Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Teacher Guide

Emotional Coping Strategies: Elementary

Introductory Activity

As you introduce emotional coping strategies, add it to the chart entitled “Keys to Success.”  Have class define “emotional coping strategies” in their own words.  Post word cards, posters, and lists brainstormed and created through classroom activities. Review at the beginning of each day or class period and infuse through the curriculum.  Reinforce and refer to each attribute using “teachable moments” throughout the school day.  Have students find examples of success attributes in current events, news stories, TV programs, peer experiences, and their own experiences, and create a bulletin board with the appropriate attribute as a label.

General Activities

• Have students discuss/write about the circumstances that create the greatest stress in their lives.
• Have students make a list of how their bodies feel when they begin to feel stressed.
• Have students discuss “warning signs” of stress and how to employ coping strategies or access help if it reaches a critical point.
• Teach students basic relaxation/stress-reduction techniques (e.g., deep breathing, muscle relaxation).

Extension Activities

Classify That Emotion

• Place the following headings on the board:  happy/peaceful; sad/stressful.
• Have students volunteer feeling words and decide in which column they belong.  Have a list of other feeling words for when they run out of suggestions: irritated, hopeful, anxious, impatient, bored, excited, loved, satisfied, challenged, disappointed, sick to your stomach, embarrassed, resentful, confused, dread, etc.
• Go back through the categories and have students rate the words on a scale of 1-10 for intensity, (e.g., irritated=2; enraged=9).
• Put the words on a continuum, in order of the ratings, going from peaceful to stressful.

Recognizing Stress

• Have each student make a list of personal behaviors that “Help Me Cope.”

• To show the effects of stress, brainstorm all the things that cause stress in our lives.  Put them on word cards and “weight” them (give them a number in relation to how “heavy” a particular stressor is).  Read a list of typical “top” stressors as an example. 
• Set up two chairs side by side and put a thin sheet of ply board across them as a bridge. Tape the heavier stressors to different-sized books.  Leave the lighter stressors as word cards.  Then begin to pile the stressors on top of the ply board.  Eventually it will begin to bow and possibly break.  Discuss the effects of continued stress and why it is important to find a way to cope with stress.
• Discuss simple ways to “de-stress” – deep breathing, visualizing a pleasant scene, taking a walk, getting out of a situation, reading a book, talking to a friend, exercising, etc.

Fly-Away Feelings

• This is a meditation. Ask students to sit quietly with their eyes closed.
• Ask them to imagine hearing water bubbling. Have them pretend to lie down and look up at the clouds in the sky.
• Tell students to imagine seeing colored balloons drift down from the sky.  Have each student choose a favorite-colored balloon.  Have them imagine choosing the balloon, untying the knot, and letting all the air out. Now have them imagine blowing all the sad, angry, and scared feelings into the balloon, and watch it float away.
• Ask how good it feels not to feel angry, sad, or mad.

Next: Emotional Coping Strategies Activities for Secondary Grades