"Second Step" is our character education program.

Unit 1:Empathy Training (click here to see lessons)

The goal of this unit is to develop children's empathy skills.  Empathy is a key ingredient in developing prosocial behaviors and interpersonal problem-solving skills.  Children who understand emotions also tend to be less aggressive, more accepted by peers, and better able to use general social skills.  Children with good empathy skills can do the following:

1.   Identify emotions.  This involves:  

• Recognizing and naming one's feelings using physical and situational clues.
• Recognizing and naming others'fellings using physical, verbal, and situational clues.
• Distinguishing one feeling from another.

2.   Assume others' perspectives.  This involes:

• Recognizing that individual can have different feelings and thoughts about hte same situation.
• Perceiving situations form toher points of view.

3.    Respond sensitively to others.  This involves:

• Showing care and concern

Unit 2:  Impulse Control and Problem Solving    (click here to see lessons)

The goal of this unit is to decrease children's impulsive and aggressive behavior using three successful teaching strategies: 

•   calming down
• problem solving
• behavioral skills training:

Calming down uses an emotion-management strategy that aids in impulse control.

Impulse control refers to stopping and thinking through a problem rather than doing the first thing that comes to mind.

Problem solving provides a set of steps to use for resolving interpersonal conflicts.

Behavioral skills training breaks down a solution into three to five small steps and provides specific behaviors to use for carrying out a chosen solution.

Unit 3:  Anger Management  (click here to see lessons)

Anger-management techniques can help break or reverse the cycle of anger escalation.  The goals of this unit are to help students:

• Manage angry feelings.
• Decrease aggression prompted by anger.
• Encourage social problem solving through the recognition of anger signs and anger buttons and through the use of anger-reduction techniques.

All people experience anger.  Anger is not a bad emotion   However, anger is frequently a component of aggressive behavior and acts of violence. 

Anger, the emotion, is not the problem.  But what one does when angry can be.  Not all acts of aggression are precipitated by anger, nor does anger always lead to aggressive behavior.

Anger management is a compilation of stress-reduction techniques for channeling angry feelings into socially acceptable directions.  It is not an attempt to deny or ignore the emotion, but rather to address the source of the anger in a constructive way that leads to social problem solving.

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