Middle School
6th Grade - 8th Grade
Table of Contents
Guided Imagery Meditations
What are Guided Imagery Meditations? Guided imagery is a natural mind-body technique that combines music, imagery and simple relaxation techniques to ease stress and anxiety, enhance your well-being, and connect you to your feelings and emotions — all of which can promote the healing process.
The Paradise Beach
Spaceship to the Moon
The Wishing Well
Coping Skills
What are Coping Skills? The methods a person uses to deal with stressful situations. These may help a person face a situation, take action, and be flexible and persistent in solving problems.
EMOTION-FOCUSED COPING SKILLS
Exercise
Write in a journal
Listen to music
Clean the house (or a closet, drawer, or area)
Meditate
Engage in a hobby you enjoy
Practice breathing exercises
List the things you feel grateful for
Reframe the way you are thinking about the problem
Use progressive muscle relaxation
Picture your "happy place"
Give yourself a pep talk
Squeeze a stressball
Take care of your body in a way that makes you feel good (paint your nails, do your hair, put on a face mask)
TWO TYPES OF COPING
Coping skills can be emotion-focused or problem focused.
Emotion-focused coping is helpful when you need to manage your feelings in situations outside your control.
Problem-focused coping is helpful when you need to change your situation to feel better.
PROBLEM-FOCUSED COPING SKILLS
Walk away (leave the situation that is causing you stress)
Ask for support from a friend or a trusted adult
Use SODAS or a similar problem-solving technique
Focus on what you can control and let go of the things you cannot
Communicate clearly and assertively with others about what you would like to change
Create a checklist of steps you can take to resolve the problem
COPING SKILL: USE A CALMING JAR
This is an activity that can be done with one child in a one on one setting, in a small group, or even in a large class setting. Kids shake up their jars and watch the glitter settle to the ground. As the glitter settles, encourage them to settle their mind too. Learn more about the different ways to make calming jars here.
COPING SKILLS: The A to Z of coping strategies
The Hampshire CAMHS ‘A to Z of coping strategies’ includes 26 ideas, strategies and techniques to help a young person to cope better if they are experiencing stresses and pressures which are making them feel in crisis or at risk of self-harming.
This project was completed in collaboration with the Police and Crime Commissioner’s Youth Commission and Hampshire Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services (CAMHS).
Self-Care Activities
Grounding Techniques
What are Grounding Techniques? Grounding techniques are coping strategies to help reconnect you with the present and bring you out of a panic attack, PTSD flashback, unwanted memory, distressing emotion, or dissociation. They help separate you from the distress of your emotional state or situation.
Art
What is Sketchpad 5.1? It is a free website to draw, paint, and create! Share your project with friends or family. Print it out and frame it to give as a present. Be creative.
Recommended Podcasts
The Happiness Lab by Dr. Laurie Santos/Pushkin Industries | PLAY PODCAST
You might think more money, a better job, or Instagram-worthy vacations would make you happy. You’re dead wrong. In "The Happiness Lab" podcast, Yale professor Dr Laurie Santos will take you through the latest scientific research and share some surprising and inspiring stories that will forever alter the way you think about happiness. She's changed the lives of thousands of people through her class "Psychology and the Good Life," and she'll change yours, too.
Are you ready to feel better? Click the picture to start listening. The Happiness Lab is also available on any mobile podcast app.
The Punies Created by Kobe Bryant / Granity Studios | PLAY PODCAST
Introducing The Punies, an eclectic group of neighborhood friends who play sports and take on adventures together. Created by NBA Champion Kobe Bryant and featuring original songs and an unforgettable cast of characters known as The Good Ol’ Gang, each episode shares important life lessons on how to play with joy and limitless imagination, the way sports should be played.
Checking In with Susan David on TED Talks | PLAY PODCAST
Fear, boredom, grief, confusion—we're all feeling ... a lot right now. How do we cope with our heightened emotions during this global pandemic? Susan David—a psychologist at Harvard Medical School—is here to offer us strategies. This show is an urgent response to an urgent moment—a support system, toolkit, and understanding voice during a time of great uncertainty.
Tourette's Podcast by Geeks Rising | PLAY PODCAST
Authentic conversations about Tourette Syndrome, produced by an insider who isn't interested in the ol' one-dimensional take on what it's like to have TS. On each episode, host Ben Brown talks with a fellow Touretter about his or her history, tics, social interactions and daily management of Tourette's -- whether by masking it, owning it, medicating it, or something altogether different. It's engaging, funny, heavy, real. Get ready to meet people who blow away the standard portrayal.
Mindfulness & Relaxation Techniques
Mindset
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
Progressive muscle relaxation (PMR) is a method of systematically tensing and relaxing muscle groups throughout the body. There are different ways to do it too so you can pick the method that works best for you and your children!
PMR Sample Script:
Close your eyes. Relax your entire body. Imagine that your muscles are limp.
Flex the muscles in your feet while you keep the rest of your body relaxed. Hold for 5 seconds and do not release.
Continue to flex other muscles groups one at a time. Remember to keep parts of your body relaxed until it is time to flex them. Here we go…calves…thighs… stomach…chest…arms…hands…face…until your entire body is tense.
Hold your entire body tense for 5 seconds then release all the tension.
Relax, breathe slowly and deeply, and imagine your body melting.
Get up slowly when ready and shake out your hands, arms, and legs.
Sit back down.
Additional Resources for Students
Walk in Our Shoes utilizes real stories from teens and young adults to teach youth about mental health challenges and mental wellness. It reduces stigma associated with mental illnesses by debunking myths and educating 9-13 year olds about mental wellness.