Life Success
For Students With Learning Disabilities:
A Teacher Guide

Emotional Coping Strategies: Secondary Grades

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 they reach a critical point.
• Teach students basic relaxation/stress-reduction techniques (e.g., deep breathing, muscle relaxation).

Extension Activities

 Coping Strategies

• Show the class 7-8 pictures of individuals and identify/label the emotions displayed (example: anger, fear, frustration, confusion, daydreaming, joy, peace).
• Talk with students about typical situations that evoke those emotions in general and in relation to their learning difficulties.
• Have students draw pictures of or describe situations that trigger those emotions and role-play helpful and unhelpful ways to react.  Chart the trigger behaviors and the “Helpful Coping Strategies”/“Unhelpful Coping Strategies” and post in the class.
• Have students divide sheets of paper into three columns.
• In the first column, have students briefly describe a situation that triggers in them a particular emotion.  In the second column they are to identify the behavior they exhibit when they feel that emotion.  In the third column they are to list several helpful coping strategies.  Model doing this for one emotion before asking students to do this activity (example:  frustration:  a sheet full of hard math problems; only complete two problems; ask the teacher or a peer for help).
• Allow students to form small groups and share their papers.  Each group picks one student’s placemat to act out for the class.  After acting out the situation, behavior and coping strategy, the class brainstorms a different coping strategy or the small group acts out a different coping strategy to the situation.
• Record strategies on a chart labeled “Good Coping Strategies.”

“52 Ways to Find Serenity”

• Purchase the deck of cards with this title by Lynn Gordon.
• Review some of the ways to recognize that you are under stress (e.g., physical signs such as, restlessness, feeling nervous, frightened, irritated).
• Go over the cards, asking for a show of hands for students who have used the solution or one similar.  Ask a few students to share their experiences with the solution:
• Did it work?
• Was it difficult to do?
• Did you feel awkward trying it?
• Did it involve others?  If so, was it difficult to find people to participate?
• After going over several cards, place the deck in an accessible place and tell students that when they become stressed throughout the day, they can draw a card and try a new solution or keep drawing until they find asolution that appeals to them. 
• Go over several cards each day for a week or so as indicated above, until students are familiar with the deck.