This lesson teaches about how coping skills work to improve our mental health when practiced. Positive vs. negative coping skills are covered, problem-focused vs. emotion-focused coping skills are distinguished, and how coping skills work to affect thoughts, feelings and actions are all broken down.

If middle and high school students have been in any SEL program before they likely have heard a lot about the importance of coping skills and been instructed to identify their own. So, this lesson aims to help students understand how coping skills affect their mental health to make informed choices when choosing and implementing them. Then, students choose a coping skill to focus on and make a project about. This aims to give students a chance to talk about coping skills using the knowledge provided, instead of passively taking in more information on the topic.

This lesson is a great chance to get students talking with each other about helpful coping skills! The lesson includes a presentation (7 slides), a worksheet (1 pages), and example project (1 page) and a presentation guide (4 pages).

The slides and worksheet are simple to increase comprehension and suit middle through high school students.