Middle School Anxiety and Test Anxiety Counseling Group | Anxiety Coping Skills

This 6-week anxiety and test anxiety middle school counseling group is designed to help students recognize anxiety, prevent anxiety, and practice coping skills they can use when they feel anxious. In addition, students will learn how to identify the size of the problem and how to distinguish irrational fears from facts.

This curriculum contains everything you need to run a successful school counseling small group including self-assessments to make data tracking easy. The included weekly outlines are research-based and aligned with CASEL Standards and ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors.

Anxiety Middle School Group Outline:

Week 1: Determine the types of anxiety

Week 2: The body's response to anxiety

Week 3: Relaxation techniques

Week 4: Prevent anxiety with a schedule and Inner Coach

Week 5: Irrational Fears and size of the problems

Week 6: Alternate outcomes and previous successes

Lessons/Activities Included:

• Progressive muscle relaxation
• Grounding games
• Daily scheudle activity
• Interactive Group Activites
• Scenario Cards
• Matching Game
• Discussion Dice Game
• Discussion Ball Toss
• Discussion Cards
• Craft Activities

Here is what's included each week:

• Outlines: Easy to implement outlines with ASCA and CASEL-aligned objectives
• Group Rules: Suggested and DIY group rules poster so students can take ownership of the creation of the group rules and norms.
• Feelings Check: Feelings check poster to serve as a visual aid for students to self-reflect on their emotional state at the start of each session.
• Self-Assessments: Pre and post-group self-assessments to track student growth and make data collection easy!
• Engaging games and activities: I include everything you need to run each session. Simply print each week before the students arrive and you are ready to go.
• Self Reflection Journal: Weekly journal reflections with writing prompts.

Benefiting Students:
Each week students will develop coping skills to deal with anxiety.

At a minimum, being in the counseling group allows students to identify and share their feelings, develop important social skills through participation, and practice empathy while hearing others’ experiences.

Saving Time:
With easy-to-implement outlines and activities, this group curriculum is very low-prep. Simply print out each session before students arrive and keep them in a file folder.

The included self-assessments are a great way to get students to self-reflect on their progress and you can then share this information with teachers, and parents, or in your program report.

Who is this Group Designed For?
This anxiety small group is designed for middle school students in grades 6-8 but it can be modified to work with students across different grade levels.

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