Coping Skills List, Trees, and Footballs?

Here you will find a list of over 50+ coping skills. I created this because one of the things that I often have a hard time finding is a large list of coping skills, especially those beyond the take 3 deep breaths…which getting on my soapbox for a minute, when have you been fighting mad/irate/pissed and took 3 deep breaths and it made you calm and relaxed? (just saying). Soapbox done!

This year when I was in the school with my elementary kids, I asked them to come up with things that helped them calm down and then we wrote them on a piece of paper and added them to my wall. It was great- instant coping skill list! I ended up with a list of over 25 and always had it at my fingertips to use with my kiddos.

You can find the list we compiled as well as a few I added here: Coping Skills List.

There is also a specific coping skill list for those who self harm which can be downloaded here: Coping Skills for SI.

This idea I am going to do next year with my kids, except I am going to have apples, leaves, and flowers for them to pick from.

Thanks to this blog for the idea:

http://schoolcounselorscrapbook.blogspot.com/2011/09/welcome-to-my-office-part-one.html

TIP: I have also seen this done with goal posts and the coping skills wrote on footballs. If I were a sporty kinda girl I might do this…but, I’m not, so leaves, apples, and flowers it is!

TIP #2: Towards the end of this school year (wish I had done it sooner), I had each client decorate a piece of paper with their goal or objective on it and then we put it on my wall. This made it  A LOT easier to review their treatment plan at the beginning of each session.