Showing Gratitude with Attitude!

“When I come to the play with the Meeting House, I feel safe and comfortable. I can focus on good things that make me happy” - Masani 3rd Grade

Holidays that have to do with family, often bring out a wide range of emotions. Is it always possible to be grateful for the things you have when it feels like you don’t have anything? How can we keep the best attitude in our social environment when experiencing loss? These are important questions to ask because it means we are on our journey towards self-reflection. It is difficult to solve problems immediately when we do not understand how we feel internally. Building a skill takes practice and commitment and the skill of identifying our emotions is a learned process. Through our LevelUp SEL program we help students identify emotions, so they become better socially and emotionally aware individuals when they eventually become adults.

The focus for this month has been self-awareness. As SEL interns, we have been reflecting on our emotions and actions as we interact with the students we work with, and we are noticing the same with the students and their environment each week. A grand theme emerging through the weeks we spend with the students is an increase in relatedness to us and with their peers. The Social & Emotional Skills in Action framework is a tool that allows SEL interns and staff to help students identify ways in which they can first identify their own emotions and behaviours and then build their social awareness of the people in their environment.

Thanksgiving is a time when many people and families are starting to think about what they are grateful for. To identify what we are grateful for, we are pushed to think about what we have instead of what we lack. This thinking guides our emotions to start looking at the good things and therefore appreciating each situation we encounter with a better attitude than we would have without. The first step is identifying one's emotions, the next is appreciating the good and finally reflecting and implementing a better attitude with the people around us. This holiday season can be the start and as we move forward towards the end of the year, we can practice these steps for improvement in ourselves and hopefully have these positive feelings reflected in the relationships we have to share peace.

Philipa Wamala, Fordham University, M.Ed. candidate

The Meeting House LevelUp SEL Intern 2023-25