RULER Overview

The Approach

RULER is an approach to social emotional learning (SEL) that teaches emotional intelligence to people of all ages, with the goal of creating a healthier, more equitable, innovative, and compassionate society.

RULER Skills

RULER is an acronym of the five key skills of emotional intelligence. Read about each skill below!

Recognizing

Recognizing emotions in ourselves and others allows us to:

• Better understand others
• Have positive social interactions
• Work well in groups
• Know when children need emotional support

Understanding

Knowing the cause of our own feelings and that an event may cause different emotional reactions in each person allows us to:

• Anticipate, manage, or prevent unwanted feelings in ourselves and others
• Promote wanted feelings in ourselves and others
• Support children’s emotional needs

Labeling

Knowing feeling words allows us to:

• Communicate our feelings
• Appropriately manage our feelings
• Help children learn new vocabulary to express their feelings

Expressing

Learning how to display our feelings helps us to:

• Appropriately act in social situations
• Properly model social behavior for children

Regulate

Developing strategies to manage feelings allows us to:

• Be more effective in reaching our goals
• Feel more, less, or the same of an emotion
• Make wise choices about how we respond to emotional situations