Fostering Social-Emotional Learning Skills in Children and Adolescents

Steven G. Feifer D.Ed.

Shared with the permission of Jack Hirose & Associates

According to a recent survey conducted by the Canadian Mental Health and Access to Care (2022), more than 5 million Canadians were experiencing symptoms of mental illness in the aftermath of the world-wide pandemic.  Unfortunately, the mental health of children was disproportionately impacted by the pandemic as well, due primarily to extended disruptions in education, as well as forced social distancing from peers.  As society returns back to normality, a new report by the Canadian Mental Health Association (2024) titled The State of Mental Health in Canada has highlighted two very disconcerting trends.  

First, the overall mental health in Canada is now three times worse than pre-pandemic levels, with particular concerns among more rural regions and Indigenous people.  Second, provinces and territories are only spending an average of 6.3% of their overall health budgets on mental health, which leaves Canada lagging behind many similar countries such as France (15%), Germany (11% ), Sweden (9%) and the United Kingdom (9%). 

Certainly, there have been promising innovations across provinces, such as universal mental health care in Nova Scotia, an increase in addiction treatment and mobile crisis teams in Alberta, and greater investments in mental health in B.C., but there remains much work to be done.  Much of this work begins with children and the role schools can play to enhance emotional wellness and foster social-emotional learning skills in children and adolescents.

According to the World Health Organization (2020), approximately one billion children suffer some form of violence and trauma each year.  Violence exposure and trauma have been linked to a variety of negative mental health outcomes including post-traumatic stress (PTS), anxiety, depression, and learning difficulties (Nelson et al., 2020). Most children exposed to traumatic events have emotional symptoms that resolve within a couple of months, though approximately 10-20% have symptoms that persist much longer and can cause dramatic dysfunction in everyday endeavors including school (Ross et al., 2017).   

Regarding social-emotional learning skills - It is vital for educators, parents, and public health officials to have a better understanding of how stress and trauma impact a child’s physiological, behavioral, emotional, and academic functioning.

The American Psychological Association defines trauma as “any disturbing experience that results in significant fear, helplessness, dissociation, confusion, or other disruptive feelings intense enough to have a long-lasting negative effect on a person’s attitudes, behavior, and other aspects of functioning”.  However, it is important to note that not all children exposed to trauma experience detrimental outcomes, as many children are capable of devising internal coping and resilience strategies to grow from these experiences.  Resilience is a skill that children possess which allows them to develop a positive mindset when meeting adversity and to more readily cope with challenging conditions (Goldstein & Brooks, 2023).  Most importantly, resilience is a skill that can be cultivated though successful learning outcomes. Clearly, children need to feel safe in their school environment for effective learning to occur. 

This spring, Dr. Feifer will present at the Ottawa and Halifax Conferences on Behavioural, Developmental, and Emotional Challenges with Children, Adolescents, and Young Adults. 

Children exposed to trauma often have difficulty regulating fear, accurately perceiving threats, and struggle to process negative emotions, all of which can impact social development, mental health, and school achievement (Herringa, 2017). Often, early childhood traumatic experiences lead to maladaptive coping behaviors, heightened aggression, as well as poor social-emotional decision-making skills (Dvir et al., 2014).

However, there are mitigating and protective factors that allow some children to be more resilient and develop more effective coping strategies than others when confronted with traumatic life events.  Table 1 lists some of these factors:

It is important for educators, parents, and mental health therapists to understand there is no singular emotional reaction or academic profile readily observed in children with trauma, as most students have very diverse and complex presentations with respect to school-based functioning.  

For instance, some students may act out and exhibit numerous externalizing behaviors, while other children may withdraw inwards, and other students will just become emotionally numb.  The lasting impact of trauma is a carbon footprint in the brain called toxic stress, which wreaks havoc on numerous self-regulatory and executive functioning skills that affect learning and behavior in a school-based setting (Feifer, 2019).

These include:

• Self-regulation of emotions. Children who have experienced early trauma, particularly interpersonal trauma such as abuse or neglect, have difficulty accurately identifying their own emotions as well as comprehending the emotional states of others.

• Self-regulation of physical functioning. Children who have experienced physical trauma may have sensory disabilities and/or bodily sensitivities and have difficulty with physical boundaries, touch, and contact.

• Self-regulation of social skills functioning. Children who have been abused or neglected often experience challenges developing trust with others and establishing stable interpersonal relationships with others.

• Self-regulation of cognitive processing. Traumatized children often experience significant academic problems, due to deficits with various aspects of attention, memory, and executive functioning skills.

In summary, given today’s educational climate, it remains vital to determine how trauma and stress hinder the day-to-day learning experiences of students to enhance social-emotional learning skills.   Many of the aforementioned self-regulatory skills take on greater importance as students progress through each successive grade.   In fact, effective school performance requires, in part, successful social and emotional management through a milieu of interpersonal encounters and challenges, where frustration and anger must be tempered for the pursuit of goal attainment.  Schools can enhance emotional wellness through early prevention efforts, appropriate assessment and screening techniques, and an improved school climate to foster emotional growth and resiliency for all children.

References

Canadian Mental Health Association (2024).  The state of mental health in Canada 2024. 

Retrieved from Canadian Mental Health Association - National l A Mental Health Charity.

Dvir, Y., Ford, J. D., Hill, M., & Frazier, J. A. (2014). Childhood maltreatment, emotional

dysregulation, and psychiatric comorbidities. Harvard Review of Psychiatry, 22(3), 149–

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Feifer, S. G. (2019).  The neuropsychology of stress and trauma:  How to develop a

trauma-informed school.  Middletown, MD. School Neuropsych Press.

Goldstein, S. & Brooks, R. (2023).  Handbook of resilience in children (3rd ed.)  Springer

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Herringa, R. J. (2017). Trauma, PTSD, and the developing brain. Current Psychiatry Reports, 19(10).

Masten, A. S., & Barnes, A. J. (2018). Resilience in children: Developmental

perspectives. Children (Basel, Switzerland), 5(7), 98. doi:10.3390/children5070098.

Nelson, C.A., Scott, R.D., Bhutta, Z.A., Harris, N.B., Danese, A., & Samara, M. (2020).

Adversity in childhood is linked to mental and physical health throughout life.  British Medical Journal, Oct 28;371:m3048.

Ross, D. A., Arbuckle, M. R., Travis, M. J., Dwyer, J. B., van Schalkwyk, G. I., & Ressler, K. J. (2017). An integrated neuroscience perspective on formulation and treatment planning

for posttraumatic stress disorder. JAMA Psychiatry, 74(4), 407.

Statistics Canada (2022).  Mental Health and Access to Care Survey (MHACS) 2022.  Retrieved Mental disorders in Canada, 2022.

World Health Organization, United Nations Children Fund & United Nations Educational,

Scientific, and Cultural Organization (2020). Global status report on preventing

violence against children 2020.  World Health Organization.