5 Ways To Teach Social and Emotional Skills With Reading

There’s nothing like curling up with a good book. And even better if your kiddo is snuggled up next to you, nestled under your arm and reading it with you! Reading stories out loud with young children has so many benefits and one of the most significant benefits is that you can use reading stories to develop your child’s social and emotional skills. 

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Reading stories as a tool to develop social emotional skills

Our children’s social emotional skills are so crucial to their sense of identity and how they interact with their world. Because these are skills, they can be learned, practiced and developed. But of course, every child is different and for some, learning these skills is far more challenging than for others. 

Social-emotional skills include these things:

• Self-awareness and developing a healthy self-esteem
• Being aware of your strengths and challenges
• Awareness of your unique qualities
• Developing a growth mindset
• Managing your emotions in healthy ways
• Developing SEL (social-emotional learning) skills in making new friends and developing friendships, handling conflicts, overcoming disappointment and rejection
• Social awareness including learning what is socially acceptable in your child’s unique culture and context.

Learning by Example

You have been developing your child’s social and emotional skills since the day they were born, Mama! Every day we interact with them, we play a pivotal role in their sense of identity. Every conflict they watch us encounter, every social interaction. How we view ourselves and how we tackle our own challenges. These are all “incidental” moments where we model for them how to survive and even thrive. 

Learning Intentionally

Sometimes it’s more intentional. Like when you’re coaching your kids through their feelings and interactions after a fight broke out between them. Or when you have to answer questions about the heartbreak and rejection they suffered at not being invited to a friend’s party.

Reading stories with your children is a powerful way to intentionally bring up the topic of social and emotional skills without it being too direct or personal. A few strategic questions can go a long way to sparking a conversation that might never otherwise have been had.  

5 ways reading stories can develop your child’s social emotional skills

So how exactly can I teach my child social and emotional skills and relationship skills while I’m reading a story to them? Let’s take a look.

1) Learning a lesson / moral from the story.

This is the most obvious way. And because kids’ stories are simple and often have the purpose of teaching a lesson from the story, this one’s easy. It might be explicit in stating what the moral of the story is. Or it might be more subtle and allow for interpretation. 

The question to ask yourself is this: What do I want my child to learn from this story? 

It might be about honesty or kindness. About being a good friend or obeying your parents. Maybe it’s about taking responsibility or even simply eating your veggies.

Consider what your values are and what you want your child to learn from the story. Then teach it to them!

One of the best positive effects of a great book is that it can help kids develop growth mindsets, as they develop their own strengths by learning from the young people in the story. Students of all ages will benefit from strategic questioning and discussing the lessons to be learned in the books they read.

2) Express empathy towards the characters

Empathy is a VERY important social and emotional skill we all want our children to have. If your child can “put themselves in the other person’s shoes” and see a situation from their perspective, they will handle the situation or conflict much differently than if they cannot do this.

If you have tiny people in your home, you know, this is not something that just comes naturally! It really is something we have to teach our children. But without invalidating their feelings or minimizing their experience of the situation.

Reading stories is one of the most effective ways to practice this skill with very little personal cost. 

When your 3 year old gets super upset that your 1 year old broke her Lego tower, it’s very hard in that moment to try to teach empathy. To try to help your 3 year old understand that her sister is still small and loves exploring new things and didn’t mean to make her sad, is near impossible. It costs your 3 year old too much. Emotionally. 

But when you read through a story about a little brother that dashed his big brother’s block tower, you can teach empathy for both sides. How did that older brother feel? Have you ever felt that way? And what about the younger brother? Why do you think he did what he did? Is there any other reason he may have done that, other than just being nasty? 

Validating both character’s feelings shows your child that their feelings are valid and helps them to think of how others may be experiencing the situation too. That’s the first step towards empathy, and reading a story together is a great way to help your child understand this.

3) Relate to your child’s similar experiences

Ever had your child go through something tough and they simply won’t talk to you about it? Probably because they know you’ll have a bunch to say about it, right? 

Reading a story can allow your child to relate their unique circumstances in their own lives to what they’re reading in the book. This connection between the two can help them work through the emotions they’re feeling and help them think through solutions that they can actually use in their life. And, this connection will help them develop important literacy skills that will increase their reading comprehension and academic success at the same time.

Let me give you an example. (Maybe you can relate?)

When I had our second child, our first wasn’t even 2 years old. The concept of welcoming home a new baby was quite challenging for her, as you can imagine. So much was about to change. My mom brought a book (I think a friend had passed it on to her) that was all about a family welcoming home a new baby. It was GOLD! So simple, so clear, such great pictures and perfect to help our firstborn understand and relate to her new situation of welcoming home her own new baby sister. 

And you know what else I loved about this – and about reading stories that relate to our child’s situation. They often give US, as parents, the words, the vocabulary, we need to express what we want to express. 

4) Opportunity to project and explore their own thoughts and feelings

I’ve been alluding to this one throughout this article. But this here is the how behind all the other points. Sometimes something is too close to home. Too difficult to think about or too painful to feel. Sometimes we don’t have the words to express those emotions. Or maybe we can feel like we’re completely alone in carrying a load that’s actually too heavy to bear. 

You feel it as a mom. And your child feels these things too! 

Reading stories allows us to project our situation, our thoughts, our feelings onto something else. Just like a projector creates an image and displays it on the screen. It’s “outside” of the projector and that means we can see that image more clearly. Examine it, explore what it means, work with it. 

Handling Big Emotions

Your child may have some REALLY big emotions they just don’t know how to express or talk about. They may be struggling to cope with their anxiety or disappointment when a best friend rejected them. Reading a story that relates to their situation can give them the chance to project their own emotions and feelings in that book, onto those characters, and this process plays an important role in mental health and social-emotional development. 

This may look like your child might having deep insight into a certain character or situation and tell you more about it than is actually portrayed in the book. Listen carefully! Your child may be expressing something deep within them that they have just found a way of talking about! Explore it gently with them by asking questions about the character or situation in the book, keep it “outside” of them. And then, when they’re ready, they may be able to express that this is exactly what they are going through. And you can take it from there. 

Choosing Books

Depending on your children’s ages and grade levels, different kinds of books may help them see different perspectives. Younger kids may prefer picture books or children’s books, while young adults may prefer graphic novels and comic books. Parents should use a rigorous selection process to choose diverse texts that are exciting and fun for kids, and are a powerful tool for personal growth as they learn about important topics in real life.

5) Consider alternative outcomes

All good stories have a beginning and an end. But what if things had turned out differently? 

It’s important for children to see that actions have outcomes. Sometimes positive, sometimes negative. (I choose the word “outcomes” because “consequences” always seems to carry a negative connotation.) And, kids need to learn how to make responsible decisions in a variety of different situations.

The actions of the characters in the book, all led to the outcome at the end. But what if things had been different? What if conflicts had been handled differently? What if different characters had become friends? 

Think of the story of Cinderella. What if she and her stepsisters had learned to get along? Or what if her stepmother had learned how to cope with her own feelings of inadequacy that lead to her marrying a man for his wealth? What if she had had the courage to stand up for herself? How different that story would have been? 

By talking about how alternative actions could have led to different outcomes, we empower our children to consider this every time they’re faced with a decision or action they feel compelled to take. And more than that it shows them that they have the power to affect outcomes, by the decisions they make!

Resources for Social Emotional Learning in Your Homeschool

Time to snuggle up with a good book!

Developing your child’s emotional skills and social skills is one of the most important things you can do. You’re helping them build their identity and equipping them with tools they will use throughout their lives. It’s an investment you can’t deny. 

Read those stories with your children and use those stories, those characters, those circumstances, as a springboard for discussions to develop the social and emotional skills they need to thrive in their life and learning. 

Thank you to Lisa Shipster from Learn With Confidence for writing this guest post!