Respectful Relationships

This term the Year Ones are learning to: 

• reflect on their emotional responses
• discuss ways in which they can take responsibility for their actions
• describe ways to express emotions which show awareness of the feelings and needs of others
• practice techniques to deal with feelings of fear, frustration and anger.

Helping students to learn a range of positive coping skills will allow them to develop and practise skills that will enable them to cope with future changes and challenges.

Positive self-talk is a key strategy for coping with negative thoughts, emotions and events. Resilience research shows that use of positive self-talk is associated with greater persistence in the face of challenge, whereas negative self-talk is associated with higher levels of distress, depression and anxiety. Positive self-talk can be learnt or strengthened through practice.

The students in the photo are playing a game to learn strategies for working out who goes first. They then discuss the negative emotions they can feel when they lose or are excluded and the strengths they need to help them cope with these emotions. 

The students are exploring the difference between calming and cheering coping strategies and the times they need to use these strategies.