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Abstract

Social and emotional skills are crucial to be promoted at a young age. These soft skills lay the foundation for building resilience, which is a protective factor for healthy child development. This research investigates preschool teachers' understanding of the terms "social emotional skills" and "resilience" and practices implemented at ECEC facilities in order to nurture resilience for children aged four to six years. Using snowball sampling, eleven preschool teachers in Thailand were selected for an online in-depth interview with semi-structured questions. Verbatim transcription followed by the content analysis method was used to create the answer to the research questions. The answers reveal that Thai preschool teachers value social and emotional skills as well as resilience as important skills for children to be happy and successful people. Two out of eleven preschool teachers had never heard of the term "resilience", but all of them were familiar with "social and emotional skills", which are related to emotional and social development and are written in the Thai national early childhood curriculum B.E. 2560 which is the second revised version. Practices to promote social and emotional skills and resilience comprise 3 aspects: 1) the physical environment, such as a cozy and homelike environment, and a large playroom; 2) activities, includes aesthetics activities; mindfulness practice; 7 habits; executive functions; emotional related stories; free play; music and movement; cooking; emotional check-in and check-out with emotional cards; emotions diary; Thai traditional games and board games; self-assessment worksheet; and 3) teacher guidance, includes being a role model; using positive discipline; setting up classroom rules; assigning appropriate tasks; teaching how to identify emotions; assigning individual, pair, or group work; and using the buddy strategy.

Keywords: preschool teacher, perspectives, resilience, young children