Teaching Stress Management

Stress is pervasive in the lives of today’s children and youth. Without adequate coping skills, students might engage in risky behavior and make poor decisions that have negative consequences for themselves and others. Now, for the first time, there’s a resource for K-12 teachers that’s devoted to helping kids manage stress.

Teaching Stress Management: Activities for Children and Young Adults helps current and preservice teachers understand the causes and effects of stress in students. This handy text

• presents the most current evidence-based research with practical applications;

• supplies teachers with 199 low- to no-cost activities that reinforce the curricular concepts;

• equips students to deal proactively with stress; and

• helps teachers apply various aspects of the positive psychology movement, including optimism, social support, resiliency, right-brain engagement, mindfulness-based stress reduction, responsive classroom techniques, and emotional and social intelligence.

The text provides teachers with foundational material on the physiology and psychology of stress so they understand how stress affects health on a long-term basis. And through the book’s numerous tips, teachers and administrators will be able to incorporate the principles of stress management in the classroom and integrate them in their wellness and health policies and programs. Teaching students the skills of stress management can have a positive impact on schools’ social climate—reducing conflict, bullying, and violence.

In addition, Teaching Stress Management will help teachers meet the National Health Education Standards with an overall focus on standard 7, in which students practice health-enhancing behaviors. Teachers will also learn how to advocate for stress management programs in their schools.

Managing stress is a critical skill that every student needs to master. Teaching Stress Management will help them learn to cope with current pressures, reduce future stress, and strengthen the stress management skills that will serve them not only now but throughout their lives.

Nanette E. Tummers, EdD, is an associate professor of health and physical education at Eastern Connecticut State University in Willimantic, Connecticut. Since 1995 she has been teaching stress management skills and providing people with the tools they need to cope with stress. Her audiences have run the gamut from preschool through college students and youth and adults in recovery programs.

Dr. Tummers conducted her doctoral and postdoctoral research on stress management tools and has carried out service projects involving at-risk students and other groups. She has also been a reviewer for books and journals on material relating to stress management.

In her spare time, Dr. Tummers enjoys hiking with her dogs, landscaping, being outdoors, and volunteering in her community.