Helping Children Cope:
Strengthening Social Emotional
Competence
Lise Fox
Technical Assistance Center on Social Emotional
Intervention
Florida Center for Inclusive Communities
Agenda
 Why Social Emotional Competence
 Skills for Coping
 Strategies for Families, Strategies for Children
How does this make you feel?
How about the children?
What makes life easier?
What about the Children?
Getting Your Child to Cooperate




First, Then
Choices
Visuals
Clear Expectations
How Full is Your Bucket
 Everyone has an invisible bucket. We are at our best when
our buckets are overflowing –and at our worst when they
are empty.
 Whenever we choose to fill others’ buckets, we in turn fill
our own.
 Everyone also has an invisible dipper. In each interaction,
we can use our dipper either to fill or to dip from others’
buckets.
Magic Ratio
5 positive interactions for every 1
negative*
*but ratios greater than 13 to 1 are harmful
Fill a Bucket: A Guide to Daily Happiness for the
Young Child by Kathy Martin
Skills of Resilience Every Child Needs
 Emotional Expression
 Problem Solving
 Coping Strategies
 Pain
 Disappointment
 Loss
 Self-advocacy
13
Building Your Child’s Ability to
Express Emotions
 Talk about your feelings.
 Say to your child, “Tell me how that makes you feel.”
 Teach new emotion words (e.g., frustrated, confused, anxious,
excited, worried, disappointed).
 Talk about how characters in a book, video or on a TV show may feel.
 Reflect on specific situations and discuss feelings.
 Accept and support your child’s expression of feelings.
 Use books and art activities to talk about emotions.
 Talk aloud about your own feeling in a variety of situations.
 Describe how your child’s face looks or pictures of people in
magazines and books.
 Pretend play with toy figurines, stuffed animals, or puppets and have
them use “feeling words.”
Turtle Technique
 Model remaining calm
 Teach how to control feelings and calm down
 Step 1: recognize your feelings
 Step 2: Think “stop”
 Step 3: go inside your shell and take three deep breaths
 Step 4: come out when calm and think of a good solution
 Practice steps frequently
 Prepare for and help child handle possible disappointment
and/or change
 Recognize and comment when the child stays calm
Turtle Technique
Recognize
that you
“Think”
Stop.
feel angry.
Go into shell.
Take 3 deep
breaths. And
think calm,
coping
thoughts.
Come out of
shell when
calm and
thinking of a
solution.
When Tucker
Turtle Gets
Scared…He
Knows How to
Be Brave
A scripted story to assist with teaching the “Turtle Technique”
when children feel anxious or scared about medical needs.
By Rochelle Lentini and a very brave Juvenile Arthritis Warrior named Parker Lentini
Copyright © 2010
Created using pictures from Microsoft Clipart® and from information from the Center for the Social Emotional Foundations for Early Learning
(CSEFEL) and from the Technical Assistance Center on Social Emotional Interventions for Young Children(TACSEI).
Personal use or free distribution: No permission is needed to download and/or photo copy this story, as long as the copies are distributed at no cost and a
credit to the authors is evident on each copy.
Problem Solving Steps
Step 2
Would it be safe?
Would it be fair?
How would everyone feel?
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Help the Child Think of a Possible Solution:
•Get a grown-up
•Ask nicely
•Ignore
•Play
•Say, “Please stop.”
•Say, “Please.”
•Share
•Trade toys/item
•Wait and take turns
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Self Advocacy
 Ask for information
 Prepare questions
 Structure opportunities
 Debrief with your child
 Be a Part of the Discussion
 Acknowledge child’s presence
 Use child’s name
 Invite into conversation when appropriate
Self-Advocacy
 Understand Options and Make Meaningful Choices
 Identify options
 Make the pro and con list
 Challenge Injustice
Supporting the GLADD
 Give Information
 Prepare your child to provide information and answer
questions
 Listen
 Help your child develop system to remember and record
information
 Ask
 Support your child in asking the questions
 Decide
 Create the opportunity for your child to have an active role
 Do
 Create a “Do” plan
 Design checklists or help your child create a list
Web Sites
 Articles for families and visuals
http://csefel.vanderbilt.edu/resources/family.html
 Making life easier series for parents of young children
www.challengingbehavior.org/communities/families.html
 GLADD videos and supports for youth
http://hctransitions.ichp.ufl.edu/gladd/
 Visuals for feelings, emotional regulation, problem solving
http://depts.washington.edu/hscenter/teacher-tools#visual