Six-Session Coping Programs for Adolescents Essay

Six-Session Coping Programs for Adolescents Essay

 Six-Session Coping Programs for Adolescents Essay

Annotated Outline

Adolescents experience a myriad of issues as they cope with the emotional, cognitive, and social challenges that characterize this period. The following is a six-session program to help adolescents develop coping skills to navigate the challenges of this turbulent period and the stress associated with it. Each session is one hour.

Steps and Techniques

Session one

Relaxation exercises – muscle relaxation (van Loon et al., 2020)

• The group will be taught how to do muscle relaxation exercises. Focus on one muscle at a time, tense it and hold for five minutes, release hold while exhaling and let the muscle relax for 20 seconds before moving to the next one.

Life skills training – emotional regulation (van Loon et al., 2020)

• The group will gain understanding of the functions of emotions and how to attain emotional regulation through various approaches, including identifying and reducing triggers, modulating responses, engaging in positive self-talk, and self-awareness.

Session two

Power-up meditations (van Loon et al., 2020)

• Engage in meditation exercise for 10-20 minutes

Life skill training – problem-solving (van Loon et al., 2020)

• Teach the group problem-solving techniques: identify a problem, brainstorm potential solutions, evaluate and choose the appropriate solution, put it in action, and evaluate the outcome.

Session three

Gratitude (Bennett et al., 2019)

• The adolescents will be taught how to create a daily gratitude journal by listing what they feel grateful for

Tell real stories

• The participants will be encouraged to share stories about their lives.

Session four

Talk it out/write it down (Kempis & Daga, 2021)

• Teach the teenagers how to talk about or write something that is bothering them.

Psychoeducation (Boring et al., 2015)

• Provide psychoeducation on common mental illnesses affecting young people, such as anxiety, and suicidal ideation, to enhance awareness and knowledge on how to prevent them.
  

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Session five

Time management – setting priority, setting discipline (Kempis & Daga, 2021)

• Teach the participants about the important values of time management, such as setting priorities and exercising discipline.

Life skills training – conflict resolution (van Loon et al., 2020)

• Train on conflict resolution techniques, including recognizing when one is wrong and asking for forgiveness. Other techniques are clarifying the issue, talking it out, mediation, and brainstorming solutions.

Session six

Mindfulness (Bennett et al., 2019)

• Practice mindfulness for 10-15 minutes

Positive cognitive restructuring (Boring et al., 2015)

• Teach the group how to replace negative or stress-inducing thoughts with neutral ones.

Handout

Emotional regulation

Emotional regulation is the ability to control one’s emotions to prevent anger outbursts or aggressive behavior (Boring et al., 2015). Emotional regulation involves being able to identify emotions, emotional self-awareness, and knowledge of emotional triggers and techniques to mitigate them.

Relaxation exercises

A set of activities that helps a person to relax. Muscle relaxation is focused on relaxing the muscles (van Loon et al., 2020). The exercises produce a calming effect, thereby reducing stress and anxiety levels. The following image demonstrates relaxation exercises that can be easily done at home, in the office, or at school.

Meditation

The act of focusing one’s mind on a particular thing or item for a given period to enhance attention, clear the mind, and gain emotional calmness.

Problem-solving

Refers to the concept of working through challenging issues to find a solution. Various approaches to mapping out the problem and solution include drawing it, listing on paper, thinking critically, and acting out.

Mindfulness

Means concentrating on the present moment by focusing one’s mind on appreciating thoughts, feelings, and bodily reactions. The exercise produces a calming effect on stress and anger.

Conflict resolution

Finding a mutual solution following a conflict between one or more people (van Loon et al., 2020). Requires taking into account the interest of both parties and negotiating a solution.

Time management

Planning and organizing activities to exercise control on time spent on given activities. It helps in allocating time appropriately according to the needs and priorities of each activity.

Positive cognitive restructuring

Refers to a technique that helps people change their thinking from negative to positive. Training the mind to think positively helps eliminate thoughts that cause stress and anxiety.

Psychoeducation

Psychoeducation is the exercise of providing support and information regarding mental health issues (Bennett et al., 2019). It enhances awareness and supports people who already have mental illnesses.

Gratitude

Refers to the act of being thankful and appreciative. Practicing gratitude takes many forms, from writing something an individual is grateful about, practicing kindness, expressing appreciation, etc.

These techniques can easily be practiced at home, especially whenever one feels overwhelmed by stress, anger, or anxiety.

References

Bennett1, P. S., Hernandez, B., Wiercinski, K., & Abraham, S. (2019). Stress and Coping in Adolescents: A Review of the Literature. Human Journals, 12(3),.

Boring, J. L., Sandler, I., & Vélez, C. (2015). Children of Divorce–Coping With Divorce: A Randomized Control Trial of an Online Prevention Program for Youth Experiencing Parental Divorce. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 83(5), 999 –1005.

Kempis, G., & Daga, C. (2021). Coping Mechanism of Teenagers of Stress and Anxiety: A Case Study. International Journal of Research Publications, 609(1), 1-11. https://doi.10.47119/IJRP100691120211706.

van Loon, A., Creemers, H., & Beumer, W. (2020). Can Schools Reduce Adolescent Psychological Stress? A Multilevel Meta-Analysis of the Effectiveness of School-Based Intervention Programs. J Youth Adolescence, 49, 1127–1145. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-020-01201-5.

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Instructions

If stress is considered subjective, then an event is stressful based on your interpretation of both the event and your resources. This assignment gives you the opportunity to evaluate a situation in two ways. You will begin with your primary appraisal (your immediate reaction about how serious a situation is and whether it is a threat) and will follow that with your secondary appraisal— your more reasoned evaluation of your ability to cope with the event. You may choose to use the assignment from week one and continue to expand on your thoughts related to sources of stress in your life.

Once you are thoroughly familiar with the concept of primary and secondary appraisal, develop a four-column table:

Column 1: List an actual or hypothetical potentially stressful situation. You many reuse the examples from your first assignment.
Column 2: Describe the primary appraisal process as described by Lazarus and Folkman in 1987
Column 3: Describe the secondary appraisal process as described by Lazarus and Folkman in 1987
Column 4: Indicate the outcome.

Each scenario will be repeated, once for the primary appraisal and once for the secondary appraisal.

Situation

Primary Appraisal

Secondary Appraisal

Outcome

I was driving to work and the car in the slower lane pulled in front of me forcing me to break to avoid a collision.

This is important because I could have died, been late to work due to having an accident, or my insurance rates could increase. Plus, he saw me and cut in front of me and then smiled. People like that have no respect for anyone else. I am just so tired of people taking advantage of me.

There are lots of poor drivers on the road. I really cannot change that. I’ll just continue to drive safely and ignore them.

That was scary, but I am glad that everyone is safe and we avoided an accident.

My adult children keep asking me for money to help pay their bills.

This is important to me because I do not want to introduce tension into our (already strained) relationship, but I don’t have extra money to hand out and they need to learn how to manage money better.

I could give up on our relationship, but that isn’t a good option. I could get an extra job, but I am already stretched thin as it is. It seems like the best option is to talk to my children about managing their money better. Maybe I could send them some videos on money management and they could watch them in the evenings.

This is a stressful situation for me because it involves my children, and I value having a relationship with them. Parenting is difficult! Hopefully these money management videos (and not giving them money myself) will help them get where they need to be financially.

Length: 8 separate scenarios. 16 lines in all.

Your work should demonstrate thoughtful consideration of the ideas and concepts that are presented in the course and provide new thoughts and insights relating directly to this topic. Your response should reflect graduate-level writing and APA standards. Be sure to adhere to Northcentral University’s Academic Integrity Policy.

Prepare your responses in a Word document. Save the file and upload your document and click the Submit to Dropbox button.