Social-Emotional Learning: Social Awareness

Recognizing Situational Demands and Opportunities is a very important adult SEL skill.

Learning to play with others is an important step in  human development. - it is the first step of understanding that all human behavior is communication. Later we learn to adjust our behaviors according to the location or people we interact with, which reduces our frustrations in social situations.

After just watching others play we start to play near others, but not really with them. After this parallel play we learn to interact more with others and usually after the age of 4, we start to pay attention to their body language and the tone of their voices and cooperate with others. But our development continues throughout our lives, and we learn to understand others better. If we choose to.

 

We all have different ways and different skills to  express our needs. This is why the hardest part of growing up might be learning how to hear the real message behind certain behaviors. And in any interaction we can decide to respond to the need of the other, instead of simply reacting to what they say or do. 

Our perception of the behaviors of others defines our actions. Not the reality, but our interpretation of the situation. I am still learning this!