Social and emotional learning - our new content category!

We have just added a new content category in the Stella app: social and emotional learning! The content in this category consists of stories aimed at helping children develop social and emotional skills, and is suitable for daytime listening. Topics include navigating challenging social situations, such as how to make friends, to understanding social cues, rules and boundaries, and dealing with strong or complex emotions. These stories are written in a way that make it easy for your child to understand, and include tips and strategies for behaviour. There’s even complimentary learning materials if you as a parent want tips on what to discuss with your child after listening! But what is social and emotional learning, and why is it important for kids?

Social-emotional skills, which are sometimes referred to as ‘emotional intelligence’, are what we call the ability to control and regulate our thoughts, emotions, and behaviour. These skills are key in managing and handling events and interactions that happen in our daily lives, as well as how we respond to when things happen to us or around us.
Social and emotional skills are necessary tools to get along with others, and to create and maintain satisfying relationships. Children start discovering and developing these skills as babies, and arguably this process continues throughout each person’s life. Social and emotional skills are developed through experience as well as learning, and determine how we engage with the outside world. Our social and emotional learning content is based on research which has found that the ability to regulate emotion can affect how those emotions are perceived, and also the subsequent emotional state (that is, how the child feels afterwards). This means that having the skill and strategy to be able to handle stressful and emotional events can result in the events being perceived as less disruptive and have less of a negative impact on the child.

Through these stories, your child will learn about situations in which social and emotional skills may be required, and be offered examples of strategies or skills to employ in these situations. The content in our social and emotional learning category is suited for daytime use, such as during car journeys, during story time, or as a relaxing past-time.
We also offer learning materials to accompany each of our social and emotional learning stories. Try listening to the story together with your child, and then go through the learning material together to discuss the emotions and events in the story. You may be surprised by the insights that your child delivers during these discussions!

Happy listening!

Team Stella