Start with Yourself: A Teacher Intervention for Socioemotional Growth and Modeling

Teachers serve as important models for children’s learning, particularly in social domains. Research has demonstrated the importance of children developing social and emotional skills at a young age because of their effect on academic performance and social success in school and correlation with later life outcomes, such as higher job performance and lower rates of “at risk” behaviors (Suldo, Gormley, DuPaul, & Anderson- Butcher, 2013). Existing socioemotional learning (SEL) models have demonstrated varying levels of success in improving student’s socioemotional skills, but these programs primarily serve parent and child populations, and often struggle to produce sustainable outcomes. Several researchers have suggested the importance of a teacher-focused model for SEL training because of their direct role in implementing programming in the classroom and their connection to students. However, the teacher perspective is not well represented in the existing intervention literature. The current study demonstrates the development, pilot outcomes, and iterative revision process of an intervention for early childhood teachers aimed at increasing their own strategies for emotional self-regulation and modeling these skills to their students.