Friendship & Conflict Resolution Group Counseling Lesson Plans for Middle School

This 7-week middle school friendship counseling group is designed to help students define the qualities of a good friend and develop friendship skills like conflict resolution, empathy, kindness, and perspective-taking. This group is designed to help middle school students create, nurture, and enhance their friendships. This curriculum includes everything you need to run a successful friendship-focused school counseling small group including self-assessments to make data tracking easy. The included weekly outlines are aligned with CASEL Standards and ASCA Mindsets and Behaviors.

Students will learn how to get to know someone new, the qualities of a good friend, listening skills, empathy and responding to other feelings, how to respectfully disagree, conflict resolution, and the power of their words.

Middle School Friendship Group Outline:

Week 1: Initiating Friendships

Week 2: Friendship Qualities

Week 3: Communication and Listening Skills

Week 4: Responding to Feelings

Week 5: Developing Positive Relationships

Week 6: Resolving Conflicts using I-Statements

Week 7: The Power of Words

Lessons/Activities Included:

• Conversation Starters Sort
• Board Game
• Scavenger Hunt
• Video Assessment
• Drawing Activity
• Discussion Dice
• Discussion Cards
• Listening Card Game
• Truth or Dare
• Pictionary

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 learn friendship skills they can use to create, nurture, and enhance their friendships.

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 friendship small group is designed for students in grades 6-8 but it can be modified to work with students across different grade levels.

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