Join Phyllis Fagell, a practicing school counselor, therapist, and celebrated author of Middle School Matters and Middle School Superpowers who will share strategies and activities to help students acquire social skills, manage executive functioning challenges, resolve conflict, meet behavioral expectations, cope with stress and disappointment, self-advocate, and take academic risks. (It may seem like a lot to cover, but it's all interrelated!)
Whether you’re a middle or upper school classroom teacher, counselor or administrator, this workshop will prepare you to help students get their arms around a broad range of typical stressors, including loneliness, procrastination and performance pressure. Leave with a better understanding of adolescents’ needs and behavior and gain practical strategies that can be implemented one-on-one, in small group settings or at the classroom level. Incorporating such ideas will reduce stress for students and staff alike—making each educator’s job easier, not harder.
The day's agenda:
Morning: Many stressors can be managed and reined in if students are armed with essential, practical, teachable skills. The focus will be on adolescents’ needs, stress-reduction, and self-regulation strategies. Hear concrete, implementable ways to help students feel less overwhelmed, better equipped to manage academic and behavioral expectations and more resistant to peer pressure. Activities to use with students will be shared – including a stable decision-making framework, using the power of the group to create a more pro-social culture, and proving that “doing the right thing” is less risky than they may think.
Afternoon: The focus will shift to social challenges and academic risk-taking — which is a social risk, too! Hear specific ways to foster social skills, help students consider others’ perspectives and foster a sense of belonging for all. Explore common social scenarios and learn how younger adolescents distinguish between funny and mean. Hear about the power of role-playing and why it’s so challenging for students to sort out interpersonal challenges. Leave with phrases to use in a range of scenarios to help students sustain optimism and feel a sense of agency.