In this blog, we are going to discuss eight coping skills activities for high school students. These useful techniques can help students manage their lives better so that they can face their problems in an optimal way. Readers will first be introduced to what coping skills are. Then, we will describe these activities in detail.

What are some Coping Skills Activities for High School Students?

Here is a list of coping skills activities that high school students can try to cope better with their problems:

Giving Your Body Adequate Movement
Coping Through Social Interaction
Grounding Techniques
Relaxation Techniques
Breaking Down Problems
Getting Adequate Rest
Prioritising Self-Care

What are Coping Skills?

No matter who you are or what your circumstances are, life can get pretty stressful for us all. A coping skill is a way to deal with this stress either by minimising its impact or increasing your tolerance. Coping skills can help with any kind of distress, whether it’s because of a relationship, conflict, emergency, illness, or change.

There are different types of coping skills and their examples vary based on the type. Each type focuses on a particular part or mechanism of the body to make it less challenging to deal with the stressor.

Since high school students tend to struggle with their future plans, academics, interpersonal relationships, and self-image, their coping skills must address these concerns.

8 Coping Skills Activities for High School Students

In this section, we will discuss how certain coping skills activities can help high school students with the above-mentioned problems. Let’s begin!

Giving Your Body Adequate Movement

In high school, it is very important to focus on performance and excellence as it affects the quality of your college applications. However, this does not mean that teens need to focus entirely on their studies and extracurricular activities.

They also need to make sure that their bodies are getting adequate movement. Sitting at a desk all day leads to a sedentary lifestyle and may cause bodily issues like lethargy, weight gain, and irregular circulation.

That’s why an important coping skill for high school students is to get regular physical activity. This can be done through walking, running, calisthenics, aerobics, dancing, or working out.

Coping Through Social Interaction

Research shows that having strong and meaningful social connections is correlated to longer, healthier, and happier lives. As teenagers, high school students greatly value their peers and social circle.

It is the age when they shift from prioritising their familial relations to their peer groups. When you have supportive relationships, it makes it easier to cope with stressful situations. Hence, high school students must learn how to interact with other kids and build long-lasting relationships.

Grounding Techniques

A grounding technique is a way to manage strong emotions, painful memories, and trigger reactions. Generally, these focus on engaging your sensory organs to ground you in the present moment.

Some techniques also help you distract your mind and defuse the tension inside you. Though helpful for people of all ages, grounding techniques can be an excellent coping activity for high school students too. Especially since they’re easy to learn and practice.

Some examples of grounding techniques are butterfly hug, tapping, 3-2-1 method, and foghorn breathing.

Relaxation Techniques

Similar to grounding techniques, relaxation strategies can also pose as an effective coping skill activity for high school students. The idea is to relax the student’s muscles to give a signal to the brain that they are not in danger.

Stress normally occurs because of the fight or flight response which tells the body that there is a physical threat nearby. But factually, the stressors in a teenager’s life are more perceived than actual threats. For example, an exam, a deadline, interpersonal relationships, and thoughts about the future.

None of these can be dealt with using fighting or fleeing so it’s best to just switch off the response. Relaxing your muscles is the best way to do that.

Breaking Down Problems

An important life skill that can be taught to high school students is the ability to break down a problem into baby steps. This is a brilliant way to cope as it makes the challenge more approachable.

One can start by creating lists of everything that needs to get done. Then, with the right resources, each little problem must be solved to fix the whole problem.

For example, if you have an exam tomorrow that you’re unprepared for, your list can look like this:

Find out the syllabus
Categorise the syllabus into familiar and unfamiliar
Categorise both of these into easy and hard
Start with a hard unfamiliar topic
Get help from a tutor/the internet
Compile important notes in a binder
Get enough sleep and food
Go through the easy topics in the morning
Look at the binder when complete

Getting Adequate Rest

You’ll notice how we included getting sleep in the to-do list above. Most people, especially high school students, tend to forget that they need to get 6-8 hours of sleep for their brain and body to function well.

Without sleep, it’s unlikely that you will be able to learn, memorise, think sharp, or perform your best. It’s not just sleep, one also needs to tune into their body and figure out whether any part needs a specific kind of rest.

Sore muscles will need massaging, tired limbs will need a break, sickness will need healing, and so on. One of the best ways to cope is getting yourself the rest you need.

Prioritising Self-Care

Often, when we’re preoccupied with everything that needs to get done, we lose sight of our personal needs. As high school students with not much life experience, this tends to happen a lot.

All-nighters, countless hours working, not getting enough food, rest, movement, or grooming typically reduce your ability to perform. You think you’re getting a lot done but in the long-term, it proves counterproductive.

Therefore, it’s imperative to learn the coping skill of self-care. Keep in mind the following self-care points and you’re good to go:

You need nutrition
You need rest
You need movement
You need relationships
You need creativity
You need to feel inspired
You need purpose

Conclusion

In this blog, we discussed eight coping skills activities for high school students. These useful techniques can help students manage their lives better so that they can face their problems in an optimal way. Readers were first introduced to what coping skills are. Then, we described these activities in detail.

The coping skills activities mentioned here included Giving Your Body Adequate Movement, Coping Through Social Interaction, Grounding Techniques, Relaxation Techniques, Breaking Down Problems, Getting Adequate Rest, and Prioritising Self-Care.

FAQs (Coping Skills Activities for High School Students)

What are the 5 types of coping strategies?

There are many types of coping strategies that help people deal with their issues better. These can be categorised into the following five types:

Emotion-focussed
Action-focussed
Solution-focussed
Self-care
Identifying resources

How can I help my teenager with coping skills?

Teenage is quite a stressful period because of major transitions in one’s body and priorities. To help your teenager develop coping skills for the same, try the following techniques:

Giving Your Body Adequate Movement
Coping Through Social Interaction
Grounding Techniques
Relaxation Techniques
Breaking Down Problems
Getting Adequate Rest
Prioritising Self-Care

What are 4 examples of positive coping strategies?

Coping strategies often develop without conscious thought because we all need to figure out how to deal with our stress. However, these aren’t always considered healthy or positive because of the way they affect us in the long run. Here are four examples of positive coping strategies that you can opt for:

Talking to friends, family, or a mental health professional
Learning how to process and express emotions in healthy ways
Engaging in physical activity and exercise
Taking care of nutrition and sleep

References

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7 Coping Skills Activities for High School Students