THEMES:
(click to read the lesson description or just scroll)
Attitude || Authenticity || Caring Connections || Compassion || Effortless Action || Gratitude || Honesty || Hope || Kindness || Leadership || Mindfulness || Online Learning || Optimism || Peace || Positivity || Propinquity || Smarter || Thoughtfulness
During the pandemic, I created and taught social and emotional learning lessons online, working with children from all around the world. I’m offering these private, 25-minute, one-on-one lessons on Zoom to youth between the ages of 8–18 at times that fit my schedule (if people of others ages are interested, let me know).
I’m offering these lessons at no charge as an experiment in the gift economy. If you choose to give back, let it be in a way that feels generous, meaningful, and true to your experience. There is no obligation, only the hope that the exchange feels good and complete for both of us. If you’d like a suggestion from me, click here.
The video below provides a glimpse into the “Thoughtful Action” lesson. It’s important to note that this is me explaining the concepts. The true value of these lessons comes from the dynamic, personalized interaction I facilitate with each student. This back-and-forth exchange is what makes the learning experience so effective.
To view my availability or to book lesson, use this link (also found in each lesson description).
Authenticity: Uncovering the Real You
Acclaimed educator Sir Ken Robinson said that to be “in your element” is to be involved in something you are both good at and are naturally interested in. Reduced to a formula, it’s this: Talent + Interest = Passion
Unfortunately for most of us, as we grow we lose touch with our talents and interests, focused as we are on what our culture defines as success. Another result of this is we lose touch with our true selves, our authenticity.
This session explores four strategies to help a person lead a more authentic life:
- Tell the truth: Speak honestly and openly.
- Stay in truth: Live in alignment with your values.
- Trust your body: Listen to your intuition and physical sensations.
- Accept yourself: Embrace who you are, flaws and all.
Each strategy will be reviewed for understanding based on the developmental level of the student.
Tapped into their own authenticity, human beings naturally feel connected to others and contribute positively to things bigger than just themselves.
Bringing Attention to Positive Events
It’s natural for us to notice potential problems – it’s how we learn to navigate challenges. But it’s just as important, and deeply human, to share when things go well. Supporting others in their happiness not only makes them feel good, it makes us feel good too. Talking about positive events together creates shared joyful experiences that benefit everyone involved.
In this session, the student will learn how to spot the positive things in their own life and confidently tell others about them. I’ll also coach them on how to respond to positive stories shared by friends and family, making those moments even brighter for everyone.
Want to spread more positivity and build stronger connections? This session is a great place to start!
Caring Connections: 7 Simple Ways to Show You Care
Small acts of thoughtful engagement can have a big impact on your relationships and on your own well-being. Studies show that helping others can reduce stress, increase happiness, and may even help you live longer. Supporting the people you love not only shows them you care but also makes you feel good, creating shared joyful experiences that benefit everyone.
This session explores seven simple and meaningful ideas to show people you care, strengthening your connections and giving both you and your loved ones a dose of good health.
We will explore these seven powerful actions:
- Respond to “bids” for attention: Learn to recognize and respond to small, everyday conversation starters that build emotional connection.
- Practice mindfulness: Give your undivided attention by limiting distractions and focusing on being present with loved ones, making them feel valued.
- Lend a hand: Offer practical help to someone who might be struggling, whether it’s running an errand or dropping off a meal.
- Express gratitude: Share a kind word or write a thank-you note to make people feel appreciated and remind you both of the positive parts of your lives.
- Celebrate success: Be a personal cheerleading squad for your loved ones when they accomplish a goal, empowering them with your support.
- Spend time together: Make people feel closer and more connected by sharing moments, whether it’s meeting for coffee or just chatting on the phone.
- Just be there: Show compassion by listening to someone vent, being a shoulder to cry on, or simply holding their hand during a tough time.
I’ll share examples for each idea, and the student will be encouraged to share their own experiences. By the end of our session, the student will have a better understanding of how their everyday actions can strengthen relationships and make the people in their life feel truly cared for.
Effortless Action
Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher and reputed author of the Tao Te Ching, did not offer lectures on ambition or success, but a way to live that cuts through life’s noise. His wisdom, simple yet profound, centers on one core truth: flow with life. Many people suffer because they fight life, forcing outcomes, clinging, or resisting the natural order of things. Lao Tzu taught that by letting go and trusting life’s current, we can achieve peace and true strength.
In this session, the student will be introduced to the timeless wisdom of Taoism to transform struggle into peace by adopting effortless action (wu wei). The goal is to move with life, not against it. Understanding that to fully cover everything will take longer than a single session, the student will explore the core principles necessary to live deliberately and find freedom.
The five foundational steps of living the Way (Tao) are:
- Live Simply: We will discuss how complexity clouds the mind, while simplicity clears it. We will explore the idea that meaning comes from awareness, not the accumulation of “more” (status, wealth, stimulation). The student will be introduced to the three great treasures: simplicity, patience, and compassion.
- Yield and Be Flexible: We will explore Lao Tzu’s teaching that the soft is stronger than the hard. Just as water is fluid and yielding yet can wear away rigid rock, flexibility allows us to endure change, loss, and struggle without breaking. Softness is not weakness; it is wisdom and brings real strength in relationships and work.
- Know Yourself: The modern world encourages comparison, but Lao Tzu directs us inward. We will learn that “knowing yourself is true wisdom,” and “mastering yourself is true power.” This self-mastery involves understanding and controlling one’s impulses, ego, and fears, creating a stable foundation that resists being “pushed around by the world.”
- Trust Life’s Flow (The Tao): We will recognize that life operates with a flow (the Tao) deeper than human plans. Fighting this natural order leads to frustration, while trusting it brings peace. The Tao is presented as an eternal void, “filled with infinite possibilities,” reminding us that we must start where we are and “let life reveal the next step.”
- Let Go: This is the heart of the teaching. Clinging creates suffering, and the tighter the grip, the more things slip away. We will practice recognizing attachments, fixed identities, and fears, understanding that letting go is not giving up, but allowing life to unfold, which makes one “more free, more adaptable, more alive.”
By learning these principles, the student can see things as they are, without trying to control them, and reside “at the center of the circle”. This practical wisdom allows the student to apply the concept of flowing with life today, in this moment.
Gentle Mindfulness
Mindfulness helps us in so many ways. People who practice mindfulness often build confidence, handle stress better, respond more calmly to tough situations, and develop positive friendships. It also boosts important skills like planning, reasoning, and problem-solving (what we call “executive function”).
I’ll be introducing the student to mindfulness and show them how to use it in their daily life. I’ll keep it simple, focusing on mindfulness as: Paying attention to what’s happening right now.
In this session, the student will learn what this means. We’ll do a short, calming breathing exercise to help them feel centered. Then, I’ll guide them to notice their senses in the present moment, picking at least two to explore:
- What do you see? How does it make you feel right now?
- What do you hear? How does it make you feel right now?
By learning gentle mindfulness skills, people can improve their overall well-being and approach life’s challenges with more presence, self-compassion, and openness.
High Hope People: Seeing a Brighter Future
What exactly is hope? In this session, we’ll define it as the feeling that we can positively impact our own future. It’s all about agency — knowing we can make a difference — and having a growth mindset, believing we can learn and improve.
Social scientists have actually identified seven key “decisions” that help people become more hopeful, making them “High Hope People.” In this session, the student will learn what these decisions are, why they’re called “decisions,” and how to put them into action in their own life.
Here are the seven decisions we’ll explore:
- Seeing possibilities instead of getting stuck on things being fixed.
- Noticing beauty and benefits instead of dwelling on the negative.
- Cultivating positive feelings instead of falling into negative habits.
- Focusing on strengths instead of always seeing weaknesses.
- Creating challenging goals instead of feeling unmotivated.
- Finding purpose instead of feeling a lack of meaning.
- Cherishing relationships instead of becoming isolated.
People who look forward with hope are better equipped to overcome challenges and are more likely to achieve their goals. This session is a way to learn how to enter and stay in a hopeful mindset.
Honesty and Truthfulness: More Than Just Not Lying
Most of us, especially children, think being honest simply means not telling a lie. But it’s actually a bit more complex! That simple definition can let someone “be honest” by staying silent or leaving out important details to make themselves look good. True honesty also involves how we act, not just what we say. It means not confusing or tricking others with our behavior.
In this session, the student will learn about three key ways people need to be honest:
- Telling the truth based on facts: This is the straightforward part – not lying about what actually happened.
- Telling the whole truth: It means not leaving out important parts to hide something they know is wrong (these are often called “lies of omission”).
- Acting truthfully: This is about behaving in a way that doesn’t hide the truth or trick others.
I’ll share stories to illustrate what honesty looks like and the student will be encouraged to share their own experiences. We’ll also explore how honesty connects to other important traits like integrity and trustworthiness.
Improve Your Attitude!
It’s easy to think that our circumstances dictate our attitude — and this is especially true for children, who often feel like they have little say in what happens to them. In this session, I’ll help the student discover that they actually have more control over their attitude than they might imagine. It all comes down to how we direct our thoughts.
I’ll tell the story of “Doug, the Dishwasher Guy” who was told by his parents that he needed to clear the dinner dishes, rinse them, and put them in the dishwasher. Initially, Doug thought this job was disgusting. But with some help from me, he became a superhero who was making the planet cleaner ONE DISH AT A TIME!! Doing the dishes became fun!
Having learned about how Doug took control of his attitude, I’ll invite the student to apply the lesson to their life.
Learning to direct one’s thoughts is truly an incredible superpower. It gives us a sense of agency and independence, helps us be more friendly, and makes us someone others look up to!
Introduction to Leadership: Building Character From Within
True leadership starts with building strong character. When a person develops good character, others naturally look up to them. And when people look up to them, they become a leader.
In this introductory session on leadership, the student will learn what it truly means to have good character. I’ll kick things off by discussing people they admire and connecting that admiration to specific character traits. From there, I’ll shift our focus to times the student has already shown leadership skills. I’ll highlight important qualities like self-discipline, dependability, reliability, and integrity, and explore how trust is built.
To wrap things up, we’ll discuss the key difference between being a genuine leader and simply having power.
The Power of Gratitude
Did you know that gratitude is a powerful way to boost well-being? According to leading expert Robert Emmons, truly feeling grateful involves recognizing two things:
- There are good things in the world.
- These good things often come from outside of ourselves.
In this session, the student will learn why expressing gratitude is so important and how it strengthens their connections with others. We’ll dive into a fun activity called “Gratitude = Positive Attitude.” This activity helps people easily identify things they’re grateful for and practice expressing that appreciation.
Here are some examples of what we might explore:
- What’s a food you’re grateful for?
- Name a friend you appreciate and say why.
- What’s a smell that makes you happy?
Human beings naturally want to help each other and expressing gratitude is one of the best ways to do it. Expanding our ability to notice things that we might not realize we’re grateful for helps us understand the importance of gratitude.
The Practice of Kindness
For over 30 years, I’ve had the privilege of helping people worldwide understand and contribute kindness to their communities. Here’s how I define kindness: Doing something helpful without expectation of an award.
In this session, the student will get to strengthen their “kindness awareness muscle.” Together, we’ll share acts of kindness we’ve seen, and we’ll explore ways we can contribute to kind and positive actions.
Recognizing and participating in everyday acts of kindness feels great and helps us connect to others! The more kindness we see and complete, the stronger our immune systems become and the more optimism we feel for the future.
The Propinquity Effect: Building Stronger Friendships
Propinquity is a fancy way to describe how close you are to someone else, either physically or emotionally. Behavioral psychologists, people who study human behavior, coined the concept of “The Propinquity Effect,” which consists of three components:
- The closer you are to someone, the more likely you are to like them.
- The more you see someone, the more likely you are to feel positive about them.
- The more similarities you share with someone, the quicker and more you will like them.
It’s also been shown that a disrespectful, selfish, or mean person invalidates the propinquity effect. In other words, people will go to great lengths to avoid an unfriendly person.
Becoming aware of the propinquity effect allows us to make use of it in our lives. How do we help ourselves be nearer and spend more time with the people we like? How do we cultivate our own friendliness so others want to be nearer and spend more time with us? It’s useful to understand that this can be done both in person and online.
Propinquity can be developed by spending more time with people. The more you see them, the more you like them and they like you. The more you listen to them, the more you learn, the more you are likely to want to spend more time with them and them with you.
Putting Peace First: Learning How to Make a Difference
This session helps people realize they can make a positive impact on the world right now through their everyday actions. Using the book “Putting Peace First: 7 Commitments to Change the World” by Eric David Dawson, I’ll guide the student to gently explore what it means to commit to these seven powerful actions:
- Put Peace First, Every Day
- Raise My Hand
- Open My Heart
- Take a Stand
- Bring Others Along
- Work With My Enemies
- Keep Trying
A key goal of this session is to help the student understand they don’t have to wait until they’re grown up to make a positive change. How they carry themselves daily, even in their smallest thoughts and actions, truly makes a difference. Developing this awareness at an earlier age means they’ll spend more of their lives engaging in peaceful actions. They’ll get better and better at it as they grow, becoming admired examples of peace for others to look up to.
The Seven Habits of Optimistic People
Did you know that optimism can be contagious? Author David Mezzapelle, who founded the “Contagious Optimism” movement, believes we all have the power to spread it just by sharing our life’s journey. He’s identified seven common traits that optimists share, and these are habits we can all learn!
This session is designed to help people reclaim their natural optimism by exploring these seven positive habits:
- They Express Gratitude: Learning to appreciate the good things.
- They Donate Their Time and Energy: Helping others brings joy.
- They’re Interested in Others: Connecting with people in a positive way.
- They Surround Themselves With Upbeat People: Choosing positive company.
- They Don’t Listen to Naysayers: Focusing on what’s possible, not what’s impossible.
- They Forgive Others: Letting go of grudges helps everyone.
- They Smile: Simple acts can boost mood.
Each strategy will be reviewed for understanding based on the developmental level of the student.
Simple Skills for Online Learning
Ever wonder what a person can do to make their online classes truly great? The truth is, our actions can actually improve the quality of the teaching we receive!
In this session, the student will discover how their behavior helps make an online class consistently engaging, interesting, and fun. Specifically, they’ll learn the importance of:
- Engaging with their faces: How their expressions can communicate interest.
- Understanding body language: The impact of both intentional and unintentional cues.
- Optimal computer placement and lighting: Setting up for success.
- Showing they’re paying attention: Simple ways to demonstrate focus.
I’ll tap into the student’s own experiences, encouraging them to share stories about what has worked well in online settings and what hasn’t. The session will be a mix of lighthearted fun and serious learning, designed to make the student feel respected and capable.
These are classic social and emotional learning skills that are valuable not just online, but in person too!
These Five Things Will Make You Smarter
This session is designed to help the student feel empowered, showing them they have more control over their learning and growth than they might realize. The student will explore five simple habits that, when practiced regularly, can help keep their focus sharp and their brains well-tuned.
We’ll start by talking a bit about what “being smart” really means. While some aspects of intelligence, like IQ, are largely genetic, there are many things within our control that can help us make the most of our unique abilities.
Then, we’ll dive into the five practical things a person can do, and we’ll discuss together how the student can apply these to their daily life:
- Get Enough Sleep: Rest is crucial for a sharp mind.
- Exercise: Physical activity boosts brain power.
- Stay Calm: Managing stress helps clear thinking.
- Focus: Learning to concentrate improves learning.
- Ask For Help: Knowing when and how to seek support is smart.
As we grow up, we are tuning our brains all the time. The question is whether we are tuning them well or poorly. A well-tuned brain is better at absorbing new information and solving new problems. These five things, developed as habits, are proven ways to help us have a well-tuned brain.
The Three Steps to Thoughtful Action
The purpose of this session is to help the student understand how to increase their ability to be a thoughtful person. Based on my belief that opportunities to be thoughtful are regularly being presented to us, this activity helps the student tune in to these opportunities. Doing so involves three steps:
- AWARENESS – Noticing what is happening inside and outside of myself.
- CONSIDERATION – Can I do something about a situation I’ve noticed? Do I want to do something about it? Do I have the resources, the time, the energy?
- ACTION – If I decide to move forward, I complete the thoughtful action.
I’ll share examples of thoughtful actions and brainstorm ways the student can put these steps into practice in their own life.
Understanding and Applying Compassion
This session is designed to introduce the student to the concept of compassion and help them see how to use it in their everyday lives. For our purposes, I’ll define an act of compassion as: Doing something that helps someone feel better.
So, to truly be compassionate, the first step is to recognize when someone or something else is hurting.
To begin, I’ll invite the student to share appropriate stories of common experiences with discomfort or suffering, even something as simple as a skinned knee. We’ll explore questions like:
- How did you get hurt?
- How did it make you feel?
- Who helped you?
- What did they do?
- How did their help make you feel?
From there, I’ll invite the student to share stories about times they’ve helped ease someone else’s discomfort. They’ll discover that humans are naturally good at both giving and receiving compassion, and that showing compassion actually makes them feel good too!
Like how a single-lit candle can light others without losing its own flame, being compassionate creates more compassion in the world without taking anything away.
Andy Smallman, LLC
Andy Smallman 