High school clinicians play a significant role in supporting students’ ability to stay calm and manage their emotions effectively. Self-regulation does not always come naturally for teenagers, particularly when faced with academic challenges, peer interactions, or stressful life changes. Building these skills equips students with lifelong tools for managing stress and responding to difficult situations in thoughtful, healthy ways.

Everyday Speech’s interactive Helpful and Unhelpful Strategies resource provides an engaging, hands-on method for developing these critical competencies in your classroom or therapeutic setting.

What Is Staying Calm?

Staying calm refers to the ability to maintain composure and emotional balance, especially when experiencing frustration, anger, anxiety, or disappointment. For high school students, this skill involves recognizing and managing emotional triggers, pausing before reacting, selecting appropriate coping strategies, and evaluating outcomes. Staying calm is a key part of self-regulation, which allows individuals to move beyond impulsive reactions and approach challenges with a clear and focused mindset.

Several components make up the skill of staying calm:

• Emotional recognition: Identifying feelings as they arise.
• Emotional control: Managing the intensity or outward expression of emotions.
• Strategy selection: Choosing ways to cope that reduce distress and support positive outcomes.
• Reflection: Evaluating which strategies were helpful and planning for future situations.

High school students are constantly faced with stressors, both in and out of the classroom. Developing tools for staying calm is essential for navigating academic deadlines, peer relationships, extracurricular activities, and even everyday personal matters.

Why Teach Staying Calm?

Teaching strategies to stay calm lays a foundation for resilience and effective problem-solving in high schoolers. Some reasons to focus on this skill include:

• Supports academic engagement by preventing overwhelm in high-pressure circumstances.
• Reduces the likelihood of conflicts or impulsive actions during social interactions.
• Fosters emotional awareness, which can enhance empathy and social connection.
• Encourages independence by equipping students to manage their own responses.
• Promotes positive mental health by increasing the use of adaptive coping mechanisms.
• Prepares students for transitions beyond high school, such as work or college environments with higher expectations.

Effective self-regulation is strongly linked to positive school experiences, reduced discipline incidents, and improved overall well-being. For students who struggle with emotion regulation, explicit instruction and guided practice with these strategies can be transformative.

Lesson Plan: Using Helpful and Unhelpful Strategies

The “Helpful and Unhelpful Strategies” interactive activity is designed for easy implementation and is adaptable to a variety of classroom or counseling environments. Download the resource here: Helpful and Unhelpful Strategies PDF.

Step 1: Introduction to Self-Regulation (5 minutes)

Begin with a whole-group discussion introducing the concept of self-regulation. Present this as the ability to manage emotions so that they do not dictate actions. Make connections to the demands and stressors unique to high school, such as handling multiple assignments, social pressures, or family responsibilities.

Prompt students to reflect on questions such as:

• What does it feel like when you are overwhelmed?
• What are some things people do to calm themselves down?
• Why is it sometimes hard to choose helpful ways to calm down in the moment?

Ground the conversation in real-life situations relevant to your students, emphasizing that strong self-regulation skills are valuable for everyone.

Step 2: Introduce the Interactive Sorting Activity (2 minutes)

Explain that students will now examine various strategies people might use when feeling upset, anxious, frustrated, or angry. Emphasize that the goal is to sort these strategies into two categories: Helpful and Unhelpful.

Provide context for what “helpful” means in this setting: Strategies are helpful if they lower stress appropriately, solve or reduce the problem, and do not create other difficulties in the long run. Unhelpful strategies might offer only short-term relief or make the situation worse.

Examples include:

• Participating in mindfulness activities (helpful)
• Overthinking a frustrating situation (unhelpful)

Step 3: Sorting Activity (10 minutes)

Choose the grouping model that suits your setting—individuals, pairs, small groups, or a whole-class activity. Distribute the strategy cards, either digitally via an interactive whiteboard/tablets or printed out on paper. Students review each card, discuss meanings, and then work to decide whether each strategy belongs in the “Helpful” or “Unhelpful” category.

Key strategies to emphasize may include:

• Helpful: Deep breathing, taking a walk, talking with a trusted adult, journaling, mindfulness practices, using positive self-talk.
• Unhelpful: Avoiding the problem entirely, lashing out at others, ruminating (replaying the upsetting event in your mind repeatedly), suppressing emotions without addressing them, seeking out conflict, substance misuse.

Encourage students to justify their sorting decisions and support peer discussion by prompting with questions or scenarios.

Step 4: Discussion and Reflection (10 minutes)

Reconvene as a class for groups or pairs to share their sorted lists. Facilitate a discussion on why certain strategies are more effective than others. Use prompts such as:

• What makes a strategy helpful in both the short and long term?
• Can a strategy be helpful in one situation but unhelpful in another?
• How did your group decide on the most helpful strategies?

Depending on responses, reinforce the message that some strategies might give temporary relief but create bigger problems later, while others might feel effortful but are healthier in the long run.

If disagreements arise about a strategy’s category, encourage open discussion so students can hear different points of view. This validates diverse perspectives and highlights that some coping strategies are situational.

Step 5: Personal Application and Goal Setting (3 minutes)

After the discussion, guide students to independently reflect on which helpful strategies they are already using, and which unhelpful ones they recognize in their own habits. Invite them to write down or share one helpful strategy they plan to use the next time they feel overwhelmed.

This step personalizes the activity, reinforcing internalization of the skill.

Supporting Staying Calm After the Activity

The interactive sorting activity is a launchpad for ongoing practice and reinforcement of staying calm. Here are practical ways clinicians and teachers can support continued development of these skills:

• Daily check-ins: Begin class or sessions with a quick emotion check, inviting students to name their feelings and recall a helpful strategy they could use if needed.
• Strategy reminders: Display a classroom poster or digital slide summarizing helpful strategies. Reference the list during times of stress (e.g., before big assignments, during transitions).
• Modeling: Demonstrate using helpful strategies yourself. If a stressful moment arises, narrate taking a deep breath or pausing to think before responding.
• Role-playing: Incorporate role-play scenarios into lessons or counseling to practice choosing and applying helpful strategies in real time.
• Reflection prompts: Regularly ask reflective questions such as: What made it easier or harder to stay calm today? Did you notice a strategy that helped?
• Celebration: Recognize when students successfully use helpful strategies by providing positive feedback. Celebrate small victories to encourage continued growth.

Extending practice beyond the initial lesson is key for true skill-building.

Wrapping Up: Building Resilience Through Self-Regulation

Empowering high school students to identify and apply helpful self-regulation strategies is essential for their success in both school and life. The Helpful and Unhelpful Strategies activity—a no-prep interactive sorting task—offers an accessible avenue to introduce, discuss, and practice these skills in a meaningful way.

By facilitating thoughtful categorization and discussion, educators equip students to recognize the difference between strategies that soothe and support versus those that mask problems or cause harm. When students are able to differentiate between helpful and unhelpful actions, they can make more informed decisions the next time they face stressful situations.

Ongoing reinforcement, real-world application, and a supportive classroom environment help these skills become second nature. High schoolers who can stay calm, reflect before reacting, and choose effective coping tools are better prepared for the increasingly complex challenges of adolescence and young adulthood. Incorporate this interactive activity and related follow-ups as part of a continuous effort to nurture emotional resilience, independence, and confidence in every student.