- Stop -- Use Your Signal
- Name Your Feeling
This time, Maia uses the three Calming-Down Steps to help her handle her emotions and calmly work out the situation. Next, we watched the rest of the video about Jayla and Lydia, who were arguing about a bracelet. In this video, Jayla used deep-belly breathing to calm down, while Lydia used counting.
We spent the rest of the lesson practicing three strategies to use during the Calming Down step: breathing, counting, and positive self-talk. I asked students to brainstorm a time when they have experienced strong emotions, and begin to imagine that situation was happening again. This allowed students to re-experience the feeling of strong emotions in their bodies. We talked about what the students were feeling: shallow breathing, hot face, quick heartbeat, sweating, tense muscles. Next, we practiced breathing in deeply, filling our lungs, and making sure our stomach was pushing out with each breath in. During the exhale, we made sure our stomachs were falling back down.
Next, we practiced counting down from 10 silently while looking at the floor. We talked about why counting is so helpful: it buys us time. If we are thinking about counting, we aren't screaming at someone or doing something we regret. With that extra time, we are able to make better decisions.
Finally, we discussed the examples of positive self-talk we had seen in the video. We talked about what happens when we use negative self-talk (our feelings get even stronger), and how positive self-talk calms us down. We ended the lesson by discussing which calming down strategies would work best for each person.
