social emotional teaching strategies

Rev. 5/06

The Center on the Social and EmotionalFoundations for Early Learning

Module 2

Social EmotionalTeaching Strategies

2

This material was developed by the Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning with federal funds from the U.S. Department of Healthand Human Services, Administration for Children and Families (Cooperative Agreement N. PHS 90YD0119). The contents of this publication do not necessarilyreflect the views or policies of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, nor does mention of trade names, commercial products, or organizationsimply endorsement by the U.S. Government. You may reproduce this material for training and information purposes. The authors wish to acknowledge Larry S.Joireman for the illustrations.

Gail E. Joseph, Ph.D., University of Denver, Phil Strain, Ph.D., University of Colorado at Denver

Tweety Yates, Ph.D., & Mary Louise Hemmeter, Ph.D.University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Child Care Bureau

Head Start Bureau

Presenter’s Scripts

Rev. 5/06 The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign csefel.uiuc.edu P 2.1

Learner Objectives

Suggested Agenda

• Participants will be able to discuss why it is important to be more intentional about teaching socialemotional skills.

• Participants will be able to identify strategies for supporting the development of friendship skills.

• Participants will be able to define emotional literacy and identify activities that build “feelingvocabularies.”

• Participants will understand the importance of providing opportunities for children to begin tounderstand their own, as well as others’ emotions.

• Participants will understand why children need to learn to control anger and handledisappointment and will be able to identify strategies to teach anger management skills.

• Participants will understand the importance of teaching problem solving and will be able to identifyproblem solving steps.

TimeI. Introduction 10 min.

II. Identifying the Importance of Teaching 20 min.Social Emotional Skills

III. Developing Friendship Skills 60 min.

IV. Enhancing Emotional Literacy 90 min.

V. Identifying Feelings in Self and Others 30 min.

VI. Controlling Anger and Impulse 30 min.

VII. Developing Problem Solving Skills 30 min.

VIII. Pulling It All Together 30 min.

Social Emotional Teaching StrategiesModule 2

The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign csefel.uiuc.edu


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Materials Needed

� Agenda � Powerpoint � Chart Paper or White Board and Markers � Video Clips

� 2.1 Children Playing� 2.2 Play Organizing Skills� 2.3 Sharing Skills� 2.4 Being Helpful� 2.5 Giving Compliments� 2.6 Using Puppets� 2.7 Friendship Art� 2.8 Friendship Book� 2.9 Super Friend� 2.10a Happy, Sad, Mad, & Scared Activity� 2.10b Happy/Mad Activity� 2.10c Using a Book to Discuss Emotions� 2.11 Hands are Not for Hitting� 2.12 Glad Monster Sad Monster� 2.13 Turtle Technique� 2.14a Solution Kit Example 1� 2.14b Solution Kit Example 2

� Handouts� 2.1 Participants’ Powerpoint Slides� 2.2 Embedding Friendship Activity� 2.3 You’ve Got to Have Friends� 2.4 On Monday When it Rained Book Nook� 2.5 Book Activity� 2.6 Enhancing Emotional Vocabulary in Young Children� 2.7 Helping Young Children Control Anger and Handle Disappointment� 2.8 Pulling it All Together Activity� 2.SE Session Evaluation Form

I. Introduction(10 minutes)

I. Introduction (10 minutes)

A. Introduce Module (Slide 1). Show Slide 2, the CSEFELTeaching Pyramid that was introduced in Module 1. Tellparticipants that we are now at the third level of thepyramid – social emotional teaching strategies. Remindparticipants that in Module 1 we talked about theimportance of building positive relationships anddesigning supportive environments (including rules,schedules, materials, and activities) to support children’ssocial emotional development and prevent challengingbehavior. In Module 2, we will continue to build on theseideas by discussing the use of effective strategies, ideas,and resources to help “teach” children social emotionalskills (friendship skills, emotional literacy, development ofempathy, impulse control, and problem solving).

B. Show Slide 3 and go over the agenda with participants.

C. Review the learner objectives, shown on Slide 4, with theparticipants. • Participants will be able to discuss why it is important

to be more intentional about teaching social emotionalskills.

• Participants will be able to identify strategies forsupporting the development of friendship skills.

• Participants will be able to define emotional literacyand identify activities that build “feeling vocabularies.”

• Participants will understand the importance ofproviding opportunities for children to begin tounderstand their own, as well as others’ emotions.

• Participants will understand why children need tolearn to control anger and handle disappointment andwill be able to identify strategies to teach angermanagement skills.

• Participants will understand the importance ofteaching problem solving and will be able to identifyproblem solving steps.



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II. Identifying the Importance of Teaching Social Emotional Skills: Why, When, How and What(20 minutes)

A. Show Slide 5. Tell participants that there are severalthings that we want them to think about throughout thismodule: why it is important to be more intentional aboutteaching social emotional skills, when we should teach,and ideas and resources for how we can teach theseskills. The following slides address these areas:

1. Show Slide 6 (social emotional development/skills foryoung children). Remind participants that they talkedabout these skills in Module 1. We now want them tothink about these skills in relation to the followingquestions:

a. Ask participants why they think it is so important forus to “teach” children social emotional skills. Add totheir comments by sharing that these are some ofthe skills that we know that children need in order tobe more successful and to prevent challengingbehavior—not only in early care and educationsettings, but also in future educational settings.While we tend to be very thoughtful and intentionalabout teaching literacy, cognitive, and other skills,we need to be just as intentional about teachingsocial emotional skills.

b. Show Slide 7. Ask participants what happens whenchildren don’t have these skills? Have them thinkabout children in their settings who don’t have theseskills. What have they noticed about these children?(Answers might include everything from specificchallenging behaviors to quiet and withdrawn). Howdo we help children learn these social emotionalskills? We “teach” them!

B. Show Slide 8 (Identifying Teachable Moments). Now thatwe have discussed why it is important to teach socialemotional skills, we are going to talk about “when” duringthe day we might teach these skills.

1. Describe a typical situation that might happen in aclassroom or child care setting. For example, Trey isbuilding a castle in the block area. Blair comes to the



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II. Identifying theImportance of TeachingSocial EmotionalSkills: Why, When, Howand What(20 minutes)

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block area to play and decides that she needs theblock that is right in the middle of Trey’s castle. Blairgrabs the block, and Trey’s castle crumbles. Treyhits Blair and takes the block away. Blair startscrying (red arrow).

2. Ask participants to generate ideas about whatteachers or child care providers might say to Treyand Blair at this point (e.g., “Use your words.”“Hitting is not okay.” “Say you’re sorry.” “Ask nicelyif you want something.” “Get an adult if you needhelp.” “Calm down.”).

3. Point out that it is often at the crisis (red arrow)point that teachers try to teach new social skills.Discuss that while this is a teachable moment, andcan be a social skills lesson for Trey and Blair, thismight not be the most effective teachable momentbecause:

a. The incident has already happened.

b. Both children are upset.

c. Blair may find the teacher reinforcing (“Wow, Imight do this again so I can get the teacher’sattention!”).

4. Discuss effective teachable moments (referring tothe green arrows at the left-hand side). The mainpoint here is that we want to make sure that these“crisis moments” are not the only time that we are“teaching” social skills! Social skills can beembedded into almost any part of the dailyschedule—Intentional, planned times as well astaking advantage of naturally occurring momentsthroughout the day.

C. Display Slide 9. Remind participants that as we thinkabout “when” to teach social emotional skills, we alsoneed to consider stages of learning that should affect“how” we teach these skills:



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1. Acquisition – When children learn how to dosomething new, they acquire new skills or concepts.To support children’s acquisition of new skills, weneed to explain and demonstrate the skill/conceptand encourage children as they attempt to learn theskill. Skills can easily be lost at this stage – soencourage, encourage, encourage!

2. Fluency – Once children acquire a new skill, theyneed to be able to use the skill proficiently orfluently. We need to provide multiple opportunitiesfor them to practice and master this skill/concept, aswell as prompt children to use their new skills innew situations.

3. Maintenance – Once children are fluent with theirnew skills, they need to be able to use the skills (or“maintain” the skills) without support or promptingfrom an adult.

4. Generalization – When children apply their newskills to new situations, people, activities, andsettings they demonstrate generalized use of theseskills. For example, a child might learn a new skill atchild care and then generalize that skill by using itat home (a different setting) or a child might learn anew skill with a grandparent and generalize it byusing it with their aunt (different people).

5. Summarize by explaining to participants that eachlearning stage requires intentional, purposefulplanning on our part. This means that we need toplan “when” (during our daily schedule) we willteach new skills in order for children to haveopportunities to acquire new skills and to becomefluent with their new skills. But, we can’t stop at thatpoint! We also need to continue to planopportunities for children (and encourage them) topractice using their new skills throughout the daywithout “us” so they can show maintenance andgeneralization.



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D. Being more aware of supporting learning also “tunes” usin to being purposeful and direct as well as not missingopportunities to encourage children when they arespontaneously learning and using their new skills. Wewant to take advantage of both planned and unplannedopportunities!

E. Tell participants that we will now focus on the “what”and “how” to teach part. Highlight that we will spendthe rest of the day discussing teaching strategies andideas (“how”) for promoting friendship skills, emotionalliteracy skills, development of empathy, ideas forcontrolling anger and impulse, and problem solving skills(“what”).

III. Friendship Skills (60 minutes)

A. What Behaviors Lead to Friendship Skills?

1. Show Slide 10 and explain that we are now goingto talk about friendship skills. Have participantsthink about children who have lots of friends. Whathave they noticed about these children that makesit easier for them to make friends? Write responseson chart paper.

a. Show Slide 11/Video Clip 2.1. Ask participants towatch the three children playing at center timeshown in Video Clip 2.1. What helped the childrenbe successful or unsuccessful playing together asfriends? Discuss observations and add to the list onthe chart paper. To play video double click on thephotograph on the slide. To advance to the nextslide, click the down arrow on your keyboard.

b. Show Slide 12. Discuss that when children aresuccessful at making friends, they haveopportunities to learn and practice many social skillssuch as cooperation, sharing, turn taking, problemsolving, and conflict resolution. Explain that thereare several discrete behaviors that young childrenengage in during play with each other that seem tobe directly related to having friends (Tremblay et al.,1981). That is, children who do more of thesebehaviors are more likely to have friends. Thesespecific behaviors are described in more detailbelow. Explain that several of the slides have video



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III. Friendship Skills (60 minutes)

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(video clip 2.1)

examples. Share with participants that the twochildren that they will see in Video clips 2.2 (playorganizers), 2.3 (sharing), and 2.4 (being helpful)did not know each other before they were videotaped playing together. This is significant becauseit demonstrates that when children have theseskills, it makes it easier for them to have morepositive experiences in playing together andmaking new friends. (Note to presenter: each slideis organized around five areas: rationale,descriptions, demonstrations, practice, andpromotion opportunities).

1) Play Organizers. Show Slide 13 and brieflydiscuss the following:

a) Rationale – Children who are able toorganize play situations can create playopportunities for themselves and others.

b) Describe the skill – Play organizers might tryto get a friend’s attention, give a friend a toy,or give an idea of what they might do with atoy or material. With preschoolers, playorganizers are usually “Let’s” statements,such as, “Let’s play trucks.” Often these“Let’s” statements are followed bysuggestions about roles (e.g., “You be thedriver and I’ll put the logs on the truck”) orspecific activities (e.g., “Roll it to me.”).

c) Demonstrate – Discuss how you can buildchildren’s play organizing skills bydemonstrating or role playing “right” and“wrong” ways to organize play situationswhen you want other children to play withyou.

d) Practice – Remind participants about thestages of learning that we discussed earlier.It is really important for us to provideopportunities for children to practice playorganizing. As mentioned above, we mighthave children role play or we can join intheir play and model ways to organize playsituations.



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e) Promote – Discuss how we need to makesure that we are not only providingopportunities for children to practice theseskills, but that we are also promoting,supporting, and encouraging children asthey “try out” their new skills.

f) Show Slide 14/Video Clip 2.2 as anexample of play organizing skills. Theseare the two children mentioned above whohad never met each other before this playsession.

2) Sharing. Show Slide 15 and briefly discussthe following:

a) Rationale – Children who are able to sharetoys and materials often have more positiveexperiences interacting with peers. In turn,since having this skill allows themopportunities to practice and experiencepositive social interactions, they also beginto learn how to better handle situationswhen they don’t want to share what theyare playing with. As adults, we often expectyoung children to share without helpingthem understand what it means to do so(Kemple, 2004).

b) Describe the skill – Sharing takes manyforms among preschoolers. Children mightoffer to share materials they are playingwith, respond to requests from otherchildren to share (“Can I have some of yourpaint?”), ask others to share what they areplaying with as well as refuse to share whatthey are playing with.

c) Demonstrate – Discuss how you can buildchildren’s “sharing” skills by demonstratingor role playing ways to share toys andmaterials as well as ways to respond torequests from other children to share. It isalso important to discuss (and include indemonstrations/role plays) that sometimesthey might not want to share what they are



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(video clip 2.2)

playing with and that is okay. Discuss whatthe children might say or do in thosesituations.

d) Practice – Again, it is really important for usto provide opportunities for children topractice sharing, in direct and indirectteaching situations. For example, beforechildren leave large group ask them whatthey might share during center time andwho they might share with, or set up anactivity where children can work togetherand share materials.

e) Promote – Promote, support, andencourage children as they share. Whenyou see children sharing—comment. Have a“sharing” day where everyone (includingadults) tries really hard to share all day!Discuss ahead of time the ways thatchildren might share across the differentparts of the daily schedule.

f) Show Slide 16/Video Clip 2.3 as anexample of sharing.

3) Being Helpful/Team Players. Show Slide 17and briefly discuss the following:

a) Rationale – Being helpful or a team player isanother skill that makes it easier for childrento play and respond to others.

b) Describe the skill – Being helpful orassisting others takes many forms at thepreschool level. Children might help eachother onto or off of an apparatus, they cantell or show a friend how to do something;or they can assist someone in distress.

c) Demonstrate – Demonstrate and role playwhat it means to be helpful to others. Usepuppets to demonstrate situations whereone puppet needs help or is upset and havethe other puppet respond in appropriate,helpful ways. Also demonstrate or role play



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(video clip 2.3)

situations where a child or puppet doesn’trespond and discuss how that might makethe other child feel.

d) Practice – Role playing, as mentionedabove, is a great way for children topractice being helpful. Adults can also setup situations and ask for help so childrenhave opportunities to respond. Duringgroup time, situations can be read or actedout and children can hold up a smiley facefor helpful behavior or a frown for unhelpfulbehavior. Small group activities can also beplanned where children need to help eachother in order to complete a task.

e) Promote – Promote, support, andencourage children when they are beinghelpful or responding to another child in astressful situation.

f) Show Slide 18/Video Clip 2.4 as anexample of children being helpful.

4) Taking Turns. Show Slide 19 and brieflydiscuss the following:

a) Rationale – In addition to engaging in thebehaviors listed above, the formation offriendship is equally dependent upon twopatterns of interaction:

1) First, it is necessary for children to be reciprocal in their interactions (each has a turn). Reciprocity has two dimensions. Initially, children need to beresponsive to the social bids/requests of others. Also, over a period of time (say several months), it is important that there be a relatively equal number of occasions that each member of a friendship dyad starts an interaction.

2) In addition to reciprocity, friendship patterns of interaction are also characterized by the length of



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interaction occurrences. That is, friendship pairs engage in gradually longer play episodes and interactions.

b) Describe the skill – Turn-taking mightinvolve children playing a game where “youtake a turn, I take a turn”, they might askfor their turn with a toy, they might get afriend’s attention to initiate play by looking,tapping, or calling them, or holding out theirhand to indicate initiation of play and turntaking.

c) Demonstrate – Once again, demonstrationsand role playing to show ways to initiateplay and turn taking are very effective.

d) Practice – Teaching children games (boardgames, games with balls, etc.) is a greatway to support development of turn takingskills. Planning activities where each childhas to take a turn to complete the task alsoallows for practice.

e) Promote – Promote, support, andencourage children as they initiate play andengage in turn taking.

5) Giving Compliments. Show Slide 20 andbriefly discuss the following:

a) Rationale – Although these behaviors donot often occur among preschoolers, theytend to have a powerful effect on theformation of friendships.

b) Describe – Preschoolers compliment oneanother’s successes, buildings, andappearances. They might say, “Good jobJuan,” “He’s a smart boy,” “I like the wayyou painted that picture of your house.”



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c) Demonstrate – When adults givecompliments, it sets up an atmosphere inthe classroom that promotes complimentingeach other. This can be a great model forchildren. Demonstrations and role playingcan also help children learn whatcompliments are and what words theymight use to compliment someone.

d) Practice – Role playing and having acompliment circle where children cancompliment each other about somethingthat they did during the day allows childrenopportunities to practice usingcompliments.

e) Promote – Promote, support, andencourage children as they complimenteach other.

f) Show Slide 21/Video Clip 2.5 (GivingCompliments). This is a great example ofwhat happens when the adults in aclassroom give compliments - childrenbegin to give compliments also!

6) Knowing When and How to Give Apologies.Show Slide 22 and briefly discuss thefollowing:

a) Rationale – Learning when and how to giveapologies, just like learning how to givecompliments, can have positive effects onthe formation of friendships. Children beginto learn how to pay attention and be moreresponsive to their friends’ feelings as wellas how their behavior affects others.

b) Describe – Children might say, “I’m sorry Ihit you when you took my ball,” or “I didn’tmean to push you.”

c) Demonstrate – Demonstrating and roleplaying are great ways to help childrenlearn what it means to give an apology.Use puppets to demonstrate apologies.



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d) Practice – Role play different situations andlet children try to figure out what they mightsay to apologize. Have children make up astory in which the characters need toapologize for something.

e) Promote – Promote, support, andencourage children as you hear themapologizing.

B. Setting the Stage for Friendship (Show Slide 23).

1. Prior to “teaching” friendship skills, adult caregiversneed to set the stage by including the following fiveelements in their early childhood settings (e.g.,Head Start, Child Care, Family Day Care home):

a. An inclusive environment where all children aremeaningfully included in natural proportions iscritical to setting the stage for friendships(Guralnick, 1990).

b. Having cooperative use toys and materialsincreases the opportunities for social interaction.Cooperative use toys are those that naturally lendthemselves to two or more children playingtogether. Some examples of cooperative use toysare balls, puppets, wagons, two telephones,dramatic play materials, rocking boats, and boardgames.

c. Examine daily routines and embed friendship andsocial interaction instruction and practiceopportunities throughout the day (refer back tothe stages of learning discussed earlier).

d. In order to ensure that friendship and socialinteraction instruction gets the necessaryattention, teachers and caregivers need to includerelated goals and objectives on a child’sIEP/IFSP. Although these goals are likely to bethe most critical for the child’s later development,they often do not appear on IEPs or IFSPs(McConnell, McEvoy, & Odom, 1992), perhapsbecause many assessments do not include theseskills as test items.



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e. Most importantly, teachers and caregivers need todevote energy toward creating an atmosphere offriendship. When you walk into a classroom, childcare, or home day care setting where an adulthas successfully created this climate, you seeadults giving time and attention to children whenthey engage in friendly behaviors, you hear adultstalking nicely to one another, and you hearchildren supporting one another’s friendlybehavior. Overall, you get a sense that friendshipis the ultimate goal. Ask participants what elsethey can do to promote this atmosphere offriendship.

C. Strategies for Developing Friendship Skills. (ShowSlide 24).

1. Setting the stage is a necessary step in supportingchildren’s developing friendships and teaching thecritical skills described above. There are severalways to teach children these skills: teaching theconcept, modeling appropriate behavior, providingpractice opportunities with feedback, and supportingchildren’s use of the behavior in context. Discussthe following strategies:

a. Modeling. Modeling can include adults or peersdemonstrating the friendship skill or video basedmodeling with short vignettes of childrenengaging in friendly behavior (Webster-Stratton &Hammond, 1997). Often, it is effective to modelboth examples and non-examples followed byopportunities for correct responding. There arethree guiding principles of effective role-playmodeling strategies:

1) Use invisible support, that is, call on the childwho you are confident will model the skillappropriately before calling on a child who willneed more support.

2) Sometimes when children are modeling thefriendship skill in front of their peers, they canget carried away with being silly orinappropriate. It is important to give childrenanother chance and more support so that they



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are successful in demonstrating the skillappropriately. This approach allows them toreceive encouragement from the teacher andother children for doing the skill.

3) Because role-plays typically involve only oneor two children at a time, it is necessary toplan ways for the rest of the children to beactively engaged. Strategies for includingchildren who are not involved in the role-playinclude having them give a thumbs up forfriendly behavior and a thumbs down forunfriendly behavior; patting themselves on theback if this is a behavior they do; clappingwhen the role-play is over; saying “ready, set,action” before the role-play begins; or having aPopsicle stick sign with a happy face on oneside and a sad face on the other (childrenshow the happy face when the behavior beingmodeled is friendly and the sad face when thebehavior being modeled is unfriendly). It isalso important to keep track of who has had achance to role-play and ensure that all of thechildren in the class get a turn during theweek.

4) Whenever possible, using small groups toteach these skills will be useful in terms ofgiving all children opportunities for practice.

b. Modeling with Video. The use of video to helpmodel friendship skills can be very effective withyoung children. Video-based modeling isparticularly effective for several reasons:

1) Videos can capture real-life examples ofchildren using friendly behavior. Theseexamples can be used to generate discussionabout the friendly behavior and the context inwhich it is used in the video. Video vignettescan also display non-examples. Thesevignettes can be used to teach children todiscriminate between friendly and unfriendlybehavior and prompt children to develop andshare alternative behaviors and solutions ifinitial ideas are not effective.



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2) Video clips can be paused, and children canbe prompted to attend to the salient featuresof the friendly behaviors and the context inwhich they occur. Children can also makepredictions about “what will happen next”when the child featured in the video uses afriendly or unfriendly behavior.

3) Children love watching videos, which makesthis format particularly powerful in engagingand keeping children’s attention.

c. Modeling with Puppets. Similar to videos,puppets are very engaging to young children:

1) Because adults are in control of the puppet,the puppet can always be a responsive playpartner. The puppet can model friendly playand, when appropriate and planned, canmodel non-examples. Puppets in the image ofchildren are particularly effective because theyprovide a proximate model. That is, childrenare more likely to emulate the behavior ofmodels that look like themselves. But, anypuppet will work!

2) Additionally, some children will disclose moreabout their feelings and friendship problems topuppets than to adults, especially if adults arehistorically not seen as trustworthy by thechild.

d. Preparing Peer Partners. When typical childrenare assisting their peers with special needs toacquire friendships skills, it is necessary for themto learn to suspend social rules in order not tofeel rejected. In the usual course of events,interactions between typical children are usuallyquite reciprocal. If someone asks nicely to play,they usually get a positive response. On the otherhand, as some children begin to acquire peerinteraction skills, they often reject the socialovertures of their peers and they may not initiateplay. Using role-play and rehearsal strategies,there is a well-researched set of procedures for



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teaching children to be persistent with their socialbehavior while their peers are becoming morefluent. For example, adults model peer rejection,provide verbal feedback (“That’s what mighthappen when you ask kids to play.”), and thenprovide a behavioral alternative that theyreinforce (“If that happens, try again”—“good, youtried again.”).

e. Buddy System.Often it is helpful to utilize a“buddy system” when trying to increase thefriendship skills of children. Right before a free-play period, children are assigned to a buddyrole, meaning that they begin free play in someplanned play activity with a certain child. Inutilizing a buddy system, there are several rulesto follow.

1) It is important to always have two or morebuddies for each child who needs them. Thisarrangement helps to keep the play interestingfor the socially competent children, and ithelps to create the conditions for maximizingthe number of diverse play ideas.

2) It is also important to rotate buddies forseveral reasons:

a) First, rotating buddies helps to ensure thatchildren have the opportunity to engage infriendship skills with the widest variety ofplaymates.

b) Second, rotating helps to avoid buddyburnout, a condition in which children cometo respond negatively to their helper rolebecause they always play with the sameindividual.

3) One can optimize the buddy system by pairingthe most popular and liked children with thosewho need the most help. This type of pairingcan lead to other children simultaneouslyhelping their peers because the “cool” kids aredoing it.



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4) At the end of a play period, children shouldreceive specific feedback for being buddiesand, provided with feedback that specificallyenumerates the friendship skills they used ininteracting with their assigned partner.

f. Priming. Teachers can increase the likelihood ofchildren using friendship skills with specificpriming strategies. For example, prior to a free-play period, teachers can ask children who theyare going to play with; they can ask what specifictoy or material they are going to share; and theycan provide practice opportunities. A practiceopportunity might include, “Hey, Jaymin, let’spretend I am Cody and you are going to ask meto play trucks.” Jaymin would then practiceasking, with or without adult prompting, and theadult would provide encouragement or feedbackfor Jaymin’s social initiation to play. Other playideas include the following.

1) Teachers can increase the duration of peerplay by providing suggestions or promptingrole reversals.

2) Expanding play ideas can occur by suggestingnew ways of playing with the materials, newways for dramatic play to unfold, and newways of including more children in a game oractivity.

3) When a teacher notices that children aredisengaging from play with one another, he orshe can prompt the children to reversedramatic play roles (“How about you be themom now and she can be the baby?”). Thisstrategy can reengage children in the playsequence and lead to more lengthy socialencounters.



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g. Direct Modeling. Another way to keep childrenengaged in friendly play is to directly modeldesired behaviors as a play partner. Whenteachers notice that children are becoming lessengaged, they can join the play and providespecific models of friendly behavior. For example,a parent might join two children who are playingtogether and begin to share the materialsavailable.

h. Reinforcement. Although it is important toacknowledge children for their use of friendshipskills, it is also the case that the effective use ofacknowledgement requires ongoing attention toseveral key factors:

1) Timing of reinforcement delivery is crucial. Aslong as children are engaged in friendlybehavior, it is a good idea to withholdreinforcement. Although this approach mayseem counterintuitive, evidence suggests thatadults’ delivery of attention to children at playcan have the immediate effect of terminatingtheir play. Given this fact, it is advisable tocomment on children’s friendly play shortlyafter the fact.

2) When commenting on children’s friendly play,it is essential to describe the specific friendlybehavior(s) that you observed. Instead ofsaying, “You’re playing so nicely together,”say, “You are taking turns and saying nicethings to each other.” This descriptivecommenting provides children with specificfeedback about what they are doing well.

3) For many children, caregivers may need toprovide lots of reinforcement early on. Oncechildren start to use their friendly behaviors,however, adults need to begin the process ofslowly removing their specific feedback fromthe ongoing play. The goal is not to remove alladult reinforcement, but to provide sufficientopportunity for friendly play in and of itself tobecome reinforcing.



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D. Examples of Activities to Support the Development of Friendship Skills.

1. Show Slide 25 to discuss some examples ofactivities to support the development of friendshipskills. It is very important to point out that all ofthese activities build on the skills needed to developfriendships and allow children opportunities topractice using these skills. They don’t just use theword “friend.” These types of activities also help inestablishing a classroom atmosphere of “beingfriends,” sharing and helping each other out.

a. Friendship Can – During large group time, havechildren generate a list of different things they cando to be a friend. Introduce the “friendship can” –which is a decorated can with names of all of thechildren in the can. Have each child draw out aname. Children can then use their friendship skillsto do something with or for their “friend”throughout the day. They can make somethingspecial for their “friend,” play with their friend,share with their friend, compliment their friend,help their friend, etc. During the day (as well assummarizing at the end of the day), children andteachers can talk about how they are using theirfriendship skills with their friend.

b. Planting Seeds of Friendship – Have childrenplant seeds (“seeds” of friendship) in small cupsthroughout the year. As new children join theclassroom, children can give them one of their“friendship cups” to welcome them to theclassroom. Each “friendship cup” has a welcomenote that was made by the children (along withtheir teacher!). To introduce this activity, tell thechildren that you are all going to work together tomake “seeds of friendship” so that new childrenwill feel welcome and be able to make newfriends! Talk about how hard it can be to be the“new” child! Ask children what friendship skillsthey can use to help new children feel welcome(play with new child, share toys, help new childlearn the rules, schedule, names of otherchildren, etc.).



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c. Friendship Tree/Compliment Tree – Make a bigtree without leaves that can be displayed on awall. Have leaves made from construction paperstacked by the tree. As adults and children noticeothers using friendship skills, write the skill thatwas used on a leaf and add it to the tree. At theend of the day, “celebrate” the new leaves thatwere added to the tree. Describe the specificfriendship skills that were used each day. You canalso use the same idea to make a complimenttree.

d. Books about Friendship – Use books that talkabout “friends” and what it means to be friends.Some examples are: Fox Makes Friends, TheRainbow Fish, Big Al, and Making Friends. Askparticipants to share books that they have usedthat Relate to Friends. Teachers can talk aboutwhat friendly behaviors the characters are usingand have children guess what they think willhappen next based on what the characters aredoing. Teachers can also help children write astory together or individually about friendship.

e. Friendship Quilt – Children make a quilt out ofconstruction paper squares that hang together onthe wall. Each square has pictures of children inthe classroom (labeled with their names) as wellas pictures of children using friendship skills likesharing, playing together, or helping each other(which are also labeled). This is a good activity touse at the beginning of the year to help childrenlearn everyone’s name as well as friendship skills.Squares are added to the quilt as children usetheir new friendship skills. This is a great idea forhome providers if they have children of differentages. They can make pictures that show whatchildren can do to be a good friend based on theirage and skills.



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f. Friendship Journal – Create a friendship journalthat has friendship skills and pictures of thechildren in the classroom using these skills. Thisjournal can be added to the book area for childrento look at throughout the year.

g. Music/Songs - Teachers and children can makeup songs about being friends. There are alsocommercial CDs that have songs about beingfriends.

5. Explain to participants that the next several slideswill show some examples of activities to buildfriendship skills (similar to the ones above). Slide26/Video Clip 2.6 shows a teacher using a puppetto discuss a situation and what happened; Slide27/Video Clip 2.7 shows a teacher demonstrating afriendship art activity and Slide 28/Clip 2.8 shows ateacher reading a book about being friends.

6. Show Slide 29/Video Clip 2.9 (Super Friend) asanother example of building friendship skills (thisvideo shows children figuring out how to take turns).These types of activities (Super Friend) are oftenused as a means to encourage children to use theirfriendship skills. One of the advantages of this typeof approach is that children start noticing when theysee other children using friendship skills and whatskills they used! You will often hear them say, “ Ohlook, we have a super friend! Maria just shared herfavorite toy with Cameron”. It is very important tomake sure that all children have opportunities to besuccessful in using friendship skills in order to getthe opprotunity to wear the super friend cape!

7. Note to Presenter: the videos in these modules aredesigned to provide examples that can be used todescribe, reflect, and refine teachers’ practices.They are not intended to be the best way, the onlyway or the right way to do something.

8. Introduce the Super Friend video as follows: Thisvideo is one teacher’s idea for how to acknowledgechildren’s use of “friendship skills.” Watch this videoand think about the following questions:



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(video clip 2.6)

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(video clip 2.7)

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(video clip 2.8)

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a. What do you like about how this teacheracknowledged the children’s use of friendshipskills by figuring out how to take turns?

b. What would you do differently?

8. Participants often have concerns about using thisvideo. As a trainer, you will want to think about howyou might respond to participants’ concerns. Listedbelow are some examples of “issues” that mightarise with this specific video.

a. The teacher “rewards” the child with a cape ratherthan supporting the child’s development ofinternal motivation.

b. It appears that the wrong child might be gettingacknowledged for something another child does.

c. The teacher disrupts the entire class toacknowledge what the one child did.

d. The cape could choke the child.

E. Embedding Friendship Opportunities Across the Daily Schedule Activity

1. Have participants find someone in theroom who they do not know (or don’tknow very well). They will work with thisperson (their new friend!) for thisactivity.

2. Using Slide 30, divide participants sothat each part of the schedule is beingworked on. Have participants useHandout 2.2 to think of ways that theycan embed friendship opportunitiesthroughout the day (or in other words– how they can be more “intentional”).After 10 minutes, have participantsshare some of their ideas. Make sure to get ideasacross the different parts of the schedule. Listedbelow are some examples of possible answers foreach area:



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30Handout 2.2: Social Emotional Teaching StrategiesModule 2

The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign csefel.uiuc.edu H 2.2(P. 1/2)

Rev. 5/06

ActivityEmbedding Friendship Opportunities into Daily Schedules

Schedule Opportunity

Arrival

Circle Time

Center TIme

Small Group

Handout 2.2

a. Arrival – assign a child to be the “greeter” whogreets the children by name as they arrive; find a“buddy” to walk with from the bus.

b. Circle Time – Select a child to pass out the circletime props to each classmate, as the childprogresses around the circle, he calls each childby name and says “pick a ____.” Each childresponds with, “Thanks (child’s name)”; childrenidentify a friend to play with at center time andthen decide together where they will play first.

c. Center Time – watch for friendly behavior,comment and encourage.

d. Small Group – plan cooperative art projects;teach children to play board games (examples:Barnyard Bingo, Candy Land, Don’t Spill theBeans).

e. Outside – pre-select cooperative use toys foroutside play (wagons, tricycles, balls, etc.); adultsorganize peer play (Duck, Duck, Goose; RedRover; tag).

f. Snack – have each child in charge of differentsnack items, children have to ask each other forthe snack items.

g. Story Time – read books about friends; discusswhat friendship skills the characters in the bookused, write a classroom friendship book.

h. Good-bye Circle – have a compliment circle(children have a chance to give each other acompliment as they pass around the complimentbear); one child can pass out back packs; onechild can say good-bye to each child as he or sheleaves.

i. Transition – during center time instead oftransitioning to a new center – transition to a newfriend (could use a friend picture schedule);children can hold hands going from one activity toanother.



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3. Refer participants to Handout 2.3(“You’ve Got to Have Friends” byJoseph & Strain.)

4. Show Slide 31 of girls playing togetherand being friendly at a water table. Askparticipants if they have any questionsor additional ideas they would like toshare about facilitating friendship skills.

5. To transition to the next section, summarize bydiscussing how peer interactions and development offriendship skills are a great context for children tolearn about regulating emotions. Think of all theissues that come up when children are playing (orattempting to play) together. They have manyopportunities to practice organizing play situations,sharing, being helpful, taking turns, givingcompliments, and apologizing! Friendships also fosterchildren’s empathy skills, giving them opportunities tobegin to understand other children’s feelings andperspectives. One way to help children be moresuccessful in developing friendship skills is to “teach”them to label, understand, express, and controlemotions. In the next section, we will discuss ideasfor enhancing children’s emotional literacy.

IV. Enhancing Emotional Literacy (90 minutes)

A. Increasing Children’s Emotional Literacy

1. Show Slide 32, and discuss the definition ofemotional literacy.

2. Show Slide 33 and discuss some of the things weknow about children who have a strong foundation inemotional literacy. Children who don’t learn to useemotional language have a hard time labeling andunderstanding their own feelings as well asaccurately identifying how others feel.

3. Show Slide 34 and have participants list feelingwords that they would want to teach preschoolers.Record their “feeling words” on chart paper. Askthem to count the number of positive and negativefeeling words. Stress the importance of teachingboth positive and negative words.



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IV. Enhancing Emotional Literacy (90 minutes)

Handout 2.3: Social Emotional Teaching StrategiesModule 2

The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign csefel.uiuc.edu H 2.3(p. 1/4)

Rev. 5/06

Gail E. Joseph, Ph.D. & Phillip S.Strain, Ph.D.

Center on Evidence Based Practicesfor Early Learning

University of Colorado at Denver

Cesar is one of the more popularchildren in his preschool class.He often lands his classmates in

creating unusual and fun imaginarygames. He readily shares toys andmaterials, often proposing a trade thatworks for all. Cesar laughs a lot, he isenthusiastic, and he almost alwayssays, “Yes” when a classmate asks himto play or has a different play idea.Cesar also says nice things to hisclassmates and acknowledges theiraccomplishments. When it is time tochoose a friend for an activity Cesar isalways in great demand.

Chloe is one of Cesar’s classmates.She spends most of her time inpreschool staying close to her teacher,occasionally hovering around a gang ofchildren playing together. Chloedoesn’t say much to her classmates andthey in turn seldom speak to her.Chloe, in fact, has lots of skills. Sheknows what to do with toys andutensils; she knows the usual “scripts”that emerge in imaginary play. Chloeseldom gets chosen by anotherclassmate to participate together. In herworld of social isolation sheoccasionally appears sad to the outsideobserver.

The behavioral contrast betweenCesar and Chloe is profound. Cesar hasclassmates who advocate for him,encourage him, and include him.Chloe, on the other hand, is like aninvisible member of the class. No oneasks, “Where’s Chloe;” no one says,“We need Chloe,” no one says, “Come

on Chloe!” The differing social worldsexperienced by Chloe and Cesar notonly predict very divergentdevelopmental trajectories in preschool,but they set the occasion for life-longconsequences. Based upon longitudinaland retrospective research it is clearthat Cesar is on a developmental pathtoward self-confidence, continualfriendships, school success, and healthyadult adjustment. Chloe is sadly on adevelopmental path toward deepeningisolation, loneliness, and adult mentalhealth problems. Indeed earlyfriendships are the most powerfulsingle predictor of long-termadjustment.

What behaviors lead tofriendship?

Several discrete behaviors thatyoung children engage in during playwith each other are directly related tohaving friends (Tremblay, Strain,Hendrickson & Shores, 1981). That is,children who do more of thesebehaviors are more likely to havefriends. These specific behaviorsincluding:

Organizing Play – with preschoolersthese are usually, “Let’s” statements,such as, “Let’s play trucks.” Oftenthese “Let’s” statements are followedby suggestions about roles (e.g., “Yoube the driver”) or specific activities(e.g., “Roll it to me”).

Sharing – sharing takes many formsamong preschoolers. Children withfriends request in the form of, “Can Ihave some paint” and they also obligeshare requests from peers.

Assisting Others – assisting alsotakes many forms at the preschoollevel. Children can help each otheronto or off of an apparatus, they cantell or show a friend how to do

something, or they can assist someonein distress.

Giving compliments – While thesebehaviors do not often occur amongpreschoolers they tend to have apowerful effect on the formation offriendships. Preschoolers complimentone another’s successes, buildings, andappearances.

In addition to engaging in thesediscrete behaviors, the formation offriendship is equally dependent upontwo patterns of interaction. First, it isnecessary for children to be reciprocalin their interactions. Reciprocity hastwo dimensions. Initially, children needto be responsive to the social bids ofothers. Also, over a period of time (sayseveral months), it is important thatthere be a relatively equal number ofoccasions that each member of afriendship dyad starts an interaction. Inaddition to reciprocity, friendshippatterns of interaction are alsocharacterized by the length ofinteraction occurrences. That is,friendship pairs engage in morelengthy episodes.

Setting the stage for friendshipPrior to beginning instruction in

friendly behavior, teachers need toattend to five elements of theclassroom. First, an inclusiveclassroom where children withdisabilities are meaningfully includedin natural proportions is critical tosetting the stage (Guralnick, 1990).Second, the presence and pre-selectionof cooperative use toys and materialsincrease the opportunities for socialinteraction. Cooperative use toys arethose that naturally lend themselves totwo or more children playing together.See Box 1 for a list. Third, it isnecessary to examine all classroom

You’ve Got to Have Friends

Handout 2.3

4. Now have them look at the range of words theysuggested. Explain the importance of teachingpreschoolers feeling words that go beyond thebasics (happy, sad, mad). An increased vocabularyallows children to make finer discriminationsbetween feelings and to better communicate withothers about their feelings. These skills helpchildren to become better interpersonalcommunicators.

B. Show Slide 35 which describes several different waysthat adults can increase children’s feeling vocabularies:direct teaching, indirect teaching, use of songs andgames, playing “how would you feel if…”, the feelingwheel/feeling dice, and use of children’s literature. Eachof these will be discussed in the following slides:

1. Direct Teaching— Show Slide 36. Direct teachinginvolves planning specific activities/opportunities forchildren to increase their emotional vocabulary aswell as to start to discriminate what different facialexpressions/emotions might look like.

a. Show Slides 37 with examples of emotion facesthat represent a range of emotions. Tellparticipants that they can download these “faces”from the csefel website. They are available inEnglish, Spanish or English/Spanish. Explain thatyou will be discussing many different ways to usethe “faces” and they will probably come up withmany more ideas!

b. Display Slide 38. This slide shows how a teacherhung a mirror with a feeling poster beside themirror so children could make different “feelingfaces.” They also drew their own “feeling faces,”which where displayed above the mirror. Theteacher would often join children at the mirror andstart conversations about the feeling faces theywere making in the mirror and what happened tomake them feel this way.

c. Show Slide 39 as another example of how ateacher used one of the feeling words (proud) forchildren to have an opportunity to learn what“proud” means. They cut pictures out of



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magazines that showed people feeling proud.They also took pictures of children in theclassroom who were feeling proud! They picked adifferent emotion each week and used the sameprocess. This would be a great idea for homecare settings.

2. Indirect Teaching – Show Slide 40. An example ofindirect teaching would be when a teacher providesemotion labels – “you’re happy” or “you’refrustrated” – as children experience variousaffective states. Use the example on the slide andnote how the teacher describes what the twochildren are doing that helped her figure out howthey were feeling.

3. Use of Songs and Games – Show Slide 41, whichshows an example of a favorite song (“if you’rehappy and you know it…”) that has been changedto use feeling words. There are also manycommercial CDs that have fun songs aboutemotions. An example would be Jim Gill’s “I’m soMad I Could Growl” song.

a. Show Slides 42, 43, and 44 as fun examples ofemotion games. Note that two of the games usefeeling faces from the csefel web site. The Bingogame would be appropriate for a wide range ofchildren. If each feeling face is done in a differentcolor, children who might not be able to “read” thewords could match the colors. Children might alsobe able to match the faces by the expressions.Children who are starting to read can match thewords as well as the faces. Be sure to choosewords that you are teaching and talking about inclass.



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4. Play “How Would You Feel If?” – Show Slide 45.Have children role play typical situations thathappen when they are together and then talk about“how would you feel if this happened to you?” Usethe example on the slide.

5. Checking In – Show Slide 46. Children can “checkin” each morning by putting their name by a feelingface picture that best depicts their affective state.Children can be encouraged to change their feelingfaces throughout the day as their feelings change.Adults should also participate by putting their nameby a feeling face and changing it throughout theday. They can talk about how their feelings changeas they change their feeling face to help childrenunderstand that feelings can change many timesduring the day.

6. Feeling Dice and Feeling Wheel

a. Show Slide 47. Make a Feeling Wheel with aspinner that children can spin and then label thefeeling face that the spinner lands on and talkabout a time they felt that way. Share withparticipants that the Feeling Wheel can bedownloaded from the csefel web site.

b. Make Feeling Dice by covering milk cartons withpaper and drawing different feeling faces on eachside. Children can toss dice; label the feeling faceand describe a time they felt that way.

c. Explain to participants that they will observeseveral different activities to enhance emotionalliteracy skills in the following video clips: Slide48/Video Clip 2.10a shows a happy, sad, mad,and scared activity. Slide 49/Video Clip 2.10bshows a happy/mad activity, and Slide 50/VideoClip 2.10c shows an example of using a book todiscuss emotions.



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(video clip2.10a)

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(video clip2.10b)

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(video clip2.10c)

7. Use of Children’s Literature – Show Slide 51.Explain that books are a great and engaging way toteach about emotions. Many books are writtenexplicitly about feelings and contain numerousfeeling words. Most of us already have books in oursettings – so this is an easy and fun way to bemore “intentional” about supporting children’s socialemotional development.

a. Show Slide 52. Read the book On Monday Whenit Rained by Cherryl Kachenmeister toparticipants as an example of a social emotionalbook. This book is about a little boy and thethings that happen to him during the week. It is agood example of using literature to promoteemotional literacy because of the little boy’s clearfacial expressions as well as the range of feelingwords (disappointed, embarrassed, proud,scared, angry, excited, lonely) presented in thebook.

b. Show Slide 53 (Book Nooks).Now introduce the Book Nookexample for On Monday When itRained (Handout 2.4). Explainthat Book Nooks give examples ofactivities to expand on socialemotional concepts while readingthe book during story time. Adifferent concept from the book,with related center activities, is focused on eachday of the week. Point out that reading the samebook for several days is a great way to supportchildren’s social emotional development. Childrenlearn the story, they can re-tell the story, and itbecomes their story! They feel successful,confident and competent! Give participants a fewminutes to look at the Book Nook.

c. Show Slide 54 as an example of one of thesuggested activities listed on the Book Nook.(The suggested activity is to take pictures ofchildren in the classroom or home care settingthat shows the children making feeling faces andthen explaining a time when they felt that way).



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On Monday When It RainedBy Cherryl KachenmeisterHoughton Mifflin Company, 1989

On Monday When It Rained is a great book for talking about feel-ings and emotions. The story is about a boy and what happens tohim every day for a week. Each day, based on what happens, theboy talks about how it makes him feel. The pictures are veryexpressive and label a range of feelings and emotions (disap-pointed, embarrassed, proud, scared, angry, excited, lonely).

Examples of activities:• While reading the story, pause after each of the day’s events and ask the children how they

think they would feel if that happened to them.

• While reading the story, have children talk about times that they felt disappointed, embar-rassed, proud, scared, angry, excited, or lonely. Also talk about times when you felt disappoint-ed, embarrassed, proud, scared, angry, excited, or lonely.

• Give each child a small handheld mirror and have them make faces representing the feelings asthe little boy expresses different emotions in the story.

• Make a “feelings” collage by cutting pictures of different faces out of magazines and gluingthem and other items such as sequins, glitter, etc.

• Since the story is about one child, the pictures of the “feeling faces” are not very diverse. Takepictures of all the children in the classroom making faces that show different feelings (disap-pointed, proud, embarrassed, scared, angry, excited, and lonely). Make a new On MondayWhen it Rained book—with the pictures showing the children in the classroom.

• Use the same idea as above (taking pictures of children making faces to show different feel-ings), but have the children make up their own story. They can expand and add pictures show-ing more emotions and feelings than those in the story.

• Have the children make a mural of things that make them feel disappointed, proud, embar-rassed, scared, angry, excited, and lonely.

• Repetition of the same book allows children a chance to really learn the story—it becomes theirown story by the end of the week! Repetition helps children feel confident and competent asthey become able to talk about the story, predict what will happen next, recognize and under-stand certain words, talk about their own experiences related to the story, and even make up

Book NookUsing Books to Support Social Emotional Development

Handout 2.4

Tell participants that they can find more BookNooks on the CSEFEL web site.

d. Show Slide 55/Video Clip 2.11 and Slide56/Video Clip 2.12 as examples of teachersusing Book Nook suggestions!

e. Explain that the example that we just gave (OnMonday When it Rained) is a book that focuseson emotions. But, it is also important to use othertypes of book that don’t specifically focus on“emotions” to build on social emotional concepts.(Note to the trainer: we don’t want participants tothink that we are just talking about using booksthat specifically focus on social emotionalconcepts. They could do this with almost anybook!). One example would be Corduroy (this is agood example because most people are familiarwith this book). This Book Nook can be found onthe CSEFEL website.

f. Show Slide 57. Tell participants thatwe are now going to practice usingbooks to support social emotionaldevelopment by doing a fun bookactivity. Have participants get intogroups of 5-10 people. Give eachgroup one book. One member will read the bookto the group and then the group will answer thequestions listed on Handout 2.5. Ask participantsto choose a reporter to report back to the largegroup. (Note to Trainer: If you donot have enough books for eachgroup to have a different book –ask participants to bring a socialemotional book with them to thetraining). Tell participants that theycan download a Book List ofexamples of books that supportsocial emotional development onthe CSEFEL web site.



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(video clip 2.12)

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(video clip 2.11)

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The Center on the Social and Emotional Foundations for Early Learning University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign csefel.uiuc.edu H 2.5Rev. 5/06

ActivityUsing Children’s Literature to Support Social Emotional Development

• Discuss how you might use this book to support emotional development during largegroup/story time

• Discuss how you might use activities related to this book to support emotional developmentin centers

• Discuss how you might use this book or activities related to this book to support emotionaldevelopment during other times of the day

Handout 2.5

g. Summarize by showing Slide 58(characteristics of classrooms thatfoster emotional literacy.) Referparticipants to Handout 2.6(Enhancing Emotional Vocabularyin Young Children by Joseph &Strain).

h. Transition to the next section bytelling participants that helping to support thedevelopment of emotional literacy skills is a“prerequisite” skill for emotional regulation,successful interactions, and problem solving.

V. Identifying Feelings in Self and Others (30 minutes)

A. Discuss that it is impossible for a child to be able tocoordinate their own feelings with those of othersunless they are aware of others’ feelings and unlessthey care about the effect of their behavior onothers (Hyson, 2004).

B. Show Slide 59, which discusses ways in whichchildren learn to identify feelings in themselves andothers. Explain to participants that we are going tocontinue to build on the ideas and strategies thatwe just talked about for building children’semotional literacy skills.

C. Start by asking participants to define empathy.Show Slide 60. Empathy is the identification withand understanding of another’s feelings andsituation.

D. Show Slide 61 and discuss the following ways toteach empathy skills:

1. Model empathy for children.

2. Do “alike” and “different” activities to show howwe are all alike in some things and different inothers, and that is what makes us special.

3. Draw children’s attention to how others arefeeling. Talk about the use of storyboards aspotential teaching tools. With storyboards,



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58 Handout 2.6: Social Emotional Teaching StrategiesModule 2


Rev. 5/06




Four-year-old Shantay is an avidbuilder with blocks. At free playhe has busied himself with an

elaborate tower construction. Tocomplete his masterpiece he needs anelusive triangle piece. As he searchesthe room in vain for the last, crucialpiece his initial calm hunt becomesmore hurried and disorganized. Hebegins to whimper and disrupt otherchildren’s play. His teacher approachesand asks what the matter is. Shantayswiftly turns away to resume his nowfrantic search. This behavior persistsfor several minutes until the signal forcleanup is given, whereupon Shantaylaunches into a major, 15-minutetantrum.

Four-year-old Kelly is relativelynew to preschool. She wants to playwith her new classmates, but is too shyand frightened to approach and join inwith the group. This day at free playshe intently watches, as three othergirls are absorbed in an elaborate teaparty, complete with pandas andwolves. With a forlorn look, Kellypassively observes the ongoing play.Her teacher approaches and says,“Honey, is something wrong?” Kellyshrugs her shoulders. Her teacherpersists, “Kelly are you frustrated?”Kelly says, “Yes.” Her teacher thenreminds her of the class rule; if youfeel frustrated, ask a friend or teacherfor help. Kelly and her teacher quicklydiscuss how she might get another

animal and ask her classmates if thezebra can come to the party.

In each of these cases, childrenexperience some of the common, often-repeated challenges of life in preschool.Shantay, in the end, was overwhelmedby his feelings of frustration. Unable tolabel his legitimate feeling he acted-out— a sure recipe for not getting hisneeds met. Kelly, equally upset and, inthis example, paralyzed temporarily byher social anxiety was able to achievean outcome she deeply desired. Shewas able to do this by the goodteaching that had previously occurred.She was able to communicate her needand access strategic help to get thatneed met. In contrast with Shantay,Kelly’s experience demonstrates one ofthe ways that emotional literacyenables children to be sociallycompetent. Consider two other caseexamples of emotional literacy at work.

Tony is a master of rough andtumble play. As a game of superheroescommences, Tony runs headlong intoother children. Two of his playmateshappily reciprocate; smiling andgiggling they continue their preschoolversion of “slam dancing.” Tony,however, seeks out other partners aswell. In particular, Eddie and Darrinwant no part of this. They frown as heapproaches and yell, “No.” Tonyseems to interpret their behavior as aninvitation for more. Both Eddie andDarrin start to cry and quickly seek outtheir teacher who has Tony sit quietlyfor 2 minutes while play continues.This time-out angers Tony and he poutsalone for the remainder of free play.

Tamika loves to play dress-up. Thisday at free play she asks Seth to joinher, but he says, “Later,” and goesabout his computer play. Tamika then

gets a big hat and takes it to April.April just frowns and goes abouttending to the hamster cage. Tamikanext takes the hat to Bo. “Bo,” shesays, “let’s go play.” Again she isrebuffed. Finally Tamika finds a playpartner in Darrin; who is walking fromone activity area to the next.

In these two scenarios greatvariation can be noted in children’sability to read social cues. Tony’schoice of rough and tumble partners isubiquitous. His inability to read socialcues ultimately resulted in a pooroutcome. Tamika, on the other hand,was readily able to read social cuesand, as a result of good teaching, shehad a strategy (try again with anotherfriend) to achieve her desired outcome.

Figure 1 below provides an overallschematic of children’s emotionalliteracy (Crick & Dodge, 1994;Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000). Note firstthat the foundational element, thenecessary context, for emotionalliteracy development is a supportive,caring relationship (see Joseph &Strain, 2002). In order to act upon thesocial environment in ways that arecollectively supportive and rewardingit is first necessary for children to readthe affective cues of others and ofthemselves. Discriminating amongaffective states such as anger, sadness,frustration, and happiness requires avocabulary of feeling words. Likeother forms of literacy the richer thevocabulary, the more rewarding theexperiences. In this article we willconcentrate on how to build ameaningful lexicon of feeling words.This instructional emphasis bears, notcoincidentally, a close resemblance tocognitive behavior modification(Meichelbaum, 1976).

Enhancing Emotional Vocabulary inYoung Children

Handout 2.6

V. Identifying Feelings in Self and Others (30 minutes)

teachers have large paper dolls without mouths.An assortment of different feeling faces (happy,sad, mad, nervous, excited, etc.) is available. Theteacher then tells a story about the boy/girl paperdoll and pauses to allow the children to identifythe feeling the paper doll might be experiencing.Children can also cut pictures of different feelingfaces out of magazines and then talk about howthe person in their picture feels and how theyknow that is how the person feels (happy/smileon face, sad/tears running down face, mad/scowlon face). These kinds of activities help childrenunderstand how others are feeling.

4. Role play situations so children haveopportunities to see how they might respond toanother person who might be sad, hurt, etc….Ask children how they would feel if they werecrying and another child tried to help them feelbetter. How would they feel if no one paid anyattention to them if they were crying?

5. Reinforce empathy behaviors.

6. Ask participants to share some other ideas aboutteaching children “empathy”.

E. Emotional Regulation. Show Slide 62. Present twofeeling words that we don’t typically teach youngchildren but that are very powerful. Those are“tense” or “stressed” and “calm” or “relaxed.”

1. Explain that young children are often told to “calmdown” but are not aware of what this means.First, they need to be taught the distinctionbetween “tense” (like a tin man) and “calm”(relaxed – like a Raggedy Ann doll) (Webster-Stratton, 1990). Then describe how you getchildren from tense to relaxed. One way is bytaking three deep breaths. Emphasize that theseneed to be very deep belly breaths (like you areblowing out birthday cake candles).

2. Describe the relaxation thermometer activity forchildren (Webster-Stratton, 1990) (Slide 63). Therelaxation thermometer is used to teach children tocalm down using the following steps:



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a. Children can decorate their relaxationthermometer with pictures of feeling faces from“happy” and “relaxed” in the blue (or cool) sectionof the thermometer—all the way up to “angry” or“stressed out” in the red (or hot) section of thethermometer.

b. The adult can then ask children to describe arecent conflict and together with the child retracethe steps that led to the angry outburst. The adultwrites down the child’s actions, thoughts, andwords that indicated an escalating anger pattern(e.g., thinking “He always takes my toys,” yelling,kicking).

c. Then the adult discusses with the child thethoughts, words, and actions that the child canuse to reduce his or her anger.

d. As adults retrace the steps of the angry outburst,they help the children identify the place wherethey were aware they were getting angry. Thisplace is marked as the “Danger Point” on thethermometer. Once children have establishedtheir danger points, they give it their own name(e.g., chill out, cool down, code red, hot engine,etc.). This code word can be the adult and child’ssignal that anger or stress has reached thethreshold, which triggers the use of an agreedupon calming strategy, such as taking three deepbreaths.

3. Show Slide 64. Emphasize the “key concepts”about feelings for young children.

VI. Controlling Anger and Impulse (30 minutes)

A. Recognizing Anger in Self and Others

1. Show Slide 65. Describe how anger can interferewith thinking. Children need to learn how torecognize anger in themselves and others andunderstand appropriate ways to express anger. Wejust talked about several ways for children to learnto recognize anger (list ideas from above). We arenow going to talk about some ways to teachchildren how to handle anger. It is important to



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VI. Controlling Anger andImpulse (30 minutes)

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teach young children effective ways to control theiranger and impulse in conflict situations because:

a. Aggression and inadequate impulse control areperhaps the most potent obstacles to effectiveproblem solving and successful relationships inchildhood.

b. Aggressive children are more likely to experiencepeer rejection and continued social problems foryears afterwards.

c. Evidence also suggests that aggressive childrenare more likely to misinterpret another peer’s orperson’s intentions as hostile or threatening.

B. The “Turtle Technique”

1. Show Slide 66. Describe how to teach children torecognize anger in themselves.

a. Ask participants how they feel physically whenthey are upset or angry.

b. Point out that children feel anger in differentways — just as we do.

2. Describe the “turtle technique.” The turtle techniquewas originally developed to teach adults angermanagement skills and later was successfullyadapted for school-age children (Schneider, 1974).Since then, the turtle technique has been adaptedand integrated into social skills programs forpreschoolers (Kusche & Greenberg, 1994, Webster-Stratton, 1990). Describe the basic steps of theturtle technique (show Slide 66).

a. Recognizing that you feel angry.

b. Thinking “stop.”

c. Going into your “shell,” taking three deep breaths,and thinking calming, coping thoughts: “It was anaccident. I can calm down and think of goodsolutions. I am a good problem solver.”

d. Coming out of your “shell” when calm andthinking of some solutions to the problem.



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3. In essence, the turtle technique seeks to help childrenlearn to replace aggressive acts with a more effectiveand efficient behavioral alternative.

4. Teaching the turtle technique to young children canhappen at large and small group times. A turtle puppetis helpful and keeps children engaged during thelesson.

a. The teacher can begin by introducing the turtle tothe class. After the children get a chance to sayhello and perhaps give a gentle pet, the teachershares the turtle’s special trick for calming down.

b. The turtle describes a time he got upset inpreschool (selecting an incident familiar to thechildren is best). He demonstrates how he thinks tohimself, “STOP,” then goes into his shell and takesthree deep breaths; After he takes three deepbreaths, he thinks to himself, “I can calm down andthink of some solutions to solve my problem.” At thispoint in the process, the turtle technique is used todemonstrate that when he is calm, he comes out ofhis shell and is ready to problem solve peacefully.

c. To create a sufficient level of practice, the teachercan then invite the children to practice the turtle’ssecret. For example, children can practice “going intheir shells” as they go under a large sheet and takethree deep breaths or an individual child can modelthe “turtle technique” in front of the class. Practice insmall group activities can include making paper-plate turtles with moveable heads and arms that “goin their shell.” Children can then rehearse the stepswith the paper-plate turtle. Tell participants that thereis a turtle pattern on the CSEFEL web site that canbe used to make the paper plate turtles.

5. Show Slides 67-76. This shows an example of asocial story, Tucker the Turtle Takes Time to Tuck andThink, that can be used to teach the turtle technique.This story can also be placed in the reading area ofthe classroom so children can practice the technique!Tell participants that this social story can bedownloaded from the CSEFEL web site.



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6. Show Slide 77/Video Clip 2.13—which shows aclass of 2 year olds learning about Tucker theTurtle!

7. Show Slides 78 and 79 which show examples ofideas for involving families and using the turtletechnique.

8. Refer participants to Handout 2.7(Helping Young Children ControlAnger and Handle Disappointmentby Joseph & Strain)

VII. Developing Problem Solving Skills (30 minutes)

A. Recognizing When You Have a Problem

1. Discuss that when presented with interpersonalproblem situations, some children, or all youngchildren in some situations, find it difficult to think ofalternative responses. We want children to learnproblem solving steps, to be able to think ofalternative solutions, and to learn that solutionshave consequences.

2. Preschool-age children can effectively be taughtproblem-solving skills (Shure & Spivack, 1980,1982; Webster-Stratton & Hammond, 1997).

3. Children learn problem solving step by step. Somepublished problem-solving curricula have as manyas 11 steps, which can be too many steps for youngchildren.



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or

(video clip 2.13)



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As a result of his teachers’ carefulselection of toys, materials, andplay themes, 3 year old Eduardo

now is able to benefit from his activeparticipation in a full range of freeplay activities. Yet, it is still the casethat without this level of planning andsubsequent, ongoing praise, Eduardowould spend most days playing alonewith a particular Tonka truck. On thisday the truck has been retired fromservice due to a broken and nowdangerous part. Visibly upset,Eduardo begins to whimper as histeacher explains the situation with thetruck and promises to get it replacedsoon. She offers Eduardo other playideas and begins to play with othertrucks herself encouraging him to joinin. The disappointment is toooverwhelming, however, and Eduardojust sits passively, shaking his head,No. His teacher next prompts severalof his usual play partners to, “AskEduardo to help with their building.”When asked, Eduardo screams “No,”stomps over their building project andgets a predicable response from hispeers. The teacher intervenes at thispoint to protect Eduardo, his peersand the ongoing program.

Mattie, a 4 year old in a localHead Start classroom is always thefirst to organize fun play when thewater table comes out each Friday.She often talks with great anticipationand excitement (especially onThursday) about what she is going todo at the water table with her friends.

On this Friday, the water table hasbeen borrowed by the class next doorand is not available. When Mattierealizes that the water table is notavailable she seeks out her teacher forhelp. She does this with a clearexpression of frustration anddisappointment. Her teacher explainswhat happened and asks Mattie todescribe how she is feeling. She saysshe is frustrated. Her teacheracknowledges the legitimacy of herfeelings and asks her if she can thinkof what she and her classmates havepracticed when they feel frustrated.With some prompting, Mattie recallsthe plan—takes three deep breaths,tell yourself to calm down, and thinkof some solutions. Mattie and theteacher generate some options at thispoint, including; a) playing with hernext favorite toy; b) asking her bestfriend what she wants to play; and c)pretending to use the water table. Shechooses b, and has a fun freeplay.

As young children gain a betterunderstanding of emotions, theybecome more capable of emotionalregulation. Controlling anger andimpulse is perhaps the most difficulttask of emotional literacy. In real lifesituations that are upsetting,disappointing and frustrating it is atough undertaking to remain calm.Remaining calm in the presence ofadverse situations is not about thesuppression of emotions, but thedynamic engagement of affective,cognitive and behavioral processes.In order to regulate emotions onemust bring into play the rapid andaccurate recognition of physiologicalarousal, the cognitive processrequired to think, for example, “Ineed to calm down” and, the

behavioral pretense of taking a deepbreath and reacting calmly. Childrenwho learn to cope with their emotionsconstructively not only have an easiertime with disappointments,aggravation, and hurt feelings that areso ubiquitous in the lives ofpreschoolers but they also have aneasier time relating to other childrenand adults at home, in school or childcare, and on the playground (NationalResearch Council and Institutes ofMedicine, 2000).

On the other hand, young childrenwho have failed to master the earlyregulatory tasks of learning tomanage interpersonal conflict andcontrol aggressive and disruptiveimpulses are more likely than theirself-regulated peers to display earlyconduct problems. Children withconduct problems and poor impulsecontrol are more likely to be peer-rejected and do more poorly in schoolthan children who are more capableat emotional regulation and problemsolving (Strain, Kerr, Stagg &Lenkner, 1984). Before children caneffectively manage interpersonalconflict, they need to be able torecognize and regulate their ownemotional responses and stress level.Teachers can play a significant role inhelping children learn to control theiranger and impulses and to handledisappointment in appropriate waysby identifying and intervening withchildren who need extra help indeveloping these competencies.Some teaching strategies includemodeling remaining calm; cognitivebehavioral interventions; preparingchildren for disappointing situationsbefore they occur; recognizing andreinforcing when children remain

Helping Young Children Control Angerand Handle Disappointment

Handout 2.7

VII. Developing Problem Solving Skills (30 minutes)

4. Present the problem-solving steps in Slide 80 as anexample of a problem solving process with fewersteps. There are four essential problem-solvingsteps for young children to learn and act on. Brieflyreview the steps on slide 80 and use the notesbelow to expand.

a. What is my problem? Children should be taughtto pay attention to their feelings as a first step inproblem solving. When children are experiencinga negative emotion (e.g., anger or frustration),this feeling is the cue that they have a problem.This is why teaching young children an emotionalvocabulary is an essential prerequisite skill tobeing an effective problem solver (see Joseph &Strain, 2003; Webster-Stratton, 1999).

b. After children recognize that they have a problem,they next need to describe the problem. Adultsand/or puppets can model the problem forchildren. Children can practice by looking at cardsdepicting a problem and describing what theproblem is. Initially, children will need guidance toreframe defining the problem as the otherperson’s problem (“They won’t let me play.”) totheir problem (“I want to play with them.”). Thisreframing, although subtle, will help childrengenerate more appropriate solutions.

c. Show Slides 81 and 82 – Solution Kit. What aresome solutions? Young children need helpgenerating multiple alternative solutions tointerpersonal problems. A lot of time should bespent directly teaching children alternativesolutions to common problems and havingchildren generate solutions independently. At thispoint in the instructional process, the key is toteach children to generate as many solutions asthey can think of rather than thinking of a solutionthat will work best. Describe how young childrenneed to spend time learning to generatealternative solutions.



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d. Show Slide 83/Video Clip 2.14a and Slide84/Video Clip 2.14b (examples of the solution kitin “action!”). Point out the teacher’s strategies tokeep the children engaged in the problem-solvingprocess (lots of encouragement to keep trying,asking other children to help). Ask participants ifthey have any other suggestions of what theteacher might have tried or any ideas that theyhave tried to support problem solving.

B. Consequences

1. What would happen next? Show Slide 85. Afterchildren have experienced generating multiplealternative solutions to problems, they can begin toevaluate consequences. This strategy can becommunicated to children in terms of “What wouldhappen next?” Three questions can guide a child’sdecision to determine if the consequences would begood or bad:

• Is the solution safe? • Is the solution fair? • How would everyone feel?

2. Understanding consequences can best be taught tochildren through role-plays. Children can generate asolution to a problem and then act it out with apuppet. The teacher can then prompt the child tothink: Did anyone get hurt? Was it fair? How didyou feel? How did the other person feel?

3. Give it a try! At this step, children are taught to acton the best solution that they generated. They arealso taught what to do when a solution doesn’twork. When a prosocial solution doesn’t work,children can draw upon the other solutions theygenerated earlier that they believe will have positiveconsequences.



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or

(video clip2.14a)

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(video clip2.14b)

C. Problem-Solving Activities (Slide 86). Severalactivities can be planned to reinforce problem-solvingskills.

1. Adults can “planfully sabotage” or “problematize”activities throughout the day and encouragechildren to generate solutions. For example, theteacher can bring one apple to the table for snackand say, “Oh my goodness! We have a problem.There is only one apple and five kids—what can wedo?” The teacher can then encourage the childrento generate as many different solutions as possible.

2. Adults can play “What would you do” with children.To play, the teacher thinks of and writes downseveral problems on slips of paper. These slips arethen put in a bag and passed around the circle untilthe music stops. The child who is holding the bagwhen the music stops, selects a problem that anadult can read for the child. The child can then thinkof as many solutions as possible. He or she mayeven consult the “Solution Kit” if necessary.

3. Children can make their own solution kits bydrawing different solutions to problems they havehad. Some children may want to color pre-drawnsolution cards.

4. Adults can select children’s books that featurecharacters who are having some kind of problem.The teacher can pause when reading and askchildren to generate solutions to the problem. Then,as the teacher continues reading and the childrenlearn how the character solved the problem, theycan determine if it is a good or bad solution.Children can also create their own story (written bythe teacher), where a character in the story has aproblem and comes up with solutions to solve theproblem.



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D. Supporting Young Children with Problem Solving inthe Moment (show Slide 87). Adult caregivers can keepin mind the following five steps as they assist youngchildren in the problem-solving process:

1. Anticipate problems.

a. Expect problem situations to arise in yourclassroom. When over a dozen children are in aroom with few adults and limited materials, it isnatural for problems to occur.

b. There will also be certain situations when theteacher can predict that there will more likely be aproblem. For example, there is a new dinosaurtoy in the block corner, and the teacheranticipates many children will want to play with it.Or the teacher notices that a boy in her class hasa scowl on his face when he gets off the bus—which last time meant a very troublesome day.

c. When teachers anticipate problems, they areavailable to support children when a problemoccurs.

2. Seek proximity.

a. When a teacher is aware that a problem mayensue, seeking proximity is key.

b. This strategy is not necessarily to prevent theproblem from occurring, but to ensure that theteacher is close enough to begin prompting achild through the problem-solving steps.

c. When the teacher notices a child getting agitatedand upset, she can cue the child to “calm down”by remembering the Turtle Technique (seeJoseph & Strain, 2003).

d. Once a child is calm and the teacher is inproximity to support, the child will be ready toproblem solve.



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3. Support.

a. Young children will need support from the teacherto remember the problem-solving steps and tostay in the situation.

b. Children who feel they are not skilled at problemsolving will be prone to flee the situation.

c. So, sometimes support means keeping the childphysically in proximity to the other child orchildren involved.

d. Support also means prompting the child throughthe problem-solving steps. This prompting can bedone with the added support of visuals depictingthe problem-solving steps. These visuals can beplaced strategically around the room to remindchildren of the steps when an adult is notavailable.

4. Encourage.

a. It is almost a certainty that even good solutionsdon’t work all of the time. So, children need to beencouraged to keep trying at generatingalternative solutions.

b. When children cannot think of any more solutions,they can be prompted to look through a “solutionkit.” The solution kit provides children with picturecues of various solutions to interpersonalproblems. Show examples of some solutioncards. Cards are available on the CSEFEL Website at csefel.uiuc.edu/practical-ideas.html.

c. Children will need support to remain in thesituation and to keep trying in the face ofadversity. After each try, it is essential that anadult acknowledge a child’s efforts (“Wow! Youhave thought of two really good solutions! I knowyou have some other ideas.”) and encouragethem to go on (“Boy, this is a tough problem, andyou have thought of so many good solutions. Youare such an amazing problem solver. What elsecan you think of?”).



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5. Promote.

a. The last task to supporting a child’s “in themoment” problem-solving efforts is to reinforcethe child’s success. This kind of promotion can bedone in informal and formal ways.

b. Informally, teachers can give children high-fives,thumbs-up, a wink, verbal acknowledgement ofpositive behavior, hugs, and so on.

c. Formally, teachers can plan mini-celebrationswhen a child has done a great job of problemsolving. These mini-celebrations send a clearmessage to all of the children in the class thatpeaceful persistence at problem solving is valued.

d. It is not long after a teacher focuses on promotingproblem solving before you see childrensupporting, encouraging, and promoting eachother’s efforts.

VIII. Pulling It All Together (30 minutes)

A. Explain to participants that now that we have talkedabout the why, when, what, and how of being moreintentional about teaching social emotionalskills, we are going to do an activity tointegrate the first three levels of thepyramid (Module 1 and Module 2) beforewe move on to Modules 3a and 3b.Remind participants that in Module 1, theydiscussed the importance ofrelationships, environments, schedules,rules, transitions, and providing positivefeedback and encouragement. Haveparticipants look at Slide 88/Handout2.8. The first page shows an example ofthe activity that they will be completing.Review Jack’s behavior, why he might bedoing these things, what we can do to try to prevent thebehavior, and what new skills we can teach him so hedoesn’t have to use that behavior.



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VIII. Pulling It All Together(30 minutes)



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Pulling It All Together Activity

What is the behavior? Why might Jack be doing this?

What can I do to preventthis behavior?

What new skills can we teach?

Jack keeps getting upand leaving circle

He is bored

He doesn’t know whatto do

• Give him a job during circle• Find out something he really

likes and embed it into circletime

• Make a choice board forwho he sits by, what songsto sing, what books to read

• Make a picture schedule thatshows him when his favoritepart of circle will happen

• Have an adult sit next to himand encourage him forparticipating in circle

• Make a picture schedule thatshows him the order ofactivities within circle

• Prior to circle, use the pictureschedule to explain to himwhat will happen in circle

• Refer to the picture scheduleduring circle

• Have an adult sit by him andtalk to him about what ishappening

• Provide descriptive feedbackfor him while he is at circle

• How to indicate when heis finished with an activity

• Ability to attend for longerperiods of time

How to ask for help when hedoesn’t know how to dosomething

Handout 2.8

B. After reviewing the example, divide participants intogroups of 5-10 and have them complete one of thehandout forms using the teaching pyramid (buildingrelationships, creating supportive environments andintentionally using social emotional teaching strategies)as their guide. There are two behaviors on each form. Ifyou have a large group, you might have each groupaddress one of the behaviors. Once groups havecompleted their form, they can report back and shareideas. (Note to Presenter: A blank form has beenprovided for you to individualize this activity, if needed,based on the group being trained, The blank form canalso be given to participants and they can think of achild and complete the form based on the behaviors thatparticular child has been using.)

C. Show Slide 89 (Key Points). Review the key points withparticipants, emphasizing “teach me what to do!” Ask ifthey have any questions/parting thoughts/ideas theywant to go back and try.

Video Credits Educational Productions, www.edpro.com

References

Elias, M. J., & Clabby, J. F. (1989). Social decision makingskills: A curriculum guide for the elementary grades.Gaithersburg, MD: Aspen.

Guralnick, M. J. (1990). Social competence and earlyintervention. Journal of Early Intervention, 14(1), 3-14.

Hyson, M. (2004). The emotional development of youngchildren. New York, NY: Teachers College Press.

Joseph, G. E., & Strain, P. S. (2003). Enhancing emotionalvocabulary in young children. Young Exceptional Children6(4), 18-26.

Joseph, G. E., & Strain, P. S. (2003). Helping youngchildren control anger and handle disappointment. YoungExceptional Children 7(1), 21-29.



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Kemple, K. M. (2004). Let’s be friends. New York, NY:Teachers College Press.

Kusche, C. A., & Greenberg, M. T. (1994). The PATHScurriculum. Seattle, WA: Developmental Research andPrograms.

McConnell, S. R., McEvoy, M. A., & Odom, S. L. (1992).Implementation of social competence interventions in earlychildhood special education classes: Current practices andfuture directions. In S. L. Odom, S. R. McConnell, & M. A.McEvoy (Eds.), Social competence of young children withdisabilities (pp. 277-306). Baltimore: Brookes.

Schneider, M. R. (1974). Turtle technique in the classroom.Teaching Exceptional Children, 7(1), 21-24.

Shure, M. B., & Spivack, G. (1980). Interpersonal problemsolving as a mediator of behavioral adjustment in preschooland kindergarten children. Journal of AppliedDevelopmental Psychology, 1, 29-44.

Shure, M. B., & Spivack, G. (1982). Interpersonal problemsolving in young children: A cognitive approach toprevention. American Journal of Community Psychology,10(3), 341-356.

Tremblay, A., Strain, P. S., Hendrickson, J. M., & Shores, R.E. (1981). Social interactions of normally developingpreschool children: Using normative data for subject andtarget behavior selection. Behavior Modification, 5(2), 237-253.

Webster-Stratton, C. (1990). The teachers and childrenvideotape series: Dina dinosaur school. Seattle, WA: TheIncredible Years.

Webster-Stratton, C. (1999). How to promote children’ssocial and emotional competence. London: Paul ChapmanPublishing.

Webster-Stratton, C., & Hammond, M. (1997). Treatingchildren with early onset conduct problems: A comparison ofchild and parent training interventions. Journal of Consultingand Clinical Psychology, 65(1), 93-109.



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This material was developed by the Center on the Socialand Emotional Foundations for Early Learning with federalfunds from the U.S. Department of Health and HumanServices, Administration for Children and Families(Cooperative Agreement N. PHS 90YD0119). The contentsof this publication do not necessarily reflect the views orpolicies of the U.S. Department of Health and HumanServices, nor does mention of trade names, commercialprojects, or organizations imply endorsement by the U.S.Government. You may reproduce this material for trainingand information purposes.

We welcome your feedback on this Training Module. Pleasego to the CSEFEL Web site (http://csefel.uiuc.edu) or call usat (217) 333-4123 to offer suggestions.



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