This lesson helps young people define “screen time” and potential problems with spending too much time looking at electronic screens. They will analyze how much of their day they spend in front of electronic screens and think of healthy ways to limit their screen time.
Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about screen time for children. These facts can be shared with young people during your discussions.
We live in a world full of electronics and screens. We can find screens everywhere, from the face of a cell phone to the big movie screen. There are television, computer, tablet screens and more. People spend time in front of screens for work as well as play. They are necessary, however many people spend far too much time in front of a screen.
Screen time includes time spent:
Too much time in front of a screen can be harmful to our eyes. Individuals are encouraged to look away from screens every 20 minutes so our eyes have a chance to focus on other objects before returning to the screen. Increased screen time is often associated with decreased activity. A decrease in physical activity can lead to weight gain and other health problems.
How much screen time do you think that kids 2 years old and younger be allowed?
How much screen time for kids older than 2?
The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends the following for screen time:
Set screen time goals for the next week. Some examples include:
Keep track of your screen time each day. When you’ve reached two hours, replace your screen time with a healthy activity. If you’ve had plenty of exercise already, read a book, make artwork or crafts, or even just have a conversation with other family members.
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families can continue discussing ways to limit screen time at home.
This lesson helps young people understand that the way they see things isn’t necessary the “truth” about the way they are. The youth will experience the impact a positive mindset can have, practice noticing subtle differences and cultivating an optimistic perspective.
Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information. This can be shared with young people during your discussions.
There is a lot of pressure these days on young people, teachers and others to “do and be their best.” Yet many of the things we do to try to accomplish this or help others accomplish it actually work against us. Mindset, the way we see things, plays a huge role in this.
People who thrive, rather than just survive, tend to have positive mindsets. They see the learning in difficult situations, they see the benefit that comes from hardship, and they see themselves and others as having what’s needed to be their best.
We can actually learn to think this way even if it doesn’t feel totally natural right now.
Consider this: Why is it that two people can see the same movie and describe it totally differently? Or what about when we watch the same movie more than once: Why do we notice different things each time? The truth is that our minds shape our experiences, our memories, and we can learn to influence our minds to see things differently.
Show the Mental Remix video from ChangeToChill.org by Allina Health.
Explain to the youth that our “success” in life, however we define it, depends a lot on our attitude and how we see things.
Ask: Why is it that two people can see the same movie and describe it totally differently? Or what about when we watch the same movie more than once: Why do we notice different things each time?
Give time for discussion of the questions. Then explain that our minds shape our experiences, our memories, and we can learn to influence our minds to see things differently.
Let the youth know that you are going to do an activity that highlights the idea that how we see things is shaped by what we’re looking for and what we focus on. Don’t tell them more than that. Then give them the following instructions:
Round one (there are three total)
Round two
Without changing the first three things back to the way they were, repeat round one. It may be harder this time for them to think of things to change. Encourage them to be creative.
Round three
Repeat the exercise again a third time and then talk about these questions:
Make the point that how we see something changes based on what we’re looking for, where are minds our focused, what our goal or task is. This is true for life as well as in the exercise.
Remind young people that our minds shape our memories and that knowing that can help us be more resilient and thrive. Present this challenge: Next time you are confronted with a potentially negative situation, ask yourself the following questions:
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families can practice seeing situations from different perspectives at home.
Change To Chill by Allina Health
This lesson helps young people understand the negative effects of tension and stress, and how guided imagery can help you relax. The facilitator will lead young people in a guided imagery exercise.
Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about guided imagery. This can be shared with young people during your discussions.
What is guided imagery? How can guided imagery be helpful to us? How do you do it?
Guided imagery is a simple, powerful technique that can have many health-related physical and emotional benefits. It can help people feel less nervous or upset, be less bothered by pain, or achieve a goal such as an athletic or academic achievement. Through guided imagery you can learn to use your imagination to “create the state you want,” meaning that you can actually change how you are feeling and what you are focused on. Even very young children can begin to learn this skill by linking images in their minds with feelings and experiences.
This introduction demonstrates the negative effects tension and stress can have on our bodies. The next activity teaches youth how to reduce stress and tension through guided imagery.
This activity teaches youth how to reduce stress and tension through guided imagery. Introduce guided imagery by explaining that it’s a way you can make pictures in your mind that can help you feel calm and relaxed. Then lead them through this simple guided imagery process.
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes directions for guided imagery, so that families can practice “creating the state they want” at home. Learn more about Health Powered Kids and how we provide exercises and lessons for young people.
This lesson helps young people understand how finding balance between their values and what they do can help them feel healthier and happier. The youth will complete a Values Circle Chart and compare the most important things to them with how they spend their time.
Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information. This can be shared with young people during your discussions.
What are values? Why are they important? Why is it important for us to be clear about our own values?
A lot of people talk about “finding balance” in life. For adults, it’s usually work-life balance. For kids, it usually means having a good mix of school, activities, time with friends and family, and time to just relax.
What sometimes gets missed in this conversation is talking about values. Values are really the foundation for how we can find balance in life. If we know what’s important to us and make decisions about how to spend our time based on that we’ll be more likely to feel at ease, successful, happy, and well. Most would agree feeling healthy or positive is better than feeling unhealthy or negative. This is true for people of all ages.
Another way to say this is that life balance does not mean equality, it means knowing what’s most important to you and doing the best you can to reflect that in how you live your life.
Ask the young people if they have ever been caught between two things that felt really important to them. See if there are a few volunteers willing to share examples.
Explain that every day we have to make choices. Sometimes decisions are really clear and we know right away what we want to do. Other times we are conflicted between two or more good things, not a bad thing and a good thing. These are conflicting values. We are dealing with these all of time, often without us even realizing it, such as when we decide between a sweet treat we really love and something that we know would be healthier for us.
On a larger scale if, for example, participating in a sport I really love means I don’t get to do the after-school club that my two best friends are in, how do I make that decision and feel good about it, not make a decision and feel guilt or regret?
The answer for how to make decisions we feel good about all the time is to become more aware of our own values.
Distribute the Values Circle Chart worksheets and explain how they will use them. The instructions are provided on the worksheet.
Offer examples of common important values: family, exercise, health or career. Point out that more often than not people don’t ever show up themselves on the list.
Then explain to them that they should identify how much time they actually spend on these. Debrief using the following questions:
We can feel happier and healthier if we choose to spend our time in ways that are more in line with our values. Remind the youth to think of the important things they wrote on their charts as they decide how to spend their time over the next few days. Suggest that young people hang their Circle Chart somewhere they can see it each day to remind them of their most important values.
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families can continue discussing goal setting based on their values at home.
Knowing what matters can help you destress
This lesson helps young people understand the link between their breathing and how they feel. The youth will practice focused breathing techniques to help their bodies and minds relax. Optional activities allow young people to further explore mindful breathing.
Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following notes about mindful breathing. This information can be shared with young people during your discussions.
How you breathe can make a difference in how you feel. When you are stressed, nervous, frightened, worried or angry, you may notice that your breathing gets low and fast. Your breath will come from higher up in your chest when you are upset. In calmer times, your breathing will be slower and deeper. Your breath will come more from your stomach and underneath your ribs.
You can learn to slow down your breathing, making each breath longer and deeper. This will calm the rest of your body and your mind. If you practice doing this you can become good at staying calm or return to feeling calm quickly in very stressful situations.
Ask the youth this question: How are our bodies and our minds connected? Be patient if it takes a while for them to start answering. Younger people may have much simpler answers. You may want to start with an example of kicking a ball: If we want to kick a ball our minds have to send a signal to our legs telling them what to do. Young people may also be able to understand things like:
Explain that breathing well is good for our bodies and can help us change negative things happening in our minds to more positive ones. In other words, we can learn ways to use our bodies to help us feel better in our minds.
If time allows, try these breathing exercises with your class or group.
Remind young people that if they ever feel like they need to calm down, focused or mindful breathing is something they can do anywhere, at any time, and no one will even know that they are doing it.
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, including additional mindful breathing activities, so that families can continue discussing ways to manage stress at home.
ChangeToChill.org from Allina Health
For other ideas about how to help kids management stress see these two books:
Fighting Invisible Tigers: Stress Management for Teens by Earl Hipp (Free Spirit Publishing, 2008)
The Stress Reduction Workbook for Teens by Gina M. Biegel (New Harbinger Publications Inc., 2009)
This lesson helps young people understand the causes and effects of stress and learn some techniques for dealing with it. The youth will identify physical symptoms of stress and list some situations that may bring them on. They will learn some skills for managing stress and make their very own stress ball.
Introduce the young people to the topic of stress. Let them know that we’ve all had times when our bodies react to stress and we can feel it. It’s the sensation also known as “flight or fight.” Our bodies’ natural way of coping with being frightened or challenged is to release certain chemicals into our bloodstream that provide extra short-term energy and alertness. Our instincts take over and “tell” us that we are facing danger and we either need to defend ourselves (fight) or get away (flight).
Sometimes when this happens we do things we didn’t think we could, such as run very fast or lift something heavy. We may also notice that our hearts beating harder and faster, our hands getting sweaty and cold, or our faces feeling flushed and hot.
Chances are everyone will have had many experiences of this. Ask for a few descriptions of what that looks and feels like. Young people might also describe feeling “butterflies” in their stomachs or having dry mouths.
Then explain that when this happens the options for what a person can do to respond become very limited because instinct takes over and we lose our ability to fully use the part of our brains that makes rational decisions.
Fortunately, by understanding what triggers our “fight or flight” reaction and learning skills to deal with it, we can learn to prevent some stress responses and calm ourselves down from those that do happen.
Distribute the handout: Your Body Under Stress
Ask young people to each draw or write images on their “body” of where they feel stress and how they know they are having a stress response.
Don’t give examples right away, but if they need a little help you can offer these ideas:
After young people finish the handout ask them the following questions:
Complete the Stress: What Brings it On? worksheet.
There doesn’t need to be a lot of discussion about this worksheet as long as you process it at the end of the session as described in the conclusion. Do point out, however, that one way of both avoiding stress and getting better at dealing with it is to become more aware of what brings it on for you personally. This worksheet helps people think about and identify their own personal stress triggers.
Introduce the stress ball as a way to help deal with stress. These objects are popular because squeezing the ball in your hand helps reduce tension throughout your body. It may be even more effective if you pay attention to your breath as you squeeze: breathe in as you squeeze the ball, breathe out as you relax your hand.
Let each young person make a homemade stress ball. Instructions:
Tips:
Talk about how young people can learn to make choices that help them avoid negative stress, the kind that makes it so they have a hard time making decisions, the kind that feels uncomfortable and maybe even a little bit scary. Ask the youth what kind of activities will help them deal with de-stress. Some examples include:
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish so that families can continue discussing stress and healthy ways to deal with it at home.
This lesson helps young people understand the negative effects of tension and stress, and how you can use your imagination to help you relax. The youth will draw pictures of their minds under stress. Then the instructor will lead young people in a guided imagery exercise.
What is guided imagery? How can guided imagery be helpful to us? How do you do it?
Explain to the youth that guided imagery is a simple, powerful technique that can have many health-related physical and emotional benefits. It can help people feel less nervous or upset, be less bothered by pain, or achieve a goal such as an athletic or academic achievement.
Through guided imagery you can learn to use your imagination to “Create the State You Want,” meaning that you can actually change how you are feeling and what you are focused on.
Complete the Create the State You Want worksheet as a way to think about the power of images and how we create pictures in our minds based on how we are feeling.
Read aloud the Guided Imagery script to your class or group. When everyone has had time to come back to full awareness of the present, allow young people time to talk about their experience. Do they feel more calm and relaxed after the guided imagery experience? Remind them that our brains are very powerful and can impact our positive and negative thoughts.
Encourage young people to take time to practice guided imagery. Let them know it can be done almost anywhere at any time and can be done to help them face a particular challenge (such as an upcoming test), or just because it’s healthy and feels good.
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes directions for guided imagery, so that families can practice “creating the state they want” at home.
This lesson helps young people understand how to use a pedometer to measure their daily activity levels. The youth are introduced to the pedometer, learn how to operate it and test its accuracy. In the subsequent days or weeks, young people can track their steps on the provided forms. Challenge your group by adding up enough steps to reach Minnesota landmarks or make it all the way to Disney World in Florida!
Pass out and explain the Pedometer Fitness Challenge Worksheet or the Pedometer Fitness Challenge Step Tracking Spreadsheets (see What You Need). These will be their method for tracking daily and weekly totals.
Pedometer tips
Track your classes’ weekly progress on the spreadsheet and a map of the USA, if possible. Note progress toward the goal of adding up enough steps to reach Disney World in Florida. If that goal is reached quickly add other elements to keep it interesting, such as making the trip back, or calculating the number of steps needed to reach other landmarks and aiming for that many steps. Also encourage young people to work on increasing their own personal steps-per-day or steps-per-week. Help them identify challenging but realistic goals.
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families discuss the Pedometer Fitness Challenge at home.
Are you getting 10,000 steps a day?
This lesson helps young people understand how to eat slowly and mindfully. The youth will practice by paying close attention to smells, texture and taste while eating a healthful snack.
Before facilitating this lesson, you may want to review the following information about mindful eating. These facts can be shared with young people during your discussions.
Research points to at least three good health reasons to eat slowly and mindfully. These are:
Give each young person a sample of one of the snacks you brought, but tell them not to eat anything yet.
It takes our bodies time to break down food and take from it what we need. Remind young people to chew their food well and eat slowly. More time between bites gives time for our bodies to react to what we’ve already consumed, so we can digest and absorb our food better.
Encourage young people to practice eating slowly at home using the tips in the Healthy Families Newsletter.
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families can continue discussing healthy eating habits at home.
Without introducing the topic of food poisoning, tell the young people that there is a mystery you need them to solve. Distribute copies of Food Safety Story. Have the youth work in small groups to read through it and identify the reasons they think the catastrophe might have happened. After a while debrief as a group, perhaps asking each group to share one idea, one at a time, until all ideas have been shared. Write their ideas on a flipchart or whiteboard. Then introduce the topic of food safety, assuring young people that you will come back to the story at the end of the lesson.
Introduce food poisoning by explaining that it is an illness that can happen when we eat foods that have harmful bacteria, viruses and parasites or their toxins. The effects can range from barely noticeable to extremely unpleasant.
1. Ask the young people if they know what symptoms these harmful germs may cause.
Symptoms of food poison may include:
upset stomach
nausea
vomiting
diarrhea
fever
Tell the youth that mild cases of food poisoning are actually common and we may not even know we have it because we think it is just a stomach flu or virus. We can’t get rid of all bacteria and some bacteria can even be good for us. There are many things we can do, however, to prevent us from getting sick from the foods we eat.
2. Most of the germs that can cause food poisoning (also known as food borne illness) come from animals, such as meat, eggs, milk, shellfish, or unwashed produced. Raw or undercooked foods are also more likely to cause food poisoning because the process of thoroughly cooking often kills unhealthy germs. Sometimes the germs are transferred from work surfaces or hands that haven’t be properly cleaned after touching contaminated food. So cleanliness and proper cooking are two of the most important ways to prevent it.
3. Ask how many help their families cook at home. What kind of things do you or your family members do to keep things clean while cooking? Make sure the following are mentioned:
Wash your hands before and after handling food.
Wash counters and food preparation areas with soap and water before cooking.
Wash fruits and vegetables before eating. For example, was the outside of melon before cutting into it.
4. Imagine that you are looking in the refrigerator for a snack. What kind of things do you do to make sure food is safe before eating it?
Only eat foods that are cooked right – if it doesn’t look done, don’t eat it.
If a food smells or looks different than it normally would, the food might be spoiled and you shouldn’t eat or drink it.
Keep leftovers only 3 to 4 days in the fridge and heat them up well before eating.
Check expiration dates and use the food before it expires. Don’t eat if it is after the expiration date.
Germs grow best at room temperature, so cover and refrigerate food right away to keep the bacteria from growing out of control.
Introduce the Myth or Fact quiz explaining that it focuses on ways we can keep our food safe. Use the interactive whiteboard lesson or the worksheet located in the What You Need section above. Have the youth work in small groups or as a large group to complete the activity and see how “food safety savvy” they are.
Now that you have learned more about the potential causes of food poisoning, ask the youth to revisit the list of things they think could have caused the illness in the half of Ms. Carey’s class. Be sure to include the following:
Preparing raw meat (the turkeys) in the same place as the sandwiches were being made could have contaminated the sandwiches.
The tuna sandwiches might have contained mayonnaise and both tuna and mayonnaise need to be kept chilled.
Suzy’s apples weren’t washed.
Tou’s salad may have gone bad even though it smelled okay.
Victor’s chicken may have been undercooked since he rushed it.
Answer to the activity: Students may not have cleaned their hands after visiting the petting farm.
Hand out the Healthy Families Newsletter in English or Spanish, which also includes these tips, so that families can continue discussing food safety at home.