Social Emotion Skills
Fostering social-emotional skills among Hong Kong young children through visual arts activities
Introduction
Social-emotional skills are the abilities necessary for young children, which includes knowledge as well as the skills needed for young people in order to recognize and control characters and their emotions. Social-emotional skills aid an individual facing the challenges of the current world and benefit from the chances it offers. Teachers, parents and the community plays a great role in fostering social-emotional skills through the improvement of the learning environment that they develop. This section will focus on the activities that help foster social-emotional skills as well as the definition of the keywords in social-emotional skill learning.
Emotion
Emotion is a feeling that emanates from the reaction of one’s situation, event, mood as well as the relationship with others. It is also a strong reaction or feeling that is normally directed towards a particular object, and instinctively goes together with both the psychological and behavioral changes in the human body. These feelings are such as happiness, anger, fear, or even hatred. It is a personal character that involves feelings as opposed to their thoughts. Additionally, emotions are the biological state related to the nervous system, which is brought on by neurophysiological changes numerously linked to thoughts, the response of the behaviors, pressure’s degree, and feelings. Emotion viewed in a mechanistic perception; it is a positive and a negative experience related to a certain physiological pattern of activities. Emotion’s role was to provide motivation to the adaptive behaviors, which in the past has contributed to the passing on of genes via survival, kin selection as well as the reproduction.
According to some theories, emotion is complex since they are a state of feelings, which leads to physical and psychological changes influencing our behaviors (Ali & Amin, 2014). The emotional physiology is related to the arousal of the nervous system with numerous states as well as the arousal strength connecting to specific emotions.
There are different components involved in the emotions such as cognitive process, expressive behaviors, as well as the subjective experiences. The different components of emotions are somehow considered contrarily depending on the academic discipline. For instance, in both psychology and philosophy, emotions consist of conscious experiences, subjective, biological reaction as well as mental states. According to Thoits (2013), emotion comprises psychological components, emotional labels, and communicative body actions.
Social, emotional skills
Social, emotional skills are the abilities that aid an individual to connect with others (Pathways.org, 2020). Social, emotional skills help an individual manage the emotions, have a feeling of empathy, and help in building healthy relationships. Some of the examples of social skills are the ability to identify when someone is sad and seeking whether they are fine. Social, emotional skills begin as early as the child begins interacting with the people taking care of them. At this stage, they begin comprehending thoughts as well as their feelings. Social-emotional skills also comprise of the attitudes, awareness as well as the ability necessary for the youth in recognizing and control of the emotions as well as the behaviors that are reputable and maintain positive connections. Schwartz & Rhodes (2016), points out that social-emotional skills help in mentoring the relationships that are engaged emotionally and are expected to produce both social and emotional development in young people, which will help in improving the relationship with friends, parents as well as the community.
Differences between emotions and social skills
Social-emotional skills are totally different from emotions, since emotions emanate from one’s reaction towards the surrounding, while social-emotional skills are the ability that helps an individual to manage the emotions. Emotions are the feelings or the reactions that are directed towards a particular object and go together with the psychological and behavioural changes in the body. However, social-emotional skills are the capability that helps an individual to recognize when somebody is sad and look at whether they are happy or not. Emotions are that occur from the outcome of social skills. For example, when one gets to interact with others positively, there is a feeling of excitement that immerge. The interaction represents social-emotional skills, while the feeling of excitement portrays an emotion.
Learning contest which contributes to fostering social and emotional skills
The social, emotional development of the children takes place in numerous environments, including school, family, as well as the community. In every context, there is a number of particular elements. Every element contributes to the development of social, cognitive, and emotional skills, but the relative significance will vary depending on the childhood stage in life. For instance, households are very significant during infancy as well as during childhood, though the community and the school becomes more significant the moment the child joins the school and start interacting with different social networks. Besides, Environmental factors also affect the development of social-emotion skills indirectly by influencing the context that skills develop. For instance, civil and cultural related activities available during the growth of the children in a certain community.
Importance of social-emotional skills among young children
Social-emotional skills help young people to grow emotionally, socially, academically as well as professionally. Having strong social-emotional skills determines the future of young people. For instance, children who have strong social-emotional skills in kindergarten are commonly linked to very important outcomes in their 20’s. Some of the outcomes that are associated with social skills at the age of ’20s are such as completion of a college degree, success in a career as well as upright morals in real life.
Additionally, social-emotional skills aid the young children in persistence during challenging activities, to efficiently look for aid when needed, and be thoughtful in their undertakings. Significantly, social-emotional skills have helped the young children in increasing their positive attitude towards the school and increase their academic performances. Social, emotional skills also helped in decreasing the chances of young children getting into trouble or having problems related to emotions.
Van Voorhis et al. (2013) claimed that young children with strong social-emotional skills are able to effectively navigate through interpersonal events. Besides, they are in a position to build a strong and meaningful friendship, which will lead to the improvement of their self-esteem and boost their self-confidence. With social-emotional skills, children are also able to bolster their strength in psychology and resilience in order to get ready to cope with future challenges of life.
Social-emotional skills also provide long-term academic results and little emotional distress. Children with social, emotional skills also enable young children to cope with the use of drugs compared to the ones without social-emotional skills (Taylor et al., 2017). Young children with strong social-emotional skills portray an improved self-attitude, good character as well as the capability of managing stress.
Art activities to foster children’s emotional skills/social skills/social-emotional skills
The activities which are related to Art makes young children happy since they seem fun to them and they contribute a lot in encouraging creativity as well as assistance in the development of fine motor skills and spatial consciousness. Art-related activities are beneficial to the development of social-emotional skills. According to the findings from National Endowment for Arts (NEA), it shows that parents and guardians who sing to their children for at least four times in a week were more likely to witness and report strong and sophisticated social-emotional skills in comparison to the parents who rarely sing to their children (Wyszomirski, 2013).
Additionally, NEA noted that the children who are active and take part in their music classes were at higher chances of developing social-emotional skills, and they increase their level of social cooperation, interaction as well as independence compared to non-active students in school.
Dance groups also help in developing social-emotional skills. Young children who practice dancing twice per week for more than four hours have a higher rate of improvement in pro-social behaviours as well as in the cooperation. These children record a decrease in anxious behaviours and shy. Generally, young children who take part in art-related programs such as dance, singing as well as virtual arts portray an improvement in both positive and negative regulation when compared with inactive children who are not interested in art-related programs (Panagiotopoulou, 2018).
Arts aids numerous children to experience rapid development in communication abilities, motor skills as well as the skills in understanding other’s perspectives. For example, drama or theatre provides a strong platform for the children to act and play roles that belong to other people, and by so doing, they practice skills related to communication, emotional regulation as well as the social interaction. The act of pretending to be a certain character in a play contributes a lot to the development of social-emotional skills. Additionally, activities that involve constructing virtual buildings using blocks commonly known as virtual arts, and activities such as finger painting, modeling, and drawing are some of the virtual arts that contribute in the growth of the children’s social-emotional skills (Bonoti & Misalidi, 2015).
Art program has helped more than expected, and it should be included as part of high-quality child care educational curriculum. Art inclusion inspires creativity and learning interest as well as encouraging significant life skills such as caring, sharing, confidence, empathy, as well as self-expression (Bonoti & Misalidi, 2015). Young children require experiences that aid them in the expansion of their comprehension of the nature around them, art-related activities bear out the requirement in vast ways. Therefore, it is clear that art helps to improve young children’s quality of care via extensive resources, services as well as the education caregivers.
How art lessons facilitate children’s social-emotional skills
Kindergarten teachers in Hong Kong testifies that art lessons both at home and at school can aid in building social-emotional skills for children. The teachers claimed that since art requires innovation and trial and error, young children are able to learn how to manage frustrations via art (Oliver, 2018). Additionally, the teachers echoed that the creative process related to arts have higher chances of teaching children on how to connect to the more emotional parts of themselves (Dowling, 2014).
Dowling (2014) argued that the call for social-emotional skills is coming from numerous areas. Both teachers and parents are all over asking for social-emotional skills lessons. Besides, the business community in Hong Kong has started asking for a vast mix of social, emotional skills than the traditional lessons taught in classes.
Hong Kong’s kindergarten teachers have special ways of using art in their lessons to help young children. During lessons, teachers suggest three major ways of combining social-emotional skills with children’s art lessons both at home and in schools.
- During the art lessons, the teachers have to think of the needs of the children when choosing art materials. For instance, a child looking for control might achieve something from beading or drawing. However, young children who require more freedom might gain more from paint or clay activities.
- By Allowing children to have control over their art projects, teachers have noted that by giving children the freedom to interpret their art project via their personal experiences and viewpoints have higher chances of developing social-emotional skills (Ebert et al., 2015). Additionally, Parents should also not control the manner in which a child conducts an art project at home; instead, they should ask the children regarding their art creations as well as the decisions they make.
- Make art together with the children. According to Dinsmoor (2018), working together in the creative process contributes to mirroring each other as well as celebrating the artistic practices of each other.
Art lessons in kindergarten schools in Hong Kong have led the children in obtaining not only the social skills but also emotional skills (Sitzer & Stockwell, 2015). Art lessons have enabled young children to learn things by themselves, like coping with natural frustrations, making their own decisions, and organizing themselves. Art lessons contribute a lot to the mental improvement of young children.
Elements that a should Art possess
The Practices of teachers creating a safe place is one of the elements of art in fostering social-emotional skills since the children are able to participate in art (Sitzer & Stockwell, 2015). Numerous art teachers work on believing that the participation of art needs an environment comfortable for the children taking productive risks, having a feeling of discomfort, and are being challenged. By making a comfortable environment, developmental spaces might also comprise teachers looking for opportunities in facilitating student agency as well as being responsive to the desires of the young children.
Another element of art in fostering social skills is teamwork and accountability. These elements are capable of providing opportunities for young children to practice both interpersonal as well as relationship skills. According to Alemán et al. (2017) stresses that music curriculum on social interactions via group instructions, as well as group performances improves self-control and decreases difficulties that are associated with behaviours as students work together in performing music. The skills that give an allowance to the young children in controlling their emotions and characters during the age of schooling are closely linked to the applied skills in securing and maintaining promising jobs and healthy relationships (Alemán et al., 2017). Art elements offer an opportunity for young children to conceptualizing and leading projects as well as teaching other children. Art might also help in developing interpersonal and the skills related to relationships (Sitzer & Stockwell, 2015).
References
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