What to Do About a Student with Angry Outbursts

Angry upset boy, little man

Angry Outbursts: Prevention and Coping Skills On a School Counselor Facebook page, a school counselor asks for help with a 5th grader who regularly has angry outbursts over such things as forgetting his work at home or his Chromebook is missing from the class. During sessions focused on helping him calm down, he’s still very…

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5 Steps to Change Negative Feelings

unhappy boy

All of our emotions are feelings in our body that we create based on our thoughts.  This is true of positive and negative feelings. Sometimes these thoughts are so ingrained that they are practically unconscious.  Sometimes they are either so common in society or in our minds that we accept them without question as the…

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Five Steps to Teach Kids to be Kind

kids sharing

We all want and expect others to be kind but exactly what is kindness, how is it developed, and why does it matter? There are 5 steps to teaching kindness: Define what kindness: Teach that kindness is being friendly, generous and considerate. Next teach that  based on our environment, our family of origin, and our…

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How to help children cope with stress

Pensive child

Positive ways to handle stress Moving to a new neighborhood. Making new friends. Starting a new class or moving to the next grade level. Starting back to school after a pandemic. A new brother or sister is born, parents separate and divorce, an older sibling goes away to college. Children, like adults thrive on the…

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Teaching kids to manage negative feelings

angry-child

Kids and Self Talk A typical classroom lesson on recognizing feelings is useful and gives kids a common language for expressing their feelings.  However, it is a basic lesson and doesn’t really cover all the bases in helping kids manage feelings, especially negative ones.   What can we teach the child who needs anger management strategies or…

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Teaching kids about feelings

Happy girl

Body Language and Feelings A standard lesson that I taught every year as an elementary school counselor was recognizing feelings. It was a fun lesson. I’d bring in large cut outs of children showing mad, sad, happy or scared feelings and ask kids to guess how the child was feeling. We’d talk about body language and how…

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