Helping Kids Be Healthy and Whole While Learning from Home

Students can sense and even internalize the emotions their teachers are feeling, especially stress, depression and worry. Not only do we need to help kids stay physically healthy, we need to help them stay emotionally healthy. SEL expert Dr. Kim Schonert-Reichl unpacks the concepts of stress contagion, the importance of routines, co-rumination and other SEL topics to help us better help today's students.

Disclosure: Note that today's guest is an advisor for today's sponsor. All content and opinions are my own and that of the author.

Sponsor: The WE Schools Program, made possible by the Allstate Foundation, is kicking off National Volunteer Week with Let's Volunteer Now! Join this free online event to help discover how virtual volunteering can help your students build SEL skills. It will be hosted on Friday, April 17 at 1pm EST on the @Wemovement Facebook channel with special guests SEL expert Dr. Amy Cranston and her brother award-winner actor Bryan Cranston, and joined by remarkable students and WE Volunteer Now campaign participants, Tyler and Jameson.

Dr. Kim Schonert-Reichl  - Bio as Submitted

Dr. Kim Schonert-Reichl is an expert advisor for the WE organization’s WE Schools program, which is accessed by over 18,000 schools across North America – with a special emphasis on social and emotional learning and mental wellbeing.

Dr. Kim is known as a world-renowned, American expert in the area of social and emotional learning (SEL) and sits on CASEL’s Board of Directors.  

• • Within the realm of SEL, Dr. Kim’s studies have covered the following topic areas: 
  • The correlation between social and emotional competence (SEC) and academic achievement in early adolescence (click here for 2018 research) 
  • The identification of the processes and mechanisms that foster positive human qualities such as empathy, compassion, altruism and resiliency in children and adolescents 
  • How volunteer action helps develop caring, altruistic behaviors and promotes emotional and physical well-being (click here for 2018 research)  
  • The use of mindfulness in the classroom to foster a stress-free environment (click here for 2016 research) 
  • Projects that examine the effectiveness of classroom-based universal SEL programs (i.e. Roots to Empathy, MindUp) 

Dr. Kim has over 100 publications in scholarly journals, book chapters, and reports and has edited two books on mindfulness in education, including a co-edited book (with Dr. Robert W. Roeser) published by Springer Press in 2016 titled “Handbook of Mindfulness in Education: Integrating Theory and Research Into Practice.” She has presented her research at over 200 scholarly conferences and has given over 300 presentations on the topic of children’s social and emotional development and social emotional learning.  

Dr. Kim’s research has been highlighted in several magazines and newspapers across the US, and internationally, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, Le Monde, The Wall Street Journal, Time Magazine, Scientific American Mind, Neurology Now, The Huffington Post, The Telegraph, The Atlantic and many more. Her research on the Roots of Empathy was profiled on the PBS Newshour special, the American Graduate.