Anxiety, ADHD and Anger in the Classroom: 60 Activity-Based Coping Skills to Effectively Manage “Big Feelings”

CPD

Planning Committee Disclosure - No relevant relationships

All members of the PESI, Inc. planning committee have provided disclosures of financial relationships with ineligible organizations and any relevant non-financial relationships prior to planning content for this activity. None of the committee members had relevant financial relationships with ineligible companies or other potentially biasing relationships to disclose to learners.  For speaker disclosures, please see the faculty biography.

Handouts

Speaker

Janine Halloran, MA, LMHC Related seminars and products

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Janine Halloran, MA, LMHC, is a Licensed Mental Health Counselor with over 20 years of experience working with children, teens and their families. She is the founder and CEO of Coping Skills for Kids, where she creates and curates tools & resources to help adults teach kids healthy ways to deal with stress, anxiety and anger. She is the author of the Coping Skills for Kids Workbook: Over 75 Coping Strategies to Help Kids Deal with Stress, Anxiety and Anger (PESI, 2018) and Social Skills for Kids: Over 75 Fun Games & Activities for Building Better Relationships, Problem Solving & Improving Communication (PESI, 2018). She is an NBC Parent Toolkit Expert and has written articles featured on their blog. In addition, she has written for several other publications, including Hey Sigmund, Confident Families Confident Kids and Bay State Parent Magazine. She’s worked in a variety of settings, including schools, residential programs and outpatient mental health facilities. She is in private practice and offers consultation.

 

Speaker Disclosures:
Financial: Janine Halloran maintains a private practice and is the co-founder and CEO of Coping Skills for Kids and Encourage Play, LLC. Janine Halloran is a published author and receives royalties. She receives a speaking honorarium, recording, and book royalties from PESI, Inc. She has no relevant financial relationships with ineligible organizations.
Non-financial: Janine Halloran has a professional relationship with AT Parenting.

Objectives

1. Develop strategies for teaching kids coping skills that positively impact academic performance and their ability to maintain relationships.
2. Analyze how the nervous system response of “fight, flight or freeze” is connected to stress and communicate how coping skills can be used to shift kids to a more tranquil “rest and digest” response.
3. Execute a classroom routine that allows for breaks to benefit both hypo-arousal and hyper-arousal in kids with ADHD.
4. Utilize mindfulness and grounding techniques that can be used to help children manage their symptoms of anxiety.
5. Employ methods to determine the source of stress and create a plan to eliminate shutting down or acting out.
6. Utilize specific movement-based strategies that can effectively intervene in kids’ anger responses.

Outline

Coping Skills Overview

• The autonomic nervous system & coping skills
• 4 types of coping skills—
  • calming
  • distraction
  • physical
  • processing
• Coping skills checklist to identify current skills and strengths
• The Importance of Preventative Interventions
• 3 prong approach to supporting children’s social/emotional needs

SKILLS AND STRATEGIES: INTERACTIVE EXERCISES

Deep Breathing - Beyond “Taking a Deep Breath”

• Props —
  • pinwheels
  • bubbles
  • stuffed animals
  • Hoberman sphere
• Words —
  • to encourage deep breath
  • “smell the soup
  • cool down the soup”
• Shapes —
  • star breathing
  • lazy 8 breathing
  • square breathing
  • triangle breathing
• Your Body —
  • your hand
  • whole body movement

Coping Skills for Anxiety/Stress

• Mindfulness Practice—
  • One mindful minute
  • Spiderman mindfulness
  • Audio and visual mindfulness scripts
• Grounding Techniques—
  • 54321 grounding
  • Alphabet grounding
• Identifying and Taming Anxiety—
  • Take-home worksheets to help identify anxiety
  • Thermometer for anxiety worksheet
  • “Sources of stress” worksheet

Coping Skills for ADHD

• Movement Breaks
  • wall push-ups
  • yoga
  • music and movement
• Sensory Ideas
  • proper fidget use
  • calming jars
  • using senses (tactile, hearing, visual, auditory, etc...)
• The Importance of Play
  • recess
  • clubs/after-school
  • open-ended play ideas

Coping Skills for Anger/Frustration

• Small physical movement activities to manage frustration—
  • squeezing play dough
  • scribble drawing
  • bubble wrap
  • ripping paper
• Big physical movement activities to manage anger—
  • jumping jacks
  • running
  • obstacle courses
  • yoga
• Processing anger—
  • comic strip processing
  • what I can control vs. what I can’t control worksheet

Practical Implementation Ideas for the Classroom or Office

• Make a coping skills toolkit for your room—
  • fidgets
  • coping skills cue cards
  • other visuals
• Distraction coping skills—
  • word searches
  • hidden pictures
• Creating a calm down spot/calm down room—
  • identify a good spot create an area that
  • is peaceful and relaxing
  • coping skills toolkit
• Practice your own coping skills—
  • mindfulness and self-care worksheet

Target Audience

• Educators
• Counsellors
• School Psychologists
• Social Workers
• Psychologists
• Therapists
• Marriage & Family Therapists
• Occupational Therapists
• Occupational Therapy Assistants
• Speech-Language Pathologists
• Nurses
• Other Mental Health Professionals

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