There are generally three ways to provide school-based counseling. Looking at MTSS, the levels are Tier 1, which is SEL (Social Emotional Learning), which is provided through the general education setting. Then there is Tier 2, which is generally small group counseling. Finally, there is the sometimes dreaded Tier 3, which is typically individual counseling.

Though it doesn’t have to be, individual counseling sessions might seem a little scary. One-on-One sessions usually mean that a student has a high level of need. This can be nerve wrecking because it might feel like there is a lot of pressure on YOU, the counselor or counseling provider, to make some BIG changes in a short amount of time. If this is how you sometimes feel when providing individual counseling, please read these three tips to make your individual counseling sessions easier on you, and more productive for your students.

Tip #1: Prepare for Your Sessions Well Ahead of Time or Invest in Pre-made Curriculums

I believe that having a plan makes things easier for all three tiers, of course. But if you are trying to improve your individual counseling skills, starting with a specific plan is the first step. Planning your sessions in advance for individual counseling will definitely save you a lot of time and stress. If you are planning your session activity five minutes ahead of the scheduled time, it might be time for you to invest in some pre-made curriculums or in setting aside time to plan. If not, you might be repeating conversations, activities, or not using the time productively. Just doing a “check in” is not counseling, but is often what results from lack of planning.

The benefit of Pre-made curriculums is that the work of planning has been done for you. This can be a real time-saver to have a ton of activities that are ready to go, in a pre-determined order, instead of fishing for a specific game or worksheet with minutes to spare. Of course, you will have to print out any of the materials in advance, but in terms of planning a session, pre-made curriculums can save a ton of your valuable time.

If not using a pre-made curriculum, your will need to outline the topics you want to cover in each session and the overall and daily goal you’re aiming to achieve. As a school psychologist, I am always working towards my students’ specific counseling goal written in their IEP. However, if the student does not have an IEP, consult with the student’s parents or teachers to see if there were any specific situations of difficulty during the past few weeks that can guide your session planning topics.

Once you’ve determined your goal for the session, all that’s left to do is fill in the spaces in your outline with engaging, but helpful, activities that will help them learn a skill, reflect on their behavior, or discuss their areas of difficulty.

To see all of the CFPF pre-made counseling curriculums, please check out my different 6-24 week curriculums for a variety of counseling topics.

Tip #2 Develop Authentic Rapport and Trust

Getting students to like you and want to share with you can also be a bit of a challenge. It’s actually much easier with a small group to build rapport because the students with good social skills can model engagement and enthusiasm for participation. My secret weapon with both small group and individual counseling is always playing rapport building games. This makes things light, while creating moments of real discussion if you have the right game and questions.

Here are the games to play for rapport building, or “Getting to Know You”, with both individual and small group counseling. The Jenga one is always a hit, but if you only have a deck of cards, you can play the “cards” rapport building game.

When building rapport, do not do the following…

Ask a million questions. While I like to get to the point…no one wants to play the dating game in a counseling session. By having a fun activity, such as an “All about me” coloring worksheet or a “getting to Know you” cards or Jenga, you can learn general information about your student that can help facilitate discussions about what areas of their life or school they perceive as challenging. Good rapport building games generally do not have only counseling-related questions. You have to sneak those in with some fun ones in order to help the child relax and start sharing.

To see the Top 25 Rapport Building Counseling Questions, click here to check out this article.

Overshare about yourself… A little humanizing is good, but a lot is not. Counseling is not about you though. So, try to restrain your self-sharing.

Forget to mention the parameters of confidentiality... Make it brief, but make it clear

Use Engaging Activities that will Facilitate Meaningful Discussion

Counseling children is very different from therapy with adults. Your students may not have decided on their own to attend counseling. Other kids might not recognize their areas of difficulty. It can be hard to just bring up a topic of difficulty and get down to the why without any activity. Just talking. This is especially true for younger children.

Types of activities that can facilitate meaningful discussion can include a video, game, worksheet, or art-therapy activity. I like to mix it up week after week, so that the activity feels novel, even if the discussion topic is repetitive. Counseling can be like hammering a nail…It takes a few strikes to get it to sink in. Don’t worry if it feels like you are having the same discussion over and over again.

And don’t take it personally when your student does not show signs of progress. If the student just had mild sadness, anxiety, or behaviors, they probably wouldn’t need individual therapy. So, progress is going to take time and patience.

I have a student that I’ve been working with on using coping skills for weeks now. I’ve particularly focused on “Size of the Problem” and different types of calming strategies and breathing. He even has a behavior chart to reward him for calming down when frustrated. But did he have a meltdown over not getting a purple pipe-cleaner this week? Yes, he did.

Below are some examples of games and worksheets that I use with my students. Just click on any that you think may be helpful in supporting your student or students with their individual therapy and stay confident! You are doing great and I thank you for your good work and care for your students!

How to Get Counseling Activities… for FREE!

If you are hoping to find not just inexpensive, but FREE Counseling Activities, then you are in the right place! Subscribe to CounselingFannyPack.com and gain access to the Free Resource Library! In it, you will get new counseling activities that are updated monthly for subscribers! Just Click HERE to sign up for access!

 If you are OK with spending $3-$5 on a few fun counseling activities for your students, please just click the pictures within this post and they will all link you to the product in my Counseling Fanny Pack of Fun store.

The post 3 Tips for School Counselors for Improving your Confidence with Individual Counseling Sessions appeared first on The Counseling Fanny Pack.

Are you a School Counselor, School Psychologist, Teacher, or Parent looking to support students with improving their SELF-ESTEEM and learn to use POSITIVE THINKING???

If so, then perhaps this 10-week activity packet will help you provide the services that your student or students really need! The packet is made of all of the activities that I use when providing counseling for students who struggle with negative thinking patterns and low self-esteem. The activity packet includes an ordered curriculum with video lessons, games, worksheets, and arts and crafts. These activities are targeted to help students learn and also practice positive thinking and build self-esteem.

Why Positive Thinking and Self-Esteem are Connected

In my experience providing counseling students in grades K through 8, children’s thoughts are often the greatest influencer of their behaviors. For example, students that have low academic motivation and refuse to do schoolwork are often have negative thoughts include “I can’t”, “this too hard”, or “I’m stupid.” These patterns of negative thinking impact children’s emotions significantly. These negative emotions then influence their behaviors, often for the worst.

Negative Emotions and Behavior

Behaviors related to negative thinking patterns can range significantly from behaviors, such as crying to tantrums or all out violence. This is because their behaviors are an attempt to avoid one thing, negative feelings! Then, in an attempt to avoid what makes them feel sad or frustrated (a.k.a. schoolwork), children exhibit behaviors.

Sometimes it’s just one subject that a student might have negative thoughts about. Sometimes it’s all of their subjects! By doing observations you can typically figure out which subjects a student is thinking negatively about. This can better guide your counseling. Negative thinking at school might also be related to social situations or a general feeling of not fitting in with peers. When using the counseling games in this packet, you will be able to figure out and then work with your students on their specific areas of personal low self-esteem.

Other Impacts of Low Self-Esteem

Students with low self-esteem and negative thinking patterns may have other emotional issues that do not result in behaviors. Low self-esteem and negative thoughts can lead to emotional difficulties and mood disorders, such as depression or anxiety disorder. Just in this past school year I have worked with students whose negative thinking patters have lead to physical symptoms, including as IBS (Irritable Bowel Syndrome) and Tics. I’ve observed that students with tics will have their tics triggered when experiencing negative thoughts. So helping them with their thinking is the first step in helping them to decrease their tics.

Providing a Variety of Counseling Activities

Improving a child’s self-esteem is not going to happen over night or with just one video or game. Like teaching any new habit or skill, it will take time and a multi-modal approach. It will also take patience, as all bad habits are hard to extinguish. Because negative thinking is a habit of sorts, teaching kids to identify and then change their habit will take instruction and practice.

It may also take some convincing. When playing many of the games with my students, I will try to create opportunities to help them realize that most tasks that they perceive as too hard they often are able to do. Showing them that their perception is the issue and not the task itself is the key.

I might also point out past learning successes and demonstrate how far they have already come as a student. For example, I will remind older children that when they were younger they were not able to read at all or even add 1+1. Pointing out past accomplishments and recent ones is a great way to help children understand that they are capable of learning anything new, and have been capable all along.

The 10 WEEK Curriculum for Self-Esteem and Positive Thinking

In the 10-week curriculum there are a variety of activities that include video lessons, daily journaling, a social story play, worksheets, games, and an art project. This variety helps provide instruction while keeping things novel and engaging for students. All activities are designed to facilitate discussions with your students on when and how to change negative thoughts to positive thoughts when confronting challenges.

Click HERE to purchase 10-Week Curriculum in the Counseling Fanny Pack of Fun Store!

Videos

There are a few days where videos that provide instruction on improving self-esteem and using self esteem are paired with worksheets. There are also videos that are games for an interactive way for students to play a game that facilitates discussion and learning. Some video weeks also are paired with a journaling assignment. The journaling helps students pause and take a brief moment daily to reflect on positive events and accomplishments for the day.

Here is one of the game videos that are part of the curriculum:

Journaling Positive Thoughts

This Weekly journal is good to provide as a homework type of assignment. Within the curriculum it is assigned on two occasions in order to help students think about and practice positive self-talk. This activity and the additional journaling activity will help students take accountability for their positive thinking and begin to believe that thinking positively is not too difficult.

Self-Esteem and Positive Thinking Games

Games are always a fun way to engage students in learning and practicing social and emotional skills. Games also facilitate working on social skills through peer interactions, sharing, and turn taking during the games. The three games that are included in this packet are a card game, a JENGA game, and a board game. The Jenga and card games, however, do require a purchase of a deck of playing cards and Jenga or imitation Jenga game.

Arts and Crafts Activities

When creating a counseling curriculum for social and emotional learning, it is great to incorporate at least one arts and crafts activity. Making a picture or other art craft is a great hands-on learning tool for kinesthetic learners. One of the crafts projects that I use for working on positive thinking is decorating and personalizing motivational quotes.

In this activity, your students can pick from 20 choices for motivational quotes and positive affirmations. (Individual Resource with 50 Quotes shown above.) Then, they can color their affirmation and mount it on construction paper with a string to hang. This a good activity for them to have as a keep-sake and reminder of using positive thinking when at home. It also is a good activity to take home, so their parents can see what they are learning in counseling.

For More SEL & Counseling Activities…

Please check out my Teachers pay Teachers store, Counseling Fanny Pack of Fun! It has over 150 products, including games, worksheets, forms, and activity books full of counseling and Social-Emotional Learning for students in Pre-K through 8th grades.

If you are just looking for games, my newest product is a HUGE BUNDLE that has 22 Small Group and Individual Counseling games for every topic, including Social Skills, Empathy, Manners, Anger Management, Coping Skills, Emotional-Regulation, Conflict Resolution, and MORE!

If you’d like to check out any of the games featured in this article…

Please just click on the picture and it will take you to the product in my Teachers pay Teachers store. If you’d like to check out other topics in my store, please click on the topic below to see what I might have for you and your students. Happy Counseling!

BEHAVIOR TOOLS

SOCIAL SKILLS

COPING SKILLS

EMPATHY

SELF-ESTEEM

The post Counseling Activities for Improving Kids Self-Esteem and Positive Thinking appeared first on The Counseling Fanny Pack.

Having confidence can be such an important factor in academic success. As a School Psychologist, I am constantly working with students on issues of self-esteem and negative thinking patterns when facing challenges. Many students develope anxiety about certain subjects or engage in avoidance behaviors because of their negative thinking patterns, which can be very powerful. Negative thoughts can lead to school avoidance, low self-esteem, aggression, and bullying.

When counseling students, it is important to retrain students to use positive thinking when facing challenges instead of negative thoughts. This will lead to them being able to better overcome academic difficulties and be patient with their learning. It takes time, instruction, and practice for children to learn to use positive thinking, as using negative thinking has become a habit that is hard to break. This is because jumping to the negative can feel much more comfortable than believing the positive for some people, not just kids.

One key to helping a student begin to believe in their mental ability to learn is to have them learn and use positive affirmations.

Finding affirmations that they can believe in and say to themselves daily can be a great practice, and can really help in battling off the “I can’t” monster. It can even be like a mantra, which is a statement repeated frequently that is typically used to overcome an obstacle. In order to help them find their own mantra or use daily affirmations, it is helpful to have them feel connected to a positive affirmation that they like and can believe. This will help them better make it a daily habit that will lead to positive results and a more positive attitude towards learning.

Here are 50 positive Affirmations that can help support building ACADEMIC SELF-ESTEEM:

1. I Eat Math Problems For Breakfast!
2. I Am A Focused Student!
3. I Am Getting Smarter Every Day!
4. A Positive Mindset Will Be My Path To Success In School!
5. Challenges Will Help Me Grow!
6. I Will Keep Trying Until I Succeed
7. I Can Do Anything If I Put My Mind To It!
8. I Am Awesome At Trying Hard Things
9. I Am A Responsible Student
10. I Won’t Stress. I’ll Try My Best!
11. Asking For Help Is The Path To Learning Success!
12. I am Creative!
13. Math Is My Friend!
14. Today’s Reader Is Tomorrow’s Leader!
15. I Defeat The “I Can’t” Monster Every Day
16. I Believe In ME!
17. I Will NOT Quit!
18. Learning Hurdles Are Awesome For My Brain
19. I am Doing My Best Every Day.
20. I Can Change The World
21. School Is Important To Me
22. I Welcome Challenges.
23. Learning Takes The Patience That I Have
24. I Am Intelligent!
25. I Am A Fast Learner!
26. I Can Learn To Read With Speed
27. I Am Brave Enough To Try Again
28. I’ll Only Learn From Making Mistakes
29. My Learning Journey Starts With The First Step
30. Accepting Help Shows My Strength
31. My Calm Mind Will Learn With Ease
32. I Am Proud Of My Effort Every Day
33. I Embrace Mistakes
34. Learning Is My Super Power
35. I Am Unstoppable!
36. I Always Try To Do My Best
37. I Won’t Just Try. I’ll DO!
38. I Am Going To Reach My Goals!
39. Learning Is Easy When I Try
40. It’s OK If I Don’t Know Yet!
41. I’m Going To Make Myself Proud Today
42. Happiness Comes With The Journey. Not Just The Result.
43. A Positive Attitude Is The Key To My Success!
44. I Deserve All Of My Success In School
45. I Won’t Stop Until I Reach My Goals
46. I Ride The Success Train Every Day
47. I Stay Positive No Matter What
48. I Believe That I Am Super Smart
49. I Am Exceptional!
50. School Feels Good To Me

If you are a School Psychologist, Teacher, School Counselor, or Parent and would like an activity to do with your students using these positive affirmations, please check out my product below. It is an arts and crafts project for students to make and keep that will help remind them of using positive thinking daily.

The post 50 Positive Affirmations for Academic Success appeared first on The Counseling Fanny Pack.

I really like to use videos for my counseling sessions every few weeks. Yes, it makes for an easier counseling session for the most part. But, with the perfect video, I can facilitate a therapy session that can be really productive. The right video is one that is specific to the age of the student, specific skill that they are in need of developing, and can help teach something novel.

There are a few reasons to use videos instead of just talking about a child’s issues or giving them a worksheet activity. The first is that it provides information that the student may have heard from you already, but in an entertaining format. Kids like and respond well to information presented as a cartoon, peer talking, or fun song. Children find it much more fun to watch a video than listen to a grown up (a.k.a. you).

However, you don’t have to stay silent. Use the videos to ask questions and help facilitate discussion during your sessions. Just pause it when something comes up that can help you formulate a question, or bring up a similar situation that your student had during the week. Now that’s good counseling. 

1. Pop the Negative talk:

This videos helps explain what negative self talk is. It normalizes the negative thinking patters and shows how to replace it by “popping” their negative talk bubbles. Then explains positive self-talk.

2. Keeping Calm – Building Resilience with Hunter and Eve:

This video is for K-3 students mostly. It shows an example to feeling scared and gives a strategy of controlled breathing.

3. Mindfulness Coloring Song

This is a cute song that can go along with a discussion of the benefits of mindfulness coloring. I love counseling sessions where we just listen to calm and happy music and just color.

4. Thought Bubbles Mindfulness for Children 4 min

This is a short meditation for children. It starts with a short explanation of thought bubbles.

5. (K-3) KIDS MEDITATION – SQUARE BREATHING (Focus & Calm)

This is a very focused video on teaching a great strategy for self-regulation. I made a corresponding “Calming Helper Tool” below to go along with this video. I will often show the video to my students, and then give them the tool to use on their own in the classroom after their session.

6. (3-5 )Mindful 5 minute breathing exercise

This is a short mindfulness meditation that students can do sitting up.

7. Grades (K-3) Meltdown Compilation: Stress Relief for Kids-Learning Breathing for Relaxation

This video is a compilation of several types of mindfulness practice. Students generally like to watch it, not just listen, for the instruction of how to breath.

8. (K-2) Yoga for kids with animals – Smile and Learn

This Yoga video is for younger children mostly. Animals do beginning Yoga poses.

9. Two minutes Mindfulness: Balloon Breaths/Belly Breaths – Breathing exercise for Children

This is another very short breathing instructional exercise to teach deep breathing as a calming strategy.

10. Safe House Chill Pill for Calm: A guided visualization story

Have students learn about guided visualization with this short video.

11. The Balance Breath – Alternate Nostril Breathing Exercise I Mindfulness for classrooms

This calming strategy is an amazing tool for students to learn. It really works and is easy to learn and practice.

 12. Zen Den- 7 minute video on Mindfulness

One of the best videos that I use quite often to teach students about mental health and “Mindfulness.”

13. Feel more optimistic 10 minute Guided Meditation

This is a 10 minute meditation that students should do laying down if possible. It is just long enough to help them relax and learn the benefits of using mindfulness meditation.

14. Deep breathing for kids.

This video has a pediatrician talk to kids about how to do deep breathing.

15. Popcorn the Dolphin | A Cosmic Kids Yoga Adventure!

This Yoga video is another Cosmic Kids video. Yoga is another great tool that students can learn to calm their bodies and minds.

The post Helpful Videos to teach Mindfulness and Positive Thinking in Schools appeared first on The Counseling Fanny Pack.

Self-Esteem is so important for children, of course. As a School Psychologist, I have learned that low Self-Esteem is often the root behind many behavioral issues in the class, poor anger control, and negative peer interactions. It is also often the consequence of students having difficulty controlling their behaviors, having negative peer interactions, and difficulties learning. Think of the classic Chicken and Egg question. Here are some activities that I use for students with low self-esteem in their counseling sessions.

1)Videos for Elementary School-Aged Children About Self-Esteem, Confidence, Positive Affirmations, and Positive Thinking:

I like using videos, when appropriate, for some of my counseling students. Videos are a great tool because children learn best from a multi-modal approach. That includes videos, particularly when they are videos that have similar aged peers, have some modeling or examples, and are moderately entertaining. Here are several videos that I have used in my own counseling sessions with students that need support in the area of Self-Esteem.

Confidence

10 Positive Thinking Strategies 

2) Games

I have made a few games that I can play with students either in-person or through the Zoom share-screen for teletherapy counseling. Games help engage students much better than worksheets in my opinion. Games help students to increase their engagement in counseling and do not require writing or other sustained effort tasks that students do not often want to do. After all, they come willingly to your office probably to avoid a few minutes of academic demands. By making counseling a little bit fun, they can learn in a way that is also enjoyable for them.

Here is one of my Self-Esteem focused games: The Self-Esteem Card Game

The Positive Thinking Game also helps students learn and think about their own negative self talk, so that they can better identify their negative thinking patterns.

3) Positive Thinking Presentation With BINGO Game

Made for Upper Elementary School students or Middle School students. Teach your students about positive thinking through this ready-made presentation. There is a BINGO game that goes along with it to help maintain engagement and attention.

4) Worksheets

Last school year I wrote a short play, called the “Positive Thinking Super Heroes Play” with worksheet activities. I had the students decorate super hero masks and then I filmed them, wearing eye and face masks performing the play. They had a lot of fun, and the video turned out great. While I am not going to put it on YouTube, I was able to show them their video at the end of the school year. In addition to the play, I created two worksheets that go along with the activity (see below).

Self-Esteem Weekly Journal

Journals are always a great tool that can help students become more self-aware of their own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. By assigning your counseling student to complete a weekly self esteem journal, they can increase their self-awareness and practice focusing on the positives in their day and week.

5) Self-Esteem Art Activities

Arts and crafts are another type of counseling session activity that can be used to support students with self esteem. Activities can range from writing a “Self-Esteem Poem” or by Coloring a paper with a Motivational Quote on it. I turn both items into door or wall-hanger pieces of art for students to hang in their bedrooms. I usually also make a sample before the session, so that they can see the final product, and I can then have counseling artwork to hang in my office.

These games and worksheets for helping children learn about and build SELF ESTEEM are available in my new book (April 2022), The School Psych’s Handbook for the Best School Year EVER! Plus 9 more School Based Counseling topics, including Mindfulness, Coping Skills, Social Skills, and Anger Management are included with over 40 counseling activities.

Available as PDF download on Teachers Pay Teachers in my store, Counseling Fanny Pack of FUN. Just click below to learn more.

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