School Counselor Curriculum on Social Media

While I exercise my stress management unit with my 7th graders, one affair ever pops up as a stressor: social media. My students talk about everything from feeling similar to need to purchase cooler things to feeling like they need to expect differently later on comparing themselves to their peers and to celebrities online. Ironically, I got an idea for a lesson while scrolling Instagram. Social media tin exist awesome too, after all. If social media is a stressor for your students, keep reading to detect the social media lesson that was a huge hit with my middle school students!

Social Media Lesson: Social Media Stress in Teens

Warm Up:

To kicking things off, I had my students work with a partner to talk about this: how might social media affect your mental and emotional health? There were some really insightful thoughts that came from this activity:

• Can social media have positive and negative influences?
• If you don't use social media, can information technology still affect your mental wellness?
• Can you become addicted to social media?

Ted Talk:

After this discussion, nosotros watched a TedTalk almost exactly this. Many of the students' questions were answered by this talk!

Afterward, we talked about highlight reels and social currency. This really resonated with my students, every bit they said they oftentimes deleted pictures that didn't get enough likes or felt the need to constantly check how many likes they get.

At this point, I had a few students who shared that they had actually deleted sure social media apps and talked about how they felt improve. Others chimed in to say that they but unfollow accounts that make them feel bad about themselves. Some students said they could never delete apps or unfollow people for fear of beingness left out or making others upset. I was happy to sit back and let them have the lead on this discussion and information technology was a actually productive talk! Only at the terminate we arrived at one question: how can teens use social media in a way that doesn't crusade unnecessary stress?

Instagram Inspiration

You lot might remember I mentioned that my inspiration for this lesson came from Instagram. One of my favorite accounts to follow is Positively Nowadays by Dani DiPirro. She's an creative person who posts encouraging, inspiration, and funny illustrations that I always observe myself saving. She created an illustration of "apps I need on my telephone," and I knew this would exist the perfect affair to show my students.

Creative Activeness:

Then, I challenged my students to create their own telephone apps to draw things that create happiness in their lives instead of stress. There were some really insightful responses like hugs from parents, puppy snuggles, time with a volume, and more than. I won't post any of the students' work here, simply I will share the exemplar I fabricated to show them:

Try it:

Is social media a stressor for your students? This activity was loose and more often than not student-led, which is what I loved about it! You can download the complimentary outline and handout for the social media lesson here. It was a great style to become those students who do experience social media-related stress to think about alternative activities where they can put their attending.

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