Teaching coping skills to preteens and teens can help them to manage stressful situations in healthy ways. Teens who learn and implement positive coping skills are less likely to turn to drugs and alcohol to mask their feelings, become overwhelmed by anxiety and suffer from physical illnesses brought on by stress. Teachers, parents and therapists can teach youth coping skills through activities.
Importance of Healthy Habits
TeensHealth reports that stress takes a huge toll on a person's body, so it's more important than ever to eat healthfully and exercise regularly when dealing with stress. Discuss healthy habits with youth and then have them make lists of 10 healthful snacks and 10 ways they can fit in 20 minutes of exercise. Split the youth into groups and have them share their exercise and healthy snack ideas.
Teachers could encourage this further by sending home a letter to each student's parents letting them know that they are discussing healthy habits. Give each student a worksheet to complete daily for a week that asks what they ate for breakfast, lunch and dinner and whether they exercised for at least 20 minutes. Have the parents sign the worksheet each night. This holds the students responsible and encourages parents to discuss healthy habits with their children.
Relaxation Techniques
Relaxation techniques can help youth to reduce their stress in the moment, according to the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Let them know that they can simply take deep breaths in through their nose and out through their mouth 10 times to reduce stress.
Teach them a guided imagery technique and practice it together during the first five minutes of school or a therapy group. Instruct the youth to close their eyes and imagine a place that makes them relaxed and happy. Then encourage them to use all of their senses to really get into it. For instance, if a teen picks her bedroom, she should focus on seeing the pink walls, feeling the fuzzy carpet under her feet, hearing her favorite music playing in the background and smelling her vanilla-scented candle burning.
List of Stress Relievers
Parents, teachers and group therapists can implement this simple activity. Ask each preteen or teen to get out a sheet of paper and list 10 things that they do that makes them happy. Give them examples by sharing some things that make you happy such as reading a good book, taking a bubble bath and spending time with family. Ask a few of the teens to share their lists. Let them know that everything they listed should help them to prevent and cope with stress, especially if they do at least one thing from their lists each day. Every once in a while, check back in with the teens and ask them if they've done something from their "happy lists" recently.
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