How Do Caregivers Develop Social and Emotional Skills With Their Child at Home?

• In Event: Focus on Families: Understanding Roles, Obstacles, Perspectives, and Best Practices for Caregiver Engagement in Social and Emotional Learning

Abstract

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) can enhance students’ social and emotional (SE) skills and other outcomes such as academic achievement (e.g., Durlak et al., 2022; Mahoney et al., 2018). Research on SEL increasingly emphasizes the need to take a holistic approach to improving student skills, which includes the role of caregivers (Albright et al., 2011). Consistent with this view, many caregivers want to be involved in developing their child’s SE skills and report being willing to spend time to develop their child’s SE skills (Daley et al., 2023; McGraw-Hill Education, 2021). However, little is known about how caregivers work with their children on SE skills and how SEL programs can provide resources that caregivers view as valuable in helping them develop their child’s skills. The current study involved a mixed-methods survey examining caregiver practices involving SEL to address three main questions. 1.) How do caregivers address SE skills with their child? 2.) Which skills do caregivers work on with their child? 3.) What supports do caregivers perceive as valuable in helping to develop their child’s skills?
To address these questions, a survey was sent to 25,000 parents of ACT test-takers following the April 2023 national test date. A total of 934 caregivers were included in the final sample for analysis (84% Female, 7% Black, 4% Hispanic, 4% Asian, 73% White). Most caregivers reported frequently using informal strategies to develop their child’s skills, such as teaching through conversations (96% said they did this about once a week or more frequently) and modeling skills through their behavior (98% said they did this about once a week or more frequently). In contrast, fewer caregivers said they frequently used formal strategies such as having their child complete activities focused on skill building (60% said they did this less than once a week or never). Additionally, most caregivers reported working at least once a week on each skill examined (79% or more for Sustaining Effort, Getting Along with Others, Maintaining Composure, Keeping an Open Mind, and Social Connection). For our final question, most caregivers reported that it would be helpful to have additional supports to teach each skill, especially for Sustaining Effort (88% rated additional supports as helpful). Fewer caregivers thought structured lessons would be helpful compared to the other types of supports examined (31% rated these as not helpful). Results from open-ended questions align with the closed-ended results and further underscore a more informal approach taken by caregivers in addressing SEL with their students.
Taken together, results from the current study indicate most caregivers are working to develop their child’s SE skills through informal methods such as conversations and modeling versus more formal approaches involving specific lessons. Based on these results, a fruitful way to better integrate caregivers in SEL programming may be through conversational prompts or quick activities like emotional check-ins. Future research can aim to examine the extent to which caregivers are engaged in these types of initiatives and the extent to which this leads to increased skill development in students.

Authors

• Nola Daley, ACT, Inc.

• Dana Murano, ACT, Inc.

• Jeremy Burrus, ACT, Inc.

• Kate Walton, ACT, Inc.

• Alex Casillas, ACT, Inc.