Importance of Emotion Regulation in First Grade Students

My project is focused on emotion regulation skills of first grade students who are learning English as a second language. It can be difficult for children to express how they are feeling in a new language. Also, this communication difficulty causes negative emotions that are hard to deal with at this early age. There are many other possible factors such as family language barriers; and family problems, that can cause even more emotional distress. I did my service-learning service at Echo Valley Elementary School, helping out first grade students. Many of them did not know how to express their feelings, didn\u27t understand personal boundaries, or manage their emotions. According to the teacher, some students expressed their feelings inappropriately. She believed that the isolation that COVID 19 caused contributed a lot to why the children did not have appropriate social emotional skills. This is because when the COVID 19 pandemic started, a lot of schools closed down and social interactions were not recommended. This affected the students because children learn emotion regulation skills through interactions with others. Interactions help us model different emotional experiences, adapt, and attain emotional states that we want ( Lopes et al., 2005) Not having social emotional skills can have a negative effect on the social life of students. They can be rejected by other students because they are not able to play well with others ( Schmitt et al., 2021) The goal of my project is to help children in three areas of emotion regulation skills. They will learn how to identify their feelings, and have control of them. They will also learn how to cope in difficult situations presented to them. They will also learn about calming down strategies. This will be done in three lessons completed in three weeks. The training will be done at Echo Valley Elementary School with a group of five first grade students