[GraceKrispy]

Hi Fellow Mental Health workers! Please take part in our Post-a-thon!

Tell us: What is something you plan to do every year in your school that you particularly look forward to and why?

(This can be a particular lesson you teach, a program you put into place, or whatever else you most look forward to!)

[GraceKrispy]

When I was a counselor in a K-12 school teaching various lessons to the different classes, I loved teaching health lessons. Many teachers weren't able to fit in the health standards along with all the other standards, so for the lower grades I taught health. It was so much fun, because we were able to do cool activities that were around learning about healthy habits and such.

How about you?

[eeza]

I don't do this every year because I don't want to repeat the same activity with the same kids, but I really enjoy it when I do decided to teach it. It works for all ages. Sure, the high school kids roll their eyes at a picture book, but I tell them to humor me!

I read the book Just the Way You Are which lends itself well to accepting yourself and others and giving compliments. After I read the book, I give each kid a piece of paper and tell them to write their name on it. They leave their paper on their desk and walk around the room writing positive traits about their classmates on their classmates' papers. It's really nice to see the look on the kids' faces when the read what others wrote about them. They don't realize that they have such wonderful character traits that other recognize.

[teachingtall]

My favorite social skill i teach is the "accepting no" one.

Many curriculums have steps to accept no, and those are great foundations, but sometimes i go beyond that with my EBD kids. I have on in particular that cries the minute we don't let her do something she wants to do. There has been a lot of begging with her this year too. It's a slow process but I can see her accepting the no, and the time to get her to stop crying has decreased.

Here is what I do:

1) State the Expectation
2) Give the no response when the request does not match the expectation
3) Ignore
4) Praise/reward other students
5) Repeat steps 1-4.
6) If still not complying offer a break or state consequences.


One teacher came in my room a few weeks ago and said I was being very rude and just giving the child what they want, I questioned what she would do and I let her try. She did what she was going to do (this then that) and when the student didn't respond or immediately start working the teacher got frustrated and said "I don't know how do you do this every day?"