Let’s Talk About Mental Strength: Building our SEL Muscles in the New Year
By Bonnie (Beth) Taylor, M.Ed.
The new year is still fresh. Many of us entered 2024 with a desire to release the mistakes of 2023, forgive transgressions and move forward with the promise of a new day – a new chance to grow and improve. To do better. To be better. To be stronger.
Here we are in February of 2024 and the days are getting a bit longer; days full of opportunities to work on those plans and goals of January. How are you doing with that?
This year, I want to share some thoughts about how embedding specific SEL strategies into your days can help you reach your goals. Maybe even find new ones. Something that I have been drawn to in recent years is discussing the concept of mental strength (or mental toughness) when focusing on social emotional well-being. I started thinking about athletes: their training and preparation for big events and competitions. How do they prepare their bodies and minds to manage the adrenaline, maintain the required stamina, intensified focus and physicality? I found research to support these thoughts and now I find myself speaking of developing a personalized mental strength program when working with colleagues, families and students.
Mental strength, the bedrock of resilience and fortitude, transcends the confines of mental health. While mental health denotes a state of well-being, mental strength embodies the power to navigate challenges, overcome adversity, and thrive despite obstacles. It is the internal force that propels individuals forward, fostering adaptability and unwavering determination in the face of trials. Mental strength allows you to walk confidently into your life – knowing that you possess the skills and abilities for success - instead of pre-supposing failure or disaster. Developing mental strength is about your self-awareness and ability to build towards something outside of yourself. If it sounds as if developing mental strength is a better use of our time as it is more of a preventative action, you may be on to something with me. In short, I truly believe developing mental strength through targeted SEL lessons will lead to better mental health for educators and students.
Strong self-care routines are a mainstay for developing mental strength and are priority for our educators, now more than ever. With self-care at the forefront, we are more readily available mentally and emotionally for our students, families and colleagues. We can be more present for ourselves. Self-care is highly personal and must be intentionally planned, as well. The benefits of breathing exercises, yoga and meditation are well documented and can be a cornerstone to a self-care plan.
In the realm of education, nurturing mental strength is becoming paramount. It will equip students with the tools necessary to conquer academic hurdles, cope with stress, and cultivate a growth mindset, which leads to resiliency. Mental strength, or mental toughness, represents the robustness of one’s mind, encompassing resilience, perseverance, and the ability to bounce back from setbacks. Isn’t this strength what we are looking for in our gifted learners and ourselves?
We – as gifted educators – are in unique positions to coach our students through strategic affective instruction. In our gifted classrooms, we see many students face perfectionism, anxiety, imposter syndrome, the list can go on. These can deter the greatest of minds, causing years of underachievement and frustration. What if we, as gifted educators, helped them to follow a mental strengthening regiment focused on self-care? What if we targeted strengthening the brain muscle with the same drive that we use when training for a marathon? Or preparing for an assessment? What if we talked with our gifted learners about their mental strength before they faced life changing decisions? What if we had a mental strength routine in our gifted classrooms – working on specific self-care and social-emotional skills each day or week, making connections to assist with greater resiliency when faced with adversity? Let’s imagine the benefits of a mental strength program in our gifted classrooms by instilling a sense of purpose and fostering a supportive environment that focuses on the preparation. Instead of, “Today, we have to set academic goals for the next 9 weeks”, let’s try, “Wow! We get to set our own goals for where we want to go with our learning! What is important to you?” Instead of “Here’s the rubric for your project and presentation that is due next Friday”, let’s try, “What is the most important part of your presentation that you want me to understand? How will I know it is important to you?” Let’s try tapping into their ability to care for themselves and their effort to help them find a greater purpose. How might we use our responses to our students to help them grow stronger?
A few SEL resources I regularly use with gifted learners to do just this include:
- Jacob’s Ladder Reading Comprehension-Affective Lessons – These resources are a great starting place and can be found for all grade levels. These lessons offer poetry, short stories, and biographies as a few of the avenues to engage in rich discussions with gifted learners.
- Overcomingobstacles.org – All SEL lessons are free; however, you can set up an account and have greater access. I especially appreciate that the lessons are tiered for primary, intermediate, middle and high school age students and many are available in a variety of languages. There are also cross-curricular extensions available. I usually strengthen these by adding in specific Thinking Routines or Depth and Complexity questions that align with the lesson objective.
- Project Zero Thinking Routines – Many of these are routines are used within the gifted classroom for content lessons. Consider utilizing the routines specific to “Considering Controversies, Dilemmas, and Perspectives” and “Perspective Taking” to embed SEL components into designed lessons.
- Mindfulness Moments Cards – These beautifully illustrated cards provide all you need to build students’ ability to quiet their mind, focus on their breathing and strengthen their capacity for increased mental strength.
As we continue to move through the year, we do indeed have opportunities to develop and increase our mental strength, as well as that of our gifted learners. With the current need for increased attention on the social and emotional needs of our students, developing a purposeful plan to build mental strength through targeted affective instruction – similar to that of a gym workout plan – has the potential to create a direct, positive impact that is desperately needed. We will surely continue to have disappointments and failures that will test us. But we will also have successes. How are we preparing? It is in the preparation that we find the success. Set the course. Make the plan.
Our gifted learners will experience all of this and more, as well. We must coach them through their challenges by first strengthening their ability to prioritize their self-care, utilize their strengths, set achievable goals, persevere and learn from their experiences. Fostering mental strength in education is an investment in the holistic development of individuals, empowering our gifted learners not only to excel academically but also to navigate the complexities of life with courage, resilience, and an unyielding spirit. As gifted educators, nurturing these traits in our students will ensure that they find success – academically, socially and emotionally – on their terms, charting a new path in to this still new year.
Researched article:
Lin Y, Mutz J, Clough PJ, Papageorgiou KA. Mental Toughness and Individual Differences in Learning, Educational and Work Performance, Psychological Well-being, and Personality: A Systematic Review. Front Psychol. 2017 Aug 11;8:1345. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2017.01345. PMID: 28848466; PMCID: PMC5554528.
Bonnie Taylor is the chair of the Social & Emotional Development Network. Learn more about all NAGC networks and special interest groups.
