Families Are Students’ First SEL Teachers. Here’s How to Engage Them (Opinion)

We know that students need support from schools and their families to cope with academic and mental health challenges. We have seen time and time again that children’s academic learning cannot be separated from their social and emotional lives. In the wake of pandemic disruptions to schooling, it is more important than ever for families and educators to come together and form meaningful partnerships that foster children’s social, emotional, and academic development.

Parents and other caregivers are children’s first teachers, from whom they begin to learn important social and emotional skills such as respect, empathy, and perseverance. Extensive research results show the positive effects of parental engagement on school performance and the socio-emotional development of children. When family members model social-emotional skills through their parenting practices, they help reinforce what children are learning in school. When surrounded by positive social-emotional support, students are much more likely to develop important skills that lead to improved peer relationships and social skills.

But creating such a positive environment doesn’t just happen – it requires a conscious partnership between schools, families and communities. And by investing in these multi-directional partnerships, schools have the opportunity to learn from families who are the experts on their children’s lives.

The majority of parents already support social-emotional learning for their children. By partnering with them, schools can continue to build on that support while learning from the strategies families are already using to teach SEL and using that expertise to foster more inclusive school environments. And when families feel valued as partners at school, they can also learn how to support and build on school-wide SEL practices at home. In fact, decades of research suggest it that evidence-based SEL programs are more effective when they extend to young people’s home lives.

Partnerships between schools and parents are not always easy, and SEL researchers and educators alike know that families are more likely to form partnerships with schools when the school’s norms, values, and cultural representations reflect their own experiences. For this reason, it is important that schools foster culturally appropriate and welcoming environments to authentically involve families in promoting students’ SEL. In our work at CASEL (where I serve as director of research-practice partnerships), we have partnered with schools, districts, researchers and community organizations to explore innovative practices of family engagement that embody social and emotional learning principles.

We found four research-based actions that make it easier for school leaders and staff to build authentic school-family partnerships.

1. Maintain trusting relationships between educators and families. School staff should begin each school year to seek input on family priorities, concerns, interests, skills, and resources. This creates an opportunity to build trust between families and schools. For example, the Michigan chapter of the Community in Schools organization to prevent school dropout prepares an annual inventory of needs and assets, asking for family and community feedback, which the schools then use to create policies such as early/late pickup times and inform enrichment programs.
2. Build the confidence and skills of staff and caregivers. When school and district leaders rethink existing structures and policies that drive school improvement efforts, they can more effectively involve families in decision-making processes. Remember that schools can be a place of learning Everyone. Consider investing in opportunities for parents to develop their own skills, as well as for educators who want to learn more about working with diverse communities, including through culturally responsive educational practices and recognizing parents as assets and ‘funds of knowledge’ “. For example, a Chicago public high school offered a group of parents the opportunity to complete CASEL’s SEL Dialogue series for caregiver-school partnershipsa 10-hour training course designed to help caregivers learn and practice social-emotional skills.
3. Shift the role of families from bystanders to collaborators. Educators and parents should feel alike as partners and stewards of students’ education. This allows them to set shared goals and outcomes for their students while also planning and strategizing as equal partners. These connections are not limited to parents and educators, but also between families. Families that see each other as sources of knowledge and collaborators can create empowering spaces in which to coordinate and implement the change they want to see for their children.
4. Involve the families in interpreting the data and generating solutions. Traditionally, we see family voices being captured in surveys or through traditional means of collecting parental feedback, such as B. City Halls, PTA meetings and parent-teacher conferences. Involving families in reviewing data can foster even greater agency, trust, and communication, and lead to equitable improvements in schools. Parents can identify discrepancies in what and how data is collected related to them or their children’s cultural understanding, provide context, and suggest solutions that supportive and empowering schools can create. For example, the Minneapolis District Participatory Evaluation Program works with a group of “parent researchers” and educators to improve their children’s learning. Parents have access to district data and are trained in culturally relevant data collection and evaluation. Parents identify a research question and plan how data will be collected and analyzed to address the problem. The parent group then advises stakeholders at the school and district levels on how best to share the data with other parents and community members.

Speakers and participants of the most recent CASEL annual summit 2022— which focused on understanding that school-family partnerships are essential to a child’s success — validated what we know: we are all stronger when we stand up for our children together. With parents overwhelmingly supporting SEL, educators should seize the moment to build these partnerships to ensure children thrive. When families and educators work together, we can set students on the path to success to meet any challenge in school and in life.