Lesson Overview

Some things in the world are scary. It would be nice if you could just make those scary things and scary feelings go away, but sometimes you can’t. Some stuff is beyond your control. What you can control, however, is your response to fear and the ways you take care of yourself during these scary times.

This lesson focuses on what fear feels like, different ways people respond to it, and steps anyone can take to help manage fear and learn to live with scary things.

What is fear? Fear is a response to things that scare you. It can be helpful because it can alert you to danger. It can be harmful if you over react.

What does fear feel like? Fear feels different to each person, but there are some things that are pretty common:

• Feeling fear in your body — You may have a racing heart, dizziness, fast breathing, sweating or getting very cold (or both), tingling or weakness in arms or legs, upset stomach, pounding head or headache, blurry vision, or a rushing sound in your ears.
• Feeling fear in your mind — You may worry, have scary images or ideas, want to sleep or not be able to sleep, or lose your appetite.

What does fear make you do? Each person responds differently to different fears, but typically reactions fall into one of three categories: FIGHT, FLIGHT or FREEZE.

• FIGHT—Sometimes fear makes you want to fight back against the thing that you’re afraid of.
• FLIGHT—Sometimes you just want to run away.
• FREEZE—Other times your body freezes up and you feel like you can’t or don’t want to move.

Activity

Fight, Flight, Freeze or Forget It

1. Start with an introduction of what fear is, what it feels like, and the different ways people respond.
2. Introduce the fight/flight/freeze response, talk about how sometimes you have a fear response that:
   • Helps you (For example: If you’re in a scary situation and you instinctively know to run away.)
   • Doesn’t actually fit with what’s happening (For example: You might feel like you need to run away when you’re at the doctor’s office to get a flu shot. A flu shot is something that is good for you, but a lot of people are afraid of shots.)
3. Explain that you’re going to do an activity that helps young people learn how they respond to different situations that might be scary. You’re going to describe some different situations and for each one young people should make a face or gesture that goes with how they think they would respond—fight, flight, freeze, or forget it (meaning it isn’t something that would scare them.)
4. Ask young people to practice each of these faces or gestures, one at a time in order:
   • Fight
   • Flight
   • Freeze
   • Forget it
5. Start playing music while young people mill around the room. When you turn the music off, describe a potentially scary situation (nothing too scary for this activity as it is simply designed to get young people thinking, not to cause anxiety). After each song, talk a little bit with the young people about why they responded the way that they did, especially if there are differences among the group. Be very clear that there are no right or wrong responses, just differences and that this is an activity for learning about yourself, not for comparison or judging anyone else. Do the activity using the following scenarios:
   • A surprise test in school
   • A visit to the dentist
   • Having to give a speech
   • Singing a song in front of an audience
   • Being chased by a tiger
   • Being chased by a chipmunk
   • Getting a shot at the doctor’s office
   • An older student says something mean to you at school
   • You’re in a store and an alarm goes off; you don’t know what it means
   • You’re on a hike and you see a snake in front of you in the path
   • You hear on the radio that a big storm is headed your way
6. Finally, facilitate a conversation about the activity as a whole. Suggested discussion questions:
   • What did you learn from this activity (about yourself, about how different people respond to fears)?
   • What surprised you?
   • When you feel scared and you respond—fight, flight, or freeze—what are things you do to help yourself feel better? (Talk about as many examples as young people are willing to share. Then transition to the next activity.)

Three Ways to Feel Better

Tell young people that you are going to learn about and practice three things they can do when they are feeling fear. These three actions can help them feel better even if they can’t make the scary thing go away. Describe each of them, one at a time, and practice as you go.

1. Breathing exercises—Breathing comes so naturally that you can sometimes forget how important and powerful it is. Try this: Begin breathing in through your nose and breathing out through your mouth. Breathe in twice as long as you breathe out (try counting to two as you breathe in and count to four as you breathe out). Keep breathing like this for several minutes. What do you notice about how this changes the way your body feels? The next time you are feeling fearful, try to remember to breathe like this.

1. Meditation—Try this meditation exercise and notice how it changes how your body feels. Meditating regularly can build “muscle memory” that will help you stay calm in the face of fear.
2. Physical movement that can help you feel brave—Being brave usually doesn’t feel like it looks in movies or shows. Being brave means being willing to face things you’re afraid of. One way to learn bravery or courage—which is a similar word—is to do exercises that actually help you feel it in your body. Both cobras and elephants are great examples of brave animals and these stretches can help you channel them!

Lesson Introduction & Overview

Recent research has found that exercise, particularly aerobic activity that involves an element of coordination, has benefits for young people that go far beyond fitness.

Aerobic activity is any physical activity that increases your heart rate and breathing. It helps improve your heart and lung fitness. Some examples include brisk walking, hiking, jogging/running, biking, swimming, rowing, jumping rope, dancing and aerobics class.

Physical activity has many benefits. In addition to helping build strong bones and muscles, regular physical activity can:

• help maintain a healthy weight
• reduce the risk for heart disease, diabetes, obesity, certain cancers and joint conditions
• reduce levels of anxiety and stress
• improve your self-esteem and confidence
• help improve concentration and memory
• help maintain good blood pressure and cholesterol levels
• give you an overall feeling of well-being
• build endurance and increase your metabolism
• improve your ability to do daily activities
• help you relax and sleep better.

Studies have found that young people who participate in even 10 minutes of exercise before a test or other academic activity performed better on those tasks than young people who did not exercise. Other studies have found that young people who participate in physical activity consistently have more academic success than their peers who participate less.

For this lesson, the focus is on empowering young people to exercise regardless of their fitness baseline.

Activity

Session One

Ask young people a series of questions about exercise: Do they like it? What kinds of exercise do they do or do they know that other people do? What are some of the benefits of exercise?

Then introduce the Exercise-Brain Connection and highlight the following points:
• Exercise is good for your body; it helps keep your heart and other muscles strong, your organs working well and your bones healthy.
• Exercise is also good for your mood: exercising can help improve your mood by reducing stress and anxiety.
• Exercise is good for your brain! Not as many people know this, but exercise can help you focus, problem solve, and remember information and ideas.

Then explain that over the next week your class/group will be doing a research study of your own. Here are the steps:
• Each young person will receive a Your Brain After Exercise tracking sheet.
• For one week, young people should rate how well they think they performed on their homework or brain games and track whether or not they exercised beforehand.
• You can provide age-appropriate activities such as word finds, cryptograms, Sudoku puzzles, crossword puzzles, jigsaw puzzles or online brain games. A simple internet search will provide a variety of resources!
• Encourage young people to exercise for at least 10 minutes sometimes before performing the task, and sometimes not.

Session 2

Ask young people to take out their tracking sheets. Talk about how the week went, what they noticed, what questions they have.

Then create a bar chart showing the results of your study:
• Your X-axis will have two variables: “Yes, I exercised before task” and “No, I did not exercise before task.”
• Your Y-axis will have five variables: the ratings on how they think they performed on their assignments.
• Find the average of all the ratings for times when they did at least 10 minutes of exercise and make that average the first bar.
• Find the average for all the ratings for times when they didn’t do at least 10 minutes of exercise and make that average the second bar.
• Talk about what the bar chart shows. Is there a difference? Why do you think that is so? Did you notice a difference for yourself between times when you exercised and when you didn’t?

Conclusion

Remind young people that research has shown that exercise has a positive impact on brain function and encourage them to make exercise part of their regular routine.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong so that families can learn about exercise and the brain at home.

Lesson Introduction & Overview

This short lesson is aimed at helping young people develop an attitude of gratitude. Research shows that gratitude helps people be happier and deal with stress better.

Activity

Talk with the youth about how being grateful for the things in their lives can help increase their happiness and decrease stress.

Ask them what they think it means to be grateful. They might say that it means thankful, appreciating what they have, or feeling pleased or content. If no youth offer ideas, prompt them with these ideas or your own.

But feeling grateful isn’t always easy and isn’t something that everyone does naturally. It’s pretty easy to compare yourself to those around you and wish you had what they had, or to focus on the challenges and frustrations in your lives.

Being grateful is a muscle you can build. Just like you learn or develop a new skill or strength through practice, you can improve your attitude of gratitude by working on it a little bit each day.

Ask young people to think about these perspectives:

• Do you know how many people in the world today have clean drinking water?

Give youth a chance to respond. Then talk about that there are more than six million people in the world who don’t have clean water for drinking, cooking, or cleaning themselves. Many people who don’t have these things end up getting sick because of it.

• How many people do you think have access to a working toilet?

More than 1/3 of people living in the world today don’t have access to a working toilet? Talk about what people might do if they don’t have a working toilet. Some of these people have to use a hole in the ground. Others use an outhouse or something similar.

Sometimes we get so used to things that help keep us comfortable, safe and healthy, that we forgot to be grateful for them. These things are overlooked blessings.

Together as a class, make a list of overlooked blessings…things that you take for granted but for which, when you stop and think, you are grateful.

Post the list somewhere where everyone can see it regularly as a reminder.

Do a guided gratitude meditation together: http://www.changetochill.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Change_to_Chill_Gratitude.mp3

Distribute the Three Good Things worksheet. Encourage young people to continue to build their “gratitude muscles” by using the worksheet to help remind them of the good things in their lives.

Conclusion

Keep the list up for as long as seems helpful. Consider also sharing the ideas through social media or school or community resources.

Additional Instructor Resources

Additional information about gratitude: http://www.changetochill.org/how-can-i/gratitude/

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong so that families can practice gratitude at home.

Lesson Introduction & Overview

This short lesson is aimed at getting youth to think about their responses to stressful or challenging situations, and to respond positively rather than by adding to the difficulty.

Activity

1. Show the What Pizza Wears Gloves video and The Two Arrows Explainer video.

2. Talk briefly about what they noticed and what they thought about these two videos. Ask if anyone has any questions about them.

3. Then ask about stress:

• Do you ever feel stressed out? Have you ever felt like the Pizza or the person who dropped the lunch tray? What does stress feel like in your body and in your thoughts?
• What causes stress in your life?
• Do your family members or friends ever get stressed? How can you tell? How do they act?
• What do you think causes stress for other people?

4. Then talk about how the videos mention “mindfulness” and “Change to Chill.” Ask youth if they’ve ever heard those terms before and what they think they mean. Talk about their ideas and share your own.

5. Show the youth the pens, sticky notes and wall space. Explain that as a group you are going to write as many ideas as you can about how to stress less or deal with stress when it comes up. Give some examples like, “go for a run,” “listen to music,” or “make slime with your friends.”

6. Give youth a chance to post their own ideas and read through others. Talk briefly about:

• What’s your favorite way to de-stress?
• Did you get any new ideas today?
• What’s one thing you might like to try next time you feel stressed out?

Conclusion

Keep the wall of notes up for as long as seems helpful. Consider also sharing the ideas through social media or school resources.

Additional Resources:

Additional videos:

• http://www.changetochill.org/video/

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong so that families can stress less at home.

Lesson Introduction & Overview

This short lesson is aimed at encouraging youth to think positively about meditation and other relaxation activities, and help reduce the stigma around mental health self-care.

Activity

Let young people know that they will be trying a short meditation today. Meditation is a strategy for reducing stress and promoting mental wellness. Ask the group what stereotypes they can think of about meditation, either positive or negative.

Introduce the idea of stigma:

1. Stigma is a mark of shame that sets an individual or a group apart. It’s a label, a stereotype, a pre-judgment before getting to really know a person and the details of his or her situation. Sometimes, negative stereotypes lead to stigma.
2. Stigma leads people to reject, avoid, or fear those they perceive as different. You’ve all seen stigma in action and probably experienced it yourselves as well.

Talk about types of stigma.

Ask students to talk about different types of stigma. Can they think of any examples of stigma based on negative stereotypes?

There is definitely some stigma in U.S. culture about people who have stress and related problems such as anxiety, depression or other mental health conditions. People may make jokes such as “forgetting to take your meds.”

These negative judgments can carry over to the things people do to take care of their mental well-being. Some people practice meditation, yoga, or deep breathing exercises. Other people think those things are silly or weird. Talk with youth about whether they or anyone they know does any of these things, and whether in their experiences there is stigma about them.

The truth is that these kinds of practices, what’s sometimes known as mindfulness, are really awesome for overall health, and can help with many things beyond just promoting mental wellness, including doing well in school, sports and music. They can also help you feel good about yourself, and even lead you to better relationships with friends and family.

Ask if anyone in the group knows any breathing exercises or yoga poses or other things related to meditation, mindfulness, and mental wellness. If young people have things they want to share, let them demonstrate or lead the group.

Introduce the Head to Toe meditation. Encourage young people to set aside any pre-existing judgements they might have and just give it a try.

Meditate with the group (you can play the audio or read the script yourself).

• Audio 
• Script

Give people a few minutes to just rest and relax after the meditation. Then pull the group back together and ask:

• What did you think of that short meditation experience?
• What did you like about it? What did you not like about it?
• Do you think regular meditation like this could be helpful to you or to someone else in your life? Why or why not?

Finally, thank the group for being part of reducing stigma about mental wellness and taking care of themselves. Encourage them to keep doing that because it’s good for them and for other people they care about.

Conclusion

If your group does well with this, consider trying some of the other meditations available on Change to Chill, perhaps including a regular time during the week for a short meditation or other mindfulness practice.

Additional Instructor Resources

Additional videos:

• http://www.changetochill.org/video/
• http://www.namihelps.org/education/youth.html

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English, Spanish, Somali and Hmong so that families can practice meditation at home.

Lesson Introduction & Overview

There’s lots of talk in the world of parenting about the importance of connecting as a family at mealtime, with good reason. Research shows that some of the benefits can include:

• better academic performance
• higher self-esteem
• greater sense of resilience
• lower risk of substance abuse
• lower risk of teen pregnancy
• lower risk of depression
• lower likelihood of developing eating disorders
• lower rates of obesity

Very rarely do adults encourage young people to take the initiative when it comes to family dinner (or another meal); the focus is typically on parents. This lesson helps young people become leaders of positive family mealtime communication and provides them with tips and conversation starter ideas.

Activity

1. Introduce the topic – Depending on the maturity of the youth, ask and talk about a few of the questions below:
   1. How many of you have dinner or other meals with your family three times a week? More than that? Less than that?
   2. What are some things you like about family mealtimes?
   3. What are some things you don’t like or wish were different about family mealtimes?
2. Family mealtimes, away from distractions such as media, are important for a variety of reasons:

• families that eat together regularly tend to be physically healthier
• relationships between parents or guardians and young people tend to be stronger
• young people do better in school
• families talk about important topics that might not otherwise get talked about.

Explain to young people that they can be important leaders in their families. Young people can encourage their family to sit down to eat together and have important or fun conversations. The rest of this activity is one way to do that.

3. Brainstorm conversation topics. Have them write their ideas on slips of paper. You can also distribute the Let’s Talk handout that is included with this lesson. They can use it to spark ideas or can cut it up and use it as is.
4. Create “Let’s Talk – Conversation Starters” jars or boxes. Give young people time to decorate their jar or box. Distribute the Let’s Talk handout for youth to cut into strips along the dotted lines. Each youth can then fill his or her jar or box with the strips and take it home for his or her family to choose a strip from the jar or box and start talking!

Reflection – Ask young people the following questions:

• What is their favorite food to have at a family meal?
• Why is this meal their favorite?
• Does it remind them of a special memory?
• Is it cooked by someone they love?

Conclusion

This activity turns the tables, so to speak, when it comes to family mealtimes. It puts young people in the driver’s seat. Adults are not always used to thinking of young people as leaders in their families, but giving them small roles like this can help them strengthen connections with their families as well as build important social and emotional skills that will help them in other areas of their lives.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English and Spanish so that families can practice an attitude of gratitude at home.

Additional Instructor Resources

• The Family Dinner Project

Parent Resources

• Yum Yum Roasted Veggies
• After School Monster Mash Bean Dip
• Better Than Store Bought Bars 

Lesson Overview

This lesson explores what it means to stay safe online. It focuses on cyberbullying and helping young people understand what it is, reflect on their experiences of it, and learn ways to prevent it or stop it.

Introduction

Cyberbullying happens when kids bully each other through electronic technology such as Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, group chats, online games, or other platforms. Bullying, as described by stopbullying.gov, is “unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.”

Cyberbullying can happen in very small ways, such as consistently posting mean comments or messages, or very significant ways, such as spreading widely unkind or false information about someone.

This lesson focuses on helping kids understand what cyberbullying is, why it’s not okay, and how to stop it.

Activity

1. Talk about cyberbullying. Have a short conversation using the following questions:
   • Have you ever heard of cyberbullying? What do you know about cyberbullying? Think of a time when you saw/heard of cyberbullying – what are some examples of cyberbullying your thought of? (Suggest no names are used, rather “he” or “she”/”him” or “her”) Write their responses on a flipchart, whiteboard or chalkboard.
   • Are there things people do to one another online that could hurt feelings but that most people don’t considered bullying? What are some examples? Write these down as well. They might mention things like making mean comments on social media or posting pictures of others without permission.
2. Explain that cyberbullying happens when people are intentionally and consistently mean to each other through electronic technology. If you’d like, you can read the definition from stopbullying.gov, “…unwanted, aggressive behavior among school aged children that involves a real or perceived power imbalance. The behavior is repeated, or has the potential to be repeated, over time. Bullying includes actions such as making threats, spreading rumors, attacking someone physically or verbally, and excluding someone from a group on purpose.” It can happen in small ways, such as comments on posts, or very significant ways, such as threatening someone or spreading unkind or false information about them. Cyberbullying hurts the people who are bullied. It can also hurt people who bully by making them look bad and making them feel sad about their own choices.
3. Do the Online and On Guard…Is It Cyberbullying? activity, which describes different scenarios and asks youth to sort them into four different categories of social interaction, including bullying. As they sort, facilitate a discussion about why they put the items where they did. There may be disagreements. Try to come to a shared decision about where to put each item, letting them know that every situation is unique and this activity is just to get them thinking. Validate all their ideas to encourage more discussion. Allow them to talk about their own similar experiences but stop them if they start to talk about specific examples that involve other people, letting them know that telling other people’s uncomfortable stories can actually be a form of bullying. Questions to help with the conversation can include:
   • Why did you choose this category?
   • What if we change something about this example? Would that put it in a different category? What kind of change would cause you to move it?
   • What other examples would you put in each of these categories?
4. As a group, make a list of things that people can do to help stop cyberbullying. Here are some things you can add if they aren’t mentioned:
   • If someone is being mean to you or someone else online tell a teacher, parent or other trusted adult.
   • If someone is being mean to you or someone else online, tell them to stop. Sometimes quietly standing up for yourself or someone else is enough to convince a bullying to back off.
   • Only accept friend/follow requests from people you know in real life. Set privacy settings so information about you (including images) are not visible to the public. Every time you post or share, carefully consider whether you want it to live on forever, because it might.
   • Use good passwords and never share them with anyone. Generally, the longer the password, the stronger it is. Adding complexity, such as uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers and special characters, makes it even stronger.
     • uppercase letter (e.g. A, B, C, D, E)
     • lowercase letter (e.g. a, b, c, d, e)
     • number (e.g. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5)
     • special character or symbol (e.g., ! @ # $ % & * _ + ~ . ,>)
     • Make your password memorable for you. Don’t use information people know about you, such as family members’ names, pet names, addresses or license plate numbers. And don’t repeat characters more than three times in a row.
   • Ask your parents or caregiver to help you if someone if cyberbullying to help you decide how you should respond. If your caregive is asking for your password – maybe be willing to share it so that they can help protect you. Remember, sometimes caregivers ask for passwords not because they don’t trust you, but because they are helping to protect your from cyberbullying!
5. Create a “Bully-Free Zone” agreement or pledge. Ask them to commit to a short list of things they will do to help keep each other safe and healthy online and to sign the agreement. This can include simple things like, “Be kind,” “Ask before posting,” and “Treat others with respect.”
   One possibility is to use the THINK model:
   Always THINK Before You Post
   T=Is it true?
   H=Is it honest?
   I=Is it inspiring?
   N=Is it necessary
   K=Is it kind?
   If not, should you post it?
6. What to do if you or a friend is being bullied:
   • Support them by listening to their story and reassuring that their feelings are fair. “I totally get it.” “That is not OK that they did XYZ.”
   • Offer to help them find an adult who can help them problem solve. “I think we should go talk to Mrs. XX – she always knows what to do” or, “My dad helped me one time when BLANK happened – I think he could help with this too.”
   • If your friend is nervous about getting help but you really feel like they need help, talk to a trusted adult who can help you problem solve your job as a friend. You can start by saying “I want to talk to you about something in confidence” so that they know it is an important and sensitive topic.

Conclusion

There is no one easy way to stop any kind of bullying from ever happening, but by introducing young people to these ideas now you help them start to build the tools to prevent or stop it from happening if and when they encounter it.

Continuing the Conversation

Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, so that families can continue discussing how to recognize, prevent or stop cyberbullying.

Additional Instructor Resources

• stopbullying.gov
• stompoutbullying.org
• Is it okay to snoop on your child online?
• Living Better With Our Devices