Emotion Management Group

Session Plans Outline

Session One:

1. Purpose: Initial Stage - Introductions, Confidentiality, and Group Norms

2. Goals:
Students will get to know each other by name and also focus on positive aspects
of themselves and the other group members.
Students will learn what confidentiality is and how to practice it within and
outside of the group.
Students will establish their own group norms that will be followed throughout
the group.

3. Time Required: 50 minutes.

4. Materials Needed:
Large piece of paper
Markers

5. Content and Process:

Introductions
Because we want to focus on the students strengths, our introduction
name-game will include the student saying his name preceding a positive
attribute of himself that begins with the same letter. For example, a
student could say Smart Sam or Helpful Hank. The goal of this
activity is to immediately begin strength based processing.
Confidentiality
This will include explaining to the students what confidentiality is, what
the limits to it are, and how they can practice it themselves.
The dialogue will include asking the students feel when a friend
tells one of their secrets and link it to keeping what happens in the
group a secret as well.
Depending on the schools confidentiality policies, the group leader may
have to disclose that things can be shared with parents and faculty.
It is important for the group leader to make clear what they are
instructed to share with faculty/staff/parents in order to create trust
in the group.
 Because the students attend school together, it is also important to explain
to them not to talk about group with each other.
Again, using metaphors that mirror group can be helpful. For
example, asking how they feel when two of their other friends
watch a movie without them and then are able to talk about it with
each other and then they feel behind and not as involved.
Group Norms
Establishing group norms is an activity that the students can take control
of.
The group leader will have a large sheet of paper and ask the group what
kind of guidelines they would like to see in their group.
These norms can be pulled out for each session as a reminder to the group.
To avoid irrelevance, the group leader will have a handful of norms that
they would recommend to students as well.
These can include norms such as
Do not use vulgar language.
Wait your turn to talk.
Respect each others opinions.
Use I-statements.

6. Evaluation:
The leader will assess the introductions by having the students go around and
repeat the other members names.
Students will sign a confidentiality agreement that provides a definition and asks
for to sign if they understand.
Norms will be assessed throughout the session by analyzing whether or not the
students abide by them.
Norms can be added or subtracted based off of feedback.

7. Homework/Follow-up Activities:
Students will be asked to think about the group norms and bring any new ones
that they would like to include to the next session.

Session Two:

1. Purpose: Transition Stage - Increase group cohesiveness, Discuss goal of group

2. Goals:
Students will effectively work with one another.
 The leader and students will establish trust and cohesiveness within the group.
Students will discuss and understand the groups overarching goal of anger
management.

3. Time Required: 50 minutes.

4. Materials Needed:
The sheet of paper with the groups norms.

5. Content and Process:

Review of last session and introduction to future sessions.
Confidentiality will be briefly reviewed.
The norms will be on the sheet of paper in the room. The overarching
goal of the group, Anger Management Techniques, will be explained.
Not in a way that demeans the students and draws attention to their
flaws.
It will be reiterated that these are areas of improvement and the
students are going to learn helpful skills, they are not being
punished.
ACTIVITY: The Computer Game
The activity goals are to assist students in getting acquainted and develop
listening skills.
It requires the group leader to split the students into two groups.
The leader then explains to the students that each group is a computer and
each member is a computer chip.
When the leader asks a question, the computer will have to process the
chips to create an answer.
For example, if the leader says Tell me your names, the chips
will state their names and as a computer they will sort into
alphabetical order.
This is a great way to reiterate names as well as work
together.
The group leader can ask many different questions such as
Tell me your favorite color,
How many people live in your house?
What would you buy first if you won a million dollars?
DISCUSSION: Anger Management
Each student will say one word that comes to mind when they think about
being angry.
 The leader could present the words fists or frustration as
examples.
After each student has gone, the leader will then ask them to share a word
that they associate with management.
For example, deep breaths.
6. Evaluation:
ACTIVITY: The Computer Game
Students will discuss the activity and how it worked within the group.
DISCUSSION: Anger Management
The words that the students use to describe management can be re-
assessed at the end of group.

7. Homework / Follow Up Activities:

The leader will ask the members to each think of a goal around anger
management that they will bring in and share with the group next week.

Session Three:

1. Purpose: Transition Stage - Goal setting, Discuss empathy

2. Goals:
Students will set their individual goals as well as discuss the other group
members.
Students will learn the importance of empathy and apply it to anger, bullying, etc.

3. Time Required: 50 minutes.

4. Materials needed:
The sheet of paper with the groups norms
Notecards
Writing utensils
Paper pieces of a puzzle

5. Content and Process:

ICEBREAKER
The icebreaker will include each student saying their name and if they
could be any superhero, which one they would be.
The goal of this activity is to create a shared space between the group
members.
 Because the sessions meet in the middle of the school day, it is
important to get the students attention.
ACTIVITY: Completing the Puzzle
This activitys goals are to help members become better acquainted with
one another, reflect on the purpose of the group, understand the difference
between individual and group goals, and identify assets that each member
contributes to the group.
Each student will receive a notecard, a writing utensil, and a piece of a
paper puzzle.
The puzzle pieces will come together to spell GROUP.
The leader will then ask each student to write their goal on one side of the
notecard and one contribution they believe they can make as a member of
the group.
When finished, the students will read their goal and strength to the group.
Then, they will place their puzzle piece in the center of the group.
DISCUSSION: Empathy
Before learning applicable management skills, the students need to learn
why it is important to do so. Teaching empathy will help explain how
their anger is affecting others.
This is a good time to use a bullying example because the students
all have a history of bullying but the purpose of the group is to not
label them as such.
The group leader will explain that empathy is putting yourself in someone
elses shoes.
The leader will ask how the students would feel if they had just
had their lunch stolen.
The same could be asked about how parents feel when their son
doesnt listen to them, how siblings feel when their toys are
broken, etc.
The students will learn why empathy is important and how managing their
anger is important because it affects how other people feel.

6. Evaluation:
ACTIVITY: Completing the Puzzle
After each student has shared, and the puzzle pieces have been put
together, the group leader will facilitate processing with questions such as
How are members goals similar?
What if one persons piece of the puzzle is missing?
How is our group like this puzzle?
DISCUSSION: Empathy
 The leader will ask the students what empathy is before the discussion and
then again after the discussion to see what they have learned and if they
have the correct understanding.

7. Homework / Follow Up Activities:

The students will be asked to follow up by paying attention to how others are
feeling during school and at home.

Session Four:

1. Purpose: Working Stage - Focus on learning why we need anger management and
coping skills and how we can apply them.

2. Goals:
Students will recognize the importance of having and maintaining healthy
friendships.
Students will recognize what it is like to feel sadness, pain, and anger and how to
process those feelings.

3. Time Required: 50 minutes

4. Materials Needed:
The sheet of paper with the groups norms
Construction paper
Markers
Large cut out heart with a vignette on one side
Tape
Emotion Journals

5. Content and Process:

ACTIVITY: Friendship Gumbo Group
The goals aim to identify healthy friendship characteristics, review
important elements of maintaining and building friendships, and applying
these to the students current relationships.
The activity begins by asking the students what they think makes a perfect
friendship.
Then, using construction paper and markers, the students will create a
recipe for friendship.
This can include one cup of trust, one tablespoon of values, and a
dash of intelligence.
 The group will then come together and discuss what they believe is needed
and combine all of their recipes to make perfect friendship gumbo.
The students will discuss why they chose certain elements and
what it means to enact them.
Then, the group leader will facilitate self-reflection and ask the students to
think about what kind of friend they are to others.
They may ask, what are ways that you use these friendship
ingredients? and what is one ingredient or recipe that you want
to begin to use yourself?
Bullying happens within friend groups and can go unnoticed so it
is important for the students to reflect upon not only how they treat
others, but how they treat their friends and how they would want to
be treated.
ACTIVITY: The Torn Heart Treatment Plan
The goal is to help students process their experiences of sadness, pain, and
anger by generating problem solving approaches to dealing with these
feelings
This activity involves the group leader having a cut out heart shape with a
vignette either on one side of it or on separate piece of paper.
The vignette includes a story about a student who is having a bad
day in which many things go wrong.
Throughout the story, every time something goes wrong, the reader will
rip the heart slightly.
After the story is completed, and the torn mass of the paper heart is shown
to the group, the leader asks the group members to state how the child
within the story may be feeling as a result of the circumstances they
experienced.
During part two of the activity, the leader asks the students what they
believe are ways in which to fix the rips in the heart.
Every time a member volunteers an answer, there will be a
discussion on why that skill is helpful, and then a piece of tape
with be placed on one of the rips.
Every member should give at least one answer.

6. Evaluation:
ACTIVITY: Friendship Gumbo Group
The leader will examine what ingredients are added and what ingredients
are missing so as to determine what aspects the students need to learn
about and improve.
ACTIVITY: The Torn Heart Treatment Plan
 The leader continues to facilitate a conversation that makes the group
members consider that students that they may not always be nice to could
be having a bad day or the group members may not always be nice
because they themselves are having a bad day.
This activity highlights why the group members may feel a negative
emotion.
After the heart is complete again, process with the group about why this
activity was important and what they learned.

7: Homework / Follow Up Activities:

Students will be given a piece of paper that will serve as an emotions journal.
They will write down at least 3 times that they felt a negative emotion,
why, and how they reacted.

Session Five:

1. Purpose: Working Stage - Learn relaxation technique, Discuss and process

frustrations

2. Goals:
Students will learn about breathing and how it can help them relax.
Students will gain a better understanding of frustration, how it applies to
everyone, and how they can manage it.

3. Time Required: 50 minutes

4. Materials Needed:
The sheet with the groups norms
Relaxation music
A clean floor / something to lay on
Three sheets of paper per participant
Writing utensils
Area with some sort of line / boundary in the middle (tape, etc.)

5. Content and Process:

ACTIVITY: Breathe In Breathe Out
The goal of this activity is for the students to understand the mind-body
connections as illustrated by the relaxing effects of deep breathing.
Music should be quietly playing when the students enter the room.
REVIEW feelings discussed in previous session.
 Talk about stress and how it affects the students.
What is stress?
What causes you to stress?
Where do you feel stress in your body?
How do you act when you are stressed?
What are some things you have tried to reduce stress?
The students will lay on the floor with their hands on their upper chest.
The leader will instruct them to breathe into their upper chest and then
slowly exhale.
Next, the students will place their hands on the ribcage and repeat the
process.
Finally, their hands will be placed on their stomachs and they will be
instructed to break in for five seconds before exhaling.
This process can be repeated multiple times.
DISCUSSION: Leader will facilitate conversation about how and when
breathing can be used.
The conversation can include how the students would act if they
felt more relaxed, and what are some situations where this exercise
might help?
ACTIVITY: Frustration Floss
DISCUSS about how everyone experiences frustrations.
Teachers, parents, friends, students, etc.
The leader will ask each member what frustrates them.
After a brief discussion, the students will each write down one frustration
per piece of paper that they have. (3)
They will then crumple up each piece of paper into a ball.
The students will then be separated in half and asked to stand on either
side of the line in the middle of the floor and the balls of paper will also be
split evenly and put on the either sides floor.
The students will then be instructed to toss the wads of paper onto the
other side of the line until time is stopped. The goal is to have the least
amount of paper balls on their side in the end.
Students will be instructed not to throw paper at each other or
activity will end.
DISCUSS what their frustrations were and what it was like to throw their
frustrations onto others.
What insights can be gained from discussing and relating to others
frustrations and then physically throwing them onto others.
In what ways do the students express their frustrations?
 DISCUSS ways in which each student could handle their frustrations
better.
ROLE PLAY different frustrating situations and have the students practice
coping skills.

6. Evaluation
ACTIVITY: Breathe In Breathe Out
Students will be asked to scale their stress level on a scale of 1-10 before
and after the exercise.
ACTIVITY: Frustration Floss
How did students feel to have others frustrations thrown at them?
How does this happen in real life?
ROLE play will compare how students originally described reacting to
frustration compared to after utilizing the role plays.

7. Homework / Follow Up Activities:

Students will practice the breathing technique in times of frustrations.

Session Six:

1. Purpose: Termination Stage - Understand coping skills and their interconnectedness,

Review what has been learned, Terminate the group

2. Goals:
Students will be able to list coping skills that they have learned and why they are
important.
Students will discuss their personal goals and the progress or changes they have
made.
Students will give each other positive feedback.

3. Time Required: 50 minutes

4. Materials Needed:
The sheet with the groups norms
Strips of paper
Markers
Scissors
Tape
Stapler
 Chain links

5. Content and Process:

ACTIVITY: Coping Skills Links
The goal of this activity is for students to be able to distinguish between
healthy and unhealthy coping skills.
The leader describes and demonstrates a chain having many links designed
for a unified purpose. The metaphor is to use a chain of coping skills for
coping with anger in healthy ways.
The leader will then facilitate a discussion about different coping skills
that the students have learned throughout group and how they are healthy
ways to manage their anger.
These can include breathing techniques, frustration management,
empathy, understanding, emotion recognition, friendship qualities,
and more.
Each student is given a small pile of strips of paper. They are instructed to
write a coping skill on each.
The group will discuss what they wrote and then combine the strips to
create a paper chain of coping skills.
If applicable, the students may also demonstrate their coping skills.
The group can decide where they want to keep their paper chain and the
leader explains that it is important for the students to continue to add to it
throughout the year.
DISCUSSION: Termination
Students will be given their original card with their goal on it and asked to
discuss how it has progressed or changed throughout the sessions.
Each student will also be asked to share at least one thing that they learned
from the group and how they are going to apply it to their day to day lives.
To finalize the session, the students will break into two groups. Group
one will form a circle facing inwards and group two will form a circle
within group ones circle and face outward. The students will face each
other and say one positive thing that they have learned from or about each
other. They will rotate to their right and continue doing so until each
member from group two has talked to each member of group one.
Then, each group will be given the opportunity to do they same
thing with one another.
Everyone will be given the opportunity to express anything else that they
feel necessary.
The leader will reiterate that they are always there for each other and for
students to use available resources.
6. Evaluation
ACTIVITY: Coping Skills Links
Students will demonstrate what they have learned throughout group.
The list of coping skills can be compared to the students answers in the
first session to demonstrate the depth of their learning.
DISCUSSION: Termination
The leaders will gain a sense of how far the students have come based on
their descriptions of what they have learned throughout group as well as
their interactions with each other during the discussion activity.

7. Homework / Follow Up Activities:

N/A