Life-Changing Lessons for Girls

Our school division is looking for evidence-based resources for our school counseling program. The Peace Center's Bullying Prevention Resource Center in Pennsylvania has put together a program "Girls Unlimited" and published the curriculum through youthlight.com Every girl in grades 6 and 7 could benefit from participation in these 6 forty five minute sessions. Topics include:

• How to recognize their own emotions and treat themselves and others with kindness and respect.
•Practical ways to manage their anger or upset
•How to intervene when witnessing relational aggression
•The meaning of self-respect and self-care
•The value of trust

•The importance of women bonding togetherWhile the curriculum is self-explanatory 

My favorite part of the curriculum is Power Play which allows participants to discover that they have the ability to trust their own instincts and not hand over their power to others. I like that the evaluation is built in to the curriculum and that the developers are continuing to track the effectiveness of the program. 

Although the curriculum is self-explanatory Karin Kasdin, Founding Director of Girls Unlimited does offer one-day facilitator training through thepeacecenter.org I encourage you to check out this evidence-based resource to address relational aggression.

Preparing and Starting Small Groups

The most important stage of successful groups is pre-group planning. I taught group counseling in a graduate program for 10 years and my graduate students heard me say this over and over. I start groups by looking at the referral reasons and screening students to see if they are willing to participate in a group. In the fall most of my referrals come from parents and my prior knowledge of students, but the round I begin second semester is primarily focused on students who teachers feel need tier 2 support. I build my group sessions around the ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors and student needs, If I can find quality resources for small groups I am delighted to use the plans and activities others have spent time piloting. The groups I am starting this week for my third graders are based on two resources I shared back in October. 

Boys: I am adapting seven lessons from First Steps to Social Success by Senn youthlightsocialsuccess for my KNIGHTS group with boys. I selected the knight theme to tie this group together because that is our school mascot. Our first activity is a shield that helps identify strengths and uniqueness. I constructed the pre/psot group survey based on what I thought they needed and the objectives for each session.

Girls: I am implementing the group StarBound by Miller youthlightstarBound with the girls. We used the StarBound resource with a fifth grade group that started in the fall and meets every other week but this resource has multiple activities with each session topic so you can implement it in more than one grade level (it is a grade 3-8 resource). The StarBound resource is linked to the ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors. Depending on how many sessions and what activities you select it covers most of the Mindsets and many of the Behaviors. I prefer to focus on 1-2 Behaviors a session so I selected: B-LS 1 B-LS 2; B-SMS 1 B-SMS 7; and B-SS 1 B-SS 2 B-SS 4 B-SS 5 B-SS 6 B-SS 7 B-SS 8

StarBound has a student survey but I created my own because I prefer to gather Perception Data with the type of pre/post surveys explained in the ASCA National Model Implementation Guide nationalmodelbooks Most of mine use a Likert scale with an even number of choices, forcing a positive or negative (rather than neutral) response. I also use scaling techniques to describe beliefs and open ended questions to assess knowledge.

When students come to the first session of group I have a folder for each member ready to go with a cover that is our opening session main activity, an attendance sheet with topics for each session, a copy of group rules or group contract, and the pre-group survey. I keep these folders in my office and everything members do gets kept in them to go home after the last session, except the pre/post-group surveys. Time is precious in group so this level of preparation is needed so I can focus on the process aspect of group once students are in my office.

Body Image Concerns and Resources

Kids are starting to develop concerns about body image at younger ages than you might think, According to a 2015 report by Common Sense Media body image is learned very young. Children are aware of body issues and methods to control body size and appearance by the time they are preschoolers, and many young children start exhibiting socially motivated distortions in their body perceptions. The report, Children, Teens, Media, and Body Image, is a compilation of the existing research on how kids and teens feel about their bodies, "I think there's a lot of talk about teens and body image, and many parents become aware of that when kids hit puberty, but kids as young as 5 are already expressing a desire for a body that is thinner than their current self or future self," said the author of the report. More than half of girls and one-third of boys as young as 6 to 8 think their ideal weight is thinner than their current size.By age 7, one in four kids has engaged in some kind of dieting behavior. I encourage you to read the report body-image-report.pdf
CNN reporter Kelly Wallace used the Common Sense Media report to put together a special story with videos and a summary of key points in the research that is very informative http://body-image-kids-younger-ages/
What can we do to help young students develop a positive body image?
Kids Matter has a great article with the reason why schools need to be involved as well as tips for working with parents kidsmatter.edu.building-body-image-school I incorporate biblio counseling in many of my lessons and small groups. A great summary of good books on this important topic is at Celebrating Every Body: 25 Body Image Positive Books for Mighty Girls I want to add 2 of my own new favorites The Inner-Beauty Secret by Keisha Howard (2015) that I have shared before and Julia Morphs and Learns to Accept Herself by Rosalinde Block (2017). These are both available from https://youthlight.com  Both these books speak to kids who are anxious about being “different,” to recognize the unique, inner beauty that is within them.  There are posters available to download to accompany Julia Morphs. In my school body image is a hot topic among our second grade girls (and parents) so this is where I am using these two books on self-acceptance.

The Inner-Beauty Secret

Keisha Howard is a school counselor and a girl's self-esteem coach. You can follow her on Twitter @MyCoachKeisha. The Inner-Beauty Secret published by https://youthlight.com addresses character and body image. It emphasizes the importance of kindness and caring over "beauty." I have used it with a self-esteem group and a girl's empowerment group. The message and illustration are appealing to Pre-Kindergarten through third graders. The people in the book are racially diverse. At the end of the story are 10 discussion questions and tips for parents and educators. There is also information how to download free follow-up worksheets. There is also a comprehensive list of other resources on this topic including pearl-girls.org/ and bodypositive.com/

"Princess Machine" Great Video