Supporting K-12 Students to Learn Social-Emotional and Self-Management Skills for Their Sustainable Growth with the Solution-Focused Kids’Skills Method

Shuanghong Jenny Niu, Hannele Niemi and Ben Furman
Additional contact information
Shuanghong Jenny Niu: Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Hannele Niemi: Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Helsinki, 00100 Helsinki, Finland
Ben Furman: Helsinki Brief Therapy Institute, 00300 Helsinki, Finland

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 13, 1-16

Abstract: There is an increasing need in schools and/or at home, as well as in society at large, to find ways to help students develop social-emotional and self-management skills, particularly in cases when they exhibit emotional or behavioral problems. This study aims at exploring how Kids’Skills (KS), a method based on solution-focused psychology, can be used to help students overcome emotional or behavioral problems through learning relevant skills. We collected 23 case descriptions during a two-year period (2017 to 2019) from KS practitioners who had used the method in their workplace, at school, at a kindergarten, or at home. We used content analysis for the qualitative data analysis. The analysis results demonstrate how the KS method can be used to support students in learning social-emotional and self-management skills to overcome their difficulties. This study found four key components of the KS method that appear to be critical for producing desired changes in children. These are (1) helping students to identify specific social-emotional and/or self-management skills that they need to learn to overcome their difficulties; (2) supporting students in learning their identified skills by helping them understand what the skill entails and become aware of their strengths and resources; (3) assisting students in acquiring their identified skills; and (4) reinforcing the learned skills to ensure sustainable effects. We conclude that the KS method offers support for students in learning self-management and social-emotional skills to ensure their sustainable growth.

Keywords: sustainable growth; social-emotional skills; self-management skills; solution-focused; Kids’Skills method (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/7947/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/13/7947/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:14:y:2022:i:13:p:7947-:d:851653

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().