SEL: Valentine's Day and Self-Compassion

By Erin Peace, LCSW, RPT: ACE Academy School Counselor

As Valentine's Day approaches, I like to talk to kiddos about self-compassion and loving ourselves, versus focusing solely on external validation for love and acceptance. Many of our students have difficulty practicing the art of self-compassion, and explicit focus on this during Valentine's week can be helpful timing. 

HERE is a self-compassion exercise you can try. 

At its core, self-compassion involves 3 components: 

1) mindfulness: being aware of the thoughts and emotions arising without judgement

2) self-kindness: extending the same kindness to yourself that you would to a friend

3) common humanity: recognizing that to be human is to make mistakes and learn from the mistakes


In order to help students feel proud of their strengths, and also practice accepting their weaknesses, you can have students write kindness letters to themselves, or decorate portraits identifying their self-compassionate parts and self-critical parts. 

Here is a cute photos of the 1st/2nd graders decorating their self-compassion gingerbread people today. This was after we wrote down their self-critical thoughts on toilet paper to be flushed down the toilet! They obviously loved that part.