The PDC Curriculum

1. The PDC Curriculum Emotional Intelligence

2. What is Emotional Intelligence? Emotional Intelligence: “The capacity for recognising our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships.” Daniel Goleman

3. Five ingredients to Emotional Intelligence • Self-awareness- knowing one’s emotions and recognising feelings as they happen. • Emotional management- handling feelings, the ability to recover quickly from upsets and distress. • Self-motivation- the ability to control one’s emotions, to self-discipline, delay gratification and stifle impulsiveness in pursuit of one’s goals. • Empathy- the ability to listen and understand what other people are communicating verbally and non-verbally and to sense what others are feeling. • Managing emotions in others- the ability to connect inter-personally to others with ease and understanding.

4. Framework of key Social and Emotional learning competencies. • Self-Awareness • Identifying and recognising emotions • Accurate self-perception • Recognising strengths, needs and values • Social Awareness • Empathy • Appreciating diversity • Respect for Others • Responsible Decision Making • Problem Identification and Solving • Evaluation and reflection • Personal, moral, and ethical responsibility

5. Self-Management • Impulse control and stress management • Self-motivation and discipline • Goal setting and organizational skills • Relationship Management • Communication, social engagement and building relationships • Working cooperatively • Negotiation, refusal and conflict management • Help seeking and providing

6. Self-awareness • Identifying and Recognising Emotions: ‘Emotional self-awareness (recognizing feelings and building a vocabulary for them) is an essential foundation for emotional literacy. Children with a sufficient feelings vocabulary can communicate with others about their emotions and express their needs. Children who accurately identify and label emotions tend to be less aggressive, are more accepted by peers, and are generally more socially competent.’ All children need support in building a feelings vocabulary.

7. Children learn to develop an awareness of feelings when adults serve as role models by expressing their own feelings in words and teaching a feelings vocabulary to children in class meetings, during conversation and play with children, and through games and activities. Through repeated examples, children learn to identify their own emotions and the feelings of others. They learn that their emotions are normal and an accurate reflection of their experience. They learn that feelings can change and that people may have different feelings about the same thing. Helping Children Identify and Label Emotions Provide an environment in which children feel safe to share their feelings. Remember that you might be offering the only emotionally safe haven for children experiencing abuse, neglect, violence, or other trauma in their lives. Expect that it will take some time for children to trust and feel safe to communicate openly with you.

8. The Four main ideas to teach children: • Feelings are important signals They can arise from inside the body or they can come from outside, as a signal from someone else, and they provide very important information. This information could be about ourselves-something that we need or desire-or it could be about the needs of others. It is very important that we help children understand that their feelings are different from their behaviour. E.g.: Place a sign in your room that says: ‘All feelings are ok. Behaviours can be ok or not ok.’ • Separate feelings from behaviours Often when children have certain emotions, let’s say anger, and if they’ve been punished for something, they fuse together the emotions they felt and the behaviour that they were punished for. They also believe that even feeling certain emotions is already being bad. It’s very important to help children see that feelings are just a part of us.

9. They ariseand we need to look at them. There’s nothing wrong with feelings-they are natural. 3.You can’t think until you are calm This is a sort of mantra. It relates to the fact that emotions condition the mind to see in a certain way. Children need to know that they have to calm down first so that they can see clearly what’s happening, and then see what to do about it. 4. The Golden rule ‘Treat others the way you want to be treated’. The idea here is to invoke taking the perspective of others.

10. The following lists of objectives may be used when instructing a social awareness intervention and measuring progress of the individuals participating: • School Behaviours • Looks at an adult when called • Looks at another child when called • Can maintain eye contact when talking • Does not interrupt the speaker • Waits for a turn to talk • Understands what is being said • Follows instructions appropriately • Uses appropriate volume when speaking • Uses the appropriate vocabulary to express needs, wants and ideas • Can sit appropriately to listen to a story/teacher’s instructions • Can concentrate on an activity without interrupting others • Knows what is ‘safe’ to do in class • Knows what is ‘unsafe’ to do in class • Knows how to play and interact safely in the playground • Knows when behaviour is unsafe in the playground • Follows classroom routines and rules to keep safe • Follows playground routines and rules to keep safe

11. Feelings • Can recognise and label how they are feeling • Can recognise how others are feeling • Can show empathy towards others • Can tell an adult when they feel distressed • Can tell another peer when they feel distressed • Can distinguish between comfortable and uncomfortable feelings • Has appropriate emotional vocabulary to express feelings accurately • Can express anger without physical aggression • Friendship Skills • Shows interest in other pupils • Can approach a peer and ask to play with them • Understands the concept of kindness • Understands the concept of sharing • Understands the concept of turn-taking • Can identify one or more friends in class • Can identify one or more friends in the home • Will apologise to a friend when necessary • Will help out a friend when necessary • Has shown the ability to sustain a friendship

12. Social Skills • Can take turns appropriately in conversation. • Can take turns appropriately in a game. • Plays well with other pupils in a game/turn-taking activity • Can work well alongside one other pupil on a class base learning task • Can participate well in a group activity i.e. helping, turn-taking, supporting others in need • Co-operates with peers and plays effectively in the playground

13. Example of activities around recognising feelings 1. Have students brainstorm as many different feelings as they can and list them on the board. Group similar feelings (i.e. angry, mad, furious, etc.) together. Discuss why feelings are neutral and why only the way we handle them can be labelled as good or bad. 2. Draw a three columned table on the board. Label the tops of the columns with the following terms: Situation, Physical Cues, and Body Language. Taking each feeling or group of feelings one at a time, have students work their way through the chart. The examples described below use “anger” for the purpose of demonstration:

14. Examples of situations that might result in angry feelings. Children can use situations they have experienced or imagine situations that might apply. • The physical cues that often accompany angry feelings (for example, racing heart, sweaty palms, loud voice, etc.) Point out to children that when they start to notice themselves experiencing these physical cues, that this is their body’s way of telling them that they are experiencing intense feelings. The goal is for children to recognize these signs early on before the anger gets out of control. • Body language cues that often accompany angry feelings (clenched fists, angry face, folded arms, etc.) Point out to children that when they see these “clues” in another person, that person may be angry. This helps children to start to identify angry feelings in others, whether the feelings are verbalized or not.