The Ever-Growing Need of Social Emotional Learning in School-Aged Children

Abstract

Over the past 25 years children’s behaviors and expectations have changed to meet the times. A change in societal values and skills (e.g., 21st century skills) has affected the child’s schema. This change in the child’s schema has implications in the child’s perception, awareness, emotional regulation, and attention. For this reason, there needs to be a conscious mindset shift to accepting the new value systems and the corresponding schemas that accompany them. As children of this new generation organize their daily lives, their schemas become altered to reflect the current societal environment resulting in children entering the schooling system with their perceptions, awareness, emotional regulation, and attention formed around the current state of society. For these children, their schemas are normal everyday life/interactions and are essentially the product of the new society who have adapted to their new situation. This adaptation has ultimately changed their schemas. Therefore, a shift in the perception of this new generation of children needs to take place, where their schemas should not be seen as maladaptive, but rather a reflection of the current ways of knowing. Influences such as technology and expectations of society have affected these schemas. Hence, a proactive perspective needs to be considered as schemas are highly adaptable and susceptible to the environment. One place that this can occur is with the K-12 school system. Together with a mind shift in accepting the present-day children and their schemas, a shift in the school system to meet this changing need must be considered.