Emotion vs solution-focused coping strategies

Coping strategies come in 2 forms. 

When you can change the situation, you can encourage the students to find ways to take concrete steps. 

• • Read about Problem-focused coping 

When you can't change the situation, you can encourage students to find ways to regulate their emotions.

• • Read about Emotion-focused coping 

(Turn to page 5 of this ppt for a flowchart showing this)

Coping statements

Here is a great list of affirmations and coping statements you can use to lift a student feeling blue. Some select examples:

• I / you should accept myself as I am / you are
• I am / you are good enough
• I am / you are valuable because I am / you are human, alive, and unique 
• This isn't the worst thing that could happen 

Coping skills

• A list of 101 fun coping skills to suggest to a stressed student.

  • The second page helps the student develop personalised coping skills for specific emotions.

More Coping Skills 

• Rabbit hole of coping skills. 

• Really useful worksheet with clear descriptions. 

Self-Care 

• Assessment to check if your students are engaging in adequate self-care. 

• Physical self-care
• Psychological self-care
• Social self-care 
• Spiritual self-care

Protective Factors

Protective factors are things that contribute to mental health and allow a person to be resilient. 

• As with the self-care factors, here is a worksheet that can help you identify how a student is doing with their protective factors. 

• Social support
• Coping skills
• Physical health
• Sense of purpose
• Self-esteem
• Healthy thinking

Happiness Exercise

What builds happiness? Here is a simple list of practices proven through research. 

Resilience deep dive

A whole workbook on resilience for teens if you're REALLY interested.  It's broken down into 5 goals:

• Goal 1: Adapting to change
• Goal 2: Overcoming adversity
• Goal 3: Finding your strength
• Goal 4: Keeping perspective 
• Goal 5: Staying focused 

Stress bucket

The stress bucket is a model that can help one understand our current levels of stress, reflect on coping strategies, and improve well-being.  

• See it here, and a worksheet here. 

Stress workbooks

Want to understand stress on a deeper level? 

• This booklet delves into the following chapters:

• This link takes you to 4 workbooks.