What does it mean to be self-aware? While self-awareness can be characterized as having a sense of one’s personality and character it is also important for understanding one’s emotions.  As one of the core competencies of social emotional learning, the Collaboration for Academic, and Social Emotional Learning defines self-awareness as, “The ability to accurately recognize one’s own emotions, thoughts, and values and how they influence behavior. The ability to accurately assess one’s strengths and limitations, with a well-grounded sense of confidence, optimism, and a ‘growth mindset.” 

What is Self-awareness? 

When we are self-aware, we are able to:

• recognize our emotions, which is the first step for regulating our emotions. Indeed, how can we regulate our anxiety, anger or sadness if we are not able to recognize those emotions in ourselves in the first place?

• identify our triggers, which helps us better plan how to react next time and make more responsible decisions regarding our behavior and our emotions

• empathize with others and take on another person’s perspective, which helps us resolve conflicts and build positive relationships.

When we lack self-awareness, we have a harder time understanding and improving our reactions, thereby undermining our self-management, social awareness, relationships skills, and responsible decision making. 

Recognizing Self-Awareness

I truly recognized self-awareness myself a year ago as I was finishing my first year of graduate school. I had spent some time identifying my strengths and weaknesses but it wasn’t until I spent some time navigating through my emotions and the situations that were behind them that I realized what it meant to be self-aware. Recognizing when and why I was anxious or frustrated helped me feel more confident that I could use healthy coping strategies when reconciling these big emotions. 

Building this skill will look differently for children as they are still developing and learning how to put words to the difficult emotions they may feel at times. Many children, such as the preschoolers I taught, often express big emotions on an impulse and don’t have time to realize why they are upset or angry. The first step as an educator or parent is to establish the importance of acknowledging our emotions, even if it is after they have already occurred. The danger in not acknowledging them is we forget about the reasons why we felt that way making it more difficult to find coping strategies that work best for us and anyone else involved.

Here is Jenn being self-aware:

One of Jenn’s classmates didn’t want to help her with a puzzle and she began to frown and feel warm. She realized she was angry because of how her body was feeling. Rather than getting angry at the classmate she decided to use her coping strategies and take a few deep breaths. She thought about the situation from her classmate’s perspective and realized he was already playing with someone else. Jenn empathized with her classmate and decided to find someone who was playing by themselves.

Without self-awareness, here is what Jenn’s example might have looked like:

When one of Jenn’s classmates didn’t want to help her with a puzzle, she began to frown and feel warm. She pushed her puzzle aside, crossed her arms, and yelled at her classmate for being mean. Jenn continued to pout and blame her classmate for her bad mood.

Here is Joey being self-aware:

Joey was having a hard time with a homework assignment. His mom was getting dinner ready and he didn’t want to interrupt her to ask for help. He realized being frustrated wasn’t going to help him think through the assignment clearly. Joey remembered he had another assignment for a class he was doing well in and was confident he could finish before dinner. After dinner, Joey’s mom could help him with the assignment he had been struggling with.

Without self-awareness, here is what Joey’s example might have looked like:

Joey was having a hard time with a homework assignment. His mom was getting dinner ready but he interrupted her by telling her he needed help with assignment and it couldn’t wait. When Joey’s mom suggested he work on a different assignment until after dinner, he became more frustrated and crumpled up his homework, storming off to his room.

Positive Outcomes of Self-Awareness

There are many positive outcomes to being more self-aware. We feel more grounded, confident, and efficient. These are important for children as they begin strengthening other skills such as establishing positive relationships and making responsible decisions. As with any social emotional skill, the progress we make with self-awareness may not be linear. However, there are some milestones we can track for ourselves and our children to recognize the positive results of being more self-aware.

• Growth mindset:

When we are self-aware we are able to recognize our strengths and weaknesses. This knowledge helps us to set goals for ourselves. We know where we have to room to grow and that’s a good thing! Our strengths help us feel confident in our ability to improve on our weaknesses. If we weren’t self-aware we may fall into the trap of having a fixed mindset in which we are less likely to take opportunities to grow. As parents, we can model this for our children. Parents can do this by learning a new skill themself or talking to their child about something they know about themselves they’d like to improve. Learning a new skill or overcoming a weakness may seem difficult but growth and comfort cannot coexist. Our self-awareness reminds us that we are capable of more than we can imagine which means we may have to step out of our comfort zone. 

• Self-confidence:

I always thought there was a secret trick to becoming more confident. I began noticing when I am more aware of my emotions I am also more confident that I can regulate them in a positive way. With my students, I noticed that when they were self-aware of the knowledge and skills they were learning they were more confident they could do similar or more challenging lessons. For example, after my students had spent some time practicing counting and recognizing numbers they were excited to play a math game using the skills they learned because they were confident in their ability to apply the skill to a new situation.

• Optimism:

Although big emotions can be overwhelming, the ability to recognize them is a positive step toward regulating them. We can help children feel optimistic about taking on these challenges whether it is a conflict that made them feel angry or a homework assignment that was frustrating. When we are self-aware we can also recognize our own thoughts: positive and, yes, the negative ones. Parents can help their children better understand how to turn negative thoughts into positive ones by sharing out loud. For example, a parent might say to their child, “I was feeling upset because it is raining and I thought we might go to the park, but I am excited to build your new puzzle with you.”

Practicing Self-Awareness

There are many activities parents can do with their child or their child can do independently to practice self-awareness. Most may take only a few minutes at the beginning of the day, during the day or end of the day. No matter when you and your child are practicing these activities it is important to remember that each one requires you to be completely present in the moment and focused on the activity.

• Yoga and meditation:

Many guided yoga or meditation exercises help the participants to reflect on their inner selves and feel grounded in the present moment. Developing mindful habits may help guide you to be more aware of your emotions and strengths.

• Journaling and self-reflection:

Journaling, whether it is in writing or drawing, is a great way for your child to express how they feel, their goals, and to reflect on their day. An example of this type of reflection is the Rose and Thorn Reflection in which your child thinks about something positive that happened in your day (your rose) and something that didn’t go well (your thorn). You can then talk to your child about if anything can be done to make their thorny situation better.

• Identify values:

Parents can help their child identify what is important to them by sharing their own values. These discussions can help children understand why they feel more strongly about certain things because it is something that is important to them.

• Acknowledge your feelings:

When we are self-aware it is important to be honest with ourselves. This means acknowledging our big emotions even when they are difficult. Parents can help their children acknowledge their feelings by talking about it with them even if it is after it happened. For example, a parent might say, “I noticed you were upset earlier because you didn’t want to talk to anyone and pushed your sister’s blocks down. Would you like to talk about why you felt that way?” These conversations will help your child recognize their emotions and the behavior they showed while feeling a particular emotion. They will also help your child enrich their vocabulary so they can accurately describe the intensity of their emotion: are they feeling irritable, upset or infuriated?

• Notice your bodily sensations:

Listening to our bodies and what they tell us about how they feel is a tangible practice for helping children develop self-awareness. Our bodies are a compass for how we feel, for example, when I child says “my tummy hurts” it could mean “I’m feeling anxious” or “I’m scared.” As parents, we can help our children recognize how our body is reacting based on our emotions. A parent might ask a child who is angry if they are feeling hot or if their heart is beating fast. These are called physiological reactions which are different from our behavioral reactions to emotions.

• Know your triggers:

When we are feeling angry or anxious it’s not always easy to know what caused it. Even as adults we might find ourselves responding to the question “What’s wrong?” with “I don’t know.” Some of our triggers might be more obvious than others. For example, you can help your child recognize that they feel frustrated whenever their sibling takes a toy from them. For the triggers that aren’t as obvious, you can help your child by asking questions such as, “When did you start feeling like this?” and “How long did it last for?” As our children develop their self-awareness and independence they can start asking themselves these questions to help them identify the trigger behind their emotions. They’ll discover it could be a reaction to something someone said to them or an anticipation for a stressful moment such as the first day of school.

• Tune in to your needs:

As human beings, we all share universal needs as described by Maslow’s hierarchy of needs: basic needs (food, sleep), security, belongingness and love, esteem, and self-fulfillment. When kids have big emotions, it’s helpful to teach them how to identify which of their needs are met or unmet: for example, a child might feel anxious because their need for sleep and safety is unmet, or sad because their need for love and belongingness is unmet. Identifying their unmet needs will help them brainstorm solutions.

When we are self-aware we have a good sense of who we are. This includes recognizing and acknowledging our emotions even when it is difficult. This is important for noticing how our behavior is corresponding to our emotions. Helping children to recognize and practice self-awareness will improve their confidence, growth mindset, and optimism. Awareness of who we are and how we feel is an essential first step for social emotional learning and will give children the tools they need to understand self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making.

A prior version of this article was originally published on July 30, 2020.