Healthy mental, emotional, and behavioral development is important for young people to lead meaningful, productive, and engaged lives. In childhood, social and emotional skills support success in school and improve wellbeing. In adulthood, these skills will facilitate improved work performance and higher pay as well as wellbeing. As children develop, so do their social and emotional skills. Social and emotional skills can be taught and practiced in everyday real life situations. Social and emotional development is a lifelong process. It starts at birth and continues throughout adulthood.  

Social and emotional skills are often learned through modeling, as children watch their parents or those in a parenting role practice and model self-awareness and self-management skills or express empathy. This podcast, as part of ParentingMontana.org, walks parents through how they can build these skills in their children. The Montana Department of Health and Human Services partnered with the Center for Health and Safety Culture at Montana State University to create tools and resources to support parents as they seek to develop their children’s social and emotional skills and build meaningful parent/child relationships.

Listen now to learn how social and emotional development is the process of learning skills to understand and manage how people act, how they relate to others, and how they make responsible choices. These skills include being able to understand and control emotions, understand and care about others, and make good decisions. Learn how these skills can lead to improved health and wellbeing outcomes for your child that span the lifespan.