Back to Counselor's Corner

Back to Counselor's Corner
York and Jefferson Elementary Schools

Wednesday, January 28, 2015

In 3rd grade we recently completed a whole series of lessons on managing anger.  We learned about the importance of having an effective plan in place to manage anger.  It is harder to think when you are angry, so having a set plan of practiced strategies to use ahead of time can be very effective.
An effective plan would include: the ability to recognize anger signals as they begin in your body, a proven strategy to calm down cognitively, an effective way to calm down physically, a verbal phrase you could use, and at least one or two other active strategies (power up's) that would make it easier to make a good choice in that moment.

In a random sampling of students before the guidance lessons:

42% of students had no plan to calm down if someone made them angry
50% had some part of a effective plan to calm down if someone made them angry
1% Had an effective plan to deal with anger


After guidance lessons

100% of the students individually identified all the components of an effective plan to manage anger that they could personally use.

96% of the students indicated they could actually make these strategies work.