. However, there is strong evidence that quality practices and effective interventions in early childhood can help children improve their social, emotional, and self-management skills.

Identifying social and emotional difficulties in early childhood

Children’s social and emotional competencies are constantly evolving, and the development of social and emotional skills is not uniform. However, some children have more difficulty than others in identifying emotions, interpreting social situations, responding appropriately and solving social problems such as conflict with a peer. 

Signs of difficulties in emotional and behavioural self-regulation include difficulties with concentration, being uninterested in daily play and activity, or experiencing such intense feelings of sadness or anxiety that they are unable to move on. Children may show externalising behaviours, such as throwing tantrums, aggression, and non-compliance, or internalising behaviours such as being withdrawn, turning away from caregivers, and failing to show emotion. It is important to address self-regulation difficulties as they can disrupt learning and relationships and affect school readiness. 

Some children may require a well-planned and intensive approach to learning social and emotional skills, but most difficulties can be improved by changes to teacher behaviours and practices rather than by singling out children for individual intervention. However, where children are at risk of developing negative social and emotional problems, it is particularly important to seek higher-intensity supports for the child and family and it may be necessary to seek professional help.

To read the referenced version of this research review, click here.

Reflect

What differences do you note in the social and emotional competencies of children in your setting? What do you notice about children who have strong social and emotional competencies? What kinds of things do you see them do and say, and how does this support their engagement in your setting? Are there children that are experiencing difficulties in their social and emotional development? What impact does this have for them and their experiences in your early childhood setting?

Watch a video

In this video, Professor Sir Peter Gluckman discusses why social and emotional competence, with a particular emphasis on emotional regulation and self-management skills (which Sir Peter refers to as executive function skills), is so important in children’s development and across the lifespan.

About Sir Peter Gluckman

Professor Sir Peter Gluckman (ONZ KNZM FRSNZ FMedSci FRS) trained as a paediatrician and biomedical scientist and holds a Distinguished University Professorship at the Liggins Institute of the University of Auckland. Sir Peter is President of the International Science Council, and from 2009-2018 he was the first Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister of New Zealand. He is director of Koi Tū: The Centre for Informed Futures, a University of Auckland Faculty of Arts research centre.

Well, what we do know clearly is that if children don’t reach school with a certain set of competencies which include the regulation of their emotions, the ability to pay attention, the ability to think ahead and have some flexible thinking, their capacity to learn is very inhibited. Furthermore, their capacity to manage their emotions when things don’t go so well, as life is never perfect, will be compromised, so that the most important foundational skill – the most important foundation a child can have – is the development of those particular functions in the first three to five years of life, because that will determine their trajectory through life.

What are the foundational skills that children need?

Well, there’s a set of brain functions which have their scaffolds built between conception and the first three to five years of life, and they’re multiple, but they all relate to each other, and inter-connect. They include the ability to pay attention, the ability to self-regulate your emotions, your ability to think ahead, the ability to think flexibly, the ability to remember. All of this comes together, and we call them executive functions. They’re not one, but they all inter-relate.  So language development is closely linked, as well. So part of thinking ahead is the importance of the right kind of interaction between the care-giver, the teacher, and the child as they develop in those first five years.

What influences the development of children’s social and emotional skills?

There are many things that can go wrong in life, but if we start life in a good state, the chances of staying more healthy emotionally and physically through life are much better. So what do we have to do early in life? Well, a healthy pregnancy helps a lot. Breast-feeding helps a lot. Bonding between the child and their parents helps a lot. Serve and return reading, where there’s interaction between the child and the reader rather than just passive reading, avoiding excessive screen time: all of these are part of it. Encouraging children in the social skills, which early childhood education has the particular role to do, is very important. Learning how to respond to – to be part of a group, to interact in a group – these are all part of learning, but the most important thing is love and interacting with the child.  In other words, don’t just read to the child passively, or put them in front of a TV or a screen, or an iPad. You want to actually interact with them – positively engage in what I call serve and return, interactions where the more you interact with a child in a constructive way, the better things will be.

What is the role of ECE teachers in developing children’s social emotional competence and executive function skills?

In my view, and I think the view of people who work in the area of executive function, this is the most important component of early childhood education. Frankly, we can leave teaching to read and to do mathematics a bit later, but you cannot leave this development of the scaffolding of executive functions. If it’s not developed in those three to five years, we can’t repair it fully, and that means the most important aspects of early childhood education are social emotional development, and that’s what we need to focus on more and more. I know parents want children to do more, but if they have good social emotional development, which partly depends on the parent, and partly depends on the home, but also depends on early childhood education, then those kids are going to do brilliantly at school anyhow. 

Delve deeper

Sir Peter clearly explains the importance of the different competencies of social and emotional learning to children’s future success at school and across the lifespan. The skills that he particularly emphasises as important to future learning and future success are emotional regulation and executive function skills, which we referred to as self-management skills in the reading above, and which include paying attention, planning, or thinking ahead, and being flexible in thinking. Peter says the quality of social and emotional skills that an individual has determines their trajectory through life, meaning that the strength of these skills has implications for a range of life outcomes including academic achievement, employment, and mental health. Supporting the development of these skills in early childhood is crucial because the ‘scaffolds’ for these essential executive function skills are developed in the first 3 to 5 years of life. Peter suggests that if we miss this important window for developing the beginnings of executive function skills, children will be at an ongoing disadvantage, as it is difficult to make up for this missed opportunity at a later age.

Sir Peter also notes the role of early childhood education in supporting specific social and emotional competencies, and in particular the social opportunities that early childhood education offers. There are some other key ingredients to the development of social and emotional competencies related to the way that we as teachers (as well as parents and other familiar adults) interact with young children. Peter is suggesting that focused, loving, and responsive interactions with young children, that demonstrate the ‘serve and return’ of meaningful conversation (something we will look at later in the course), are crucial to the development of social and emotional competence.

Relate your learning to practice

As we have seen in this part, social and emotional skills, as well as executive function or self-management skills, are essential to daily functioning and are the foundation on which many other skills and competencies are built. Think about your day today or yesterday, and try to make a list of the tasks, activities, and interactions you encountered that required you to draw on social, emotional, and executive function skills. Were there people that you had to work with, for example?  Did you experience emotions in relation to any of these tasks and did you have to manage these appropriately? Did you have to focus, hold information in mind and plan how best to achieve complex tasks? You might also think about whether managing these social, emotional, and management tasks was always easy, and whether there were times when it was more difficult for you. What made these tasks more difficult? For example, you might find it more difficult to regulate emotions when you are tired or hungry. What supports and strategies did you draw on to help you?

Summary

The key ideas that we have covered in this first part of the course are:

  • social and emotional competence are foundational to many important outcomes across the lifespan, including social and health outcomes, academic and career achievement, and positive relationships.
  • there are a number of components of social and emotional competence, including social skills, emotion knowledge, and self-regulation.
  • early childhood teachers play a vital role in supporting the development of children’s social and emotional competence.

Further reading

There are two key documents which underpin thinking and practice about the best ways to support social and emotional competence in early childhood settings in New Zealand:

Education Review Office, (2011). Positive foundations for learning: Confident and competent children. Author. 

Ministry of Education (2019). He māpuna te tamaiti: Supporting social and emotional competence in early learning. Author. 

It would also be useful to have a look at these notes from a webinar run with Dr. Tara McLaughlin and Karen Mackay about the ways in which one centre engaged in an inquiry into evaluating and improving children’s social and emotional learning. This type of professional learning forms a foundation for our activities in each of the remaining parts of the course in which you will focus on developing an inquiry into the social and emotional learning in your setting. You might also watch the full webinar.

Finally, this infographic provides a good introduction to social and emotional competence.