One Teenager at a Time

This book is a social-emotional education manual for middle and high school educators. The curriculum contained in this book is innovative, creative, and draws on the most current research in education, mindfulness, and adolescent brain development. It will add a vital piece to the growth and development of middle and high school students as it offers them “soft skills” they will need as they navigate higher education and the workforce. It offers no Right/Wrong solutions and instead helps adolescents explore their own values and beliefs in a shared space that allows for an honest exchange of ideas. Content areas include Compassion, Mindfulness, Self-Worth, Positive Mindset, and Dealing with Stress, Anxiety, and Fear. Each lesson addresses more than one of the CASEL guidelines for social-emotional health, with an appendix mapping the specific skills to each lesson. Educators will find the lessons flexible in that there is no specific progression or required format. They can be delivered in one sitting or across several smaller time periods such as homeroom or advisory periods.

Offering a compassionate, curious approach to personal growth and social emotional wellbeing, this book is a valuable tool for parents, teachers and adolescents. Author, Kari O’Driscoll is deeply conscious of the student’s need for multiple ways of engagement and offers plenty of activities for the mind and body. Role-play exercises, discussion and journaling prompts along with guided meditation scripts combine to make this a flexible resource I will return to again and again., This book features a rich, developmentally-appropriate collection of lessons for adolescents. Author Kari O’Driscoll offers secondary teachers and youth development leaders a range of discussion topics, social-emotional learning activities, and mindfulness practices that will enhance teens' sense of well-being. Each lesson is thoughtfully packaged to actively engage teens in deeper reflection about who they are in the world and how to be kinder to themselves and more compassionate toward others., I am so grateful for the abundance of tools and insight this books offers to me as a parent and a family therapist. Many of my teenage clients are not even aware of the amount of stress and anxiety they carry on a daily basis until they start to experience difficulties and break down in multiple areas of their lives. Kari provides reader friendly, user friendly, ways to both identify origins of stress and anxiety, and informative, compassionate, and practical interventions to manage these challenges creatively. The approach that fosters mindfulness as a skill and an accessible daily practice is exceptional. The exercises and activities allow each individual to become curious about their own unique experience and as well as creating supportive communities for adolescents. I have used this book with teen clients, adults, and my own children in order to heal dysfunctional communication patterns, remedy a ‘stuck mindset’, and boost overall self confidence. I highly recommend this text for parents, educators, health care providers, and anybody who wants to help adolescents build healthier lives and thought patterns., The interactions that adults have with tweens and teens can sometimes feel like open warfare. The SELF Project provides a robust curricular scaffold that can be used to win over the hearts and minds of these children we teach, care for, and love. Mindfulness, compassion, positive mindset, self-worth, and ways to address stress, anxiety and fear will become part of your expanding toolkit as you seek to connect with young people before you seek to correct. Kari offers her journey of motherhood and her expertise as a context for deploying these smart strategies with the ultimate goal of developing kind, resilient and good human beings.

Kari O’Driscoll is the founder of The SELF Project, an organization that uses mindfulness and nonviolent communication techniques to build resilience in adolescents. She is a Pacific NW native and mother of two who writes about parenting, health, and social justice.