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Teaching Depression to Elementary Students
When teaching depression to very young children, they can often get confused, or blame themselves if people around them are sad. You can redirect them to our section that is directed at Students and Peers to let them read the symptoms and understand the causes of depression.
Resources to Use in the Classroom
- Here are a few classroom resources that we suggest to help introduce
teaching about feelings, depression, and being kind to one another.
Teaching Depression to Elementary Students
When teaching depression to very young children, they can often get confused, or blame themselves if people around them are sad. You can redirect them to our section that is directed at Students and Peers to let them read the symptoms and understand the causes of depression.
Resources to Use in the Classroom
- Here are a few classroom resources that we suggest to help introduce
teaching about feelings, depression, and being kind to one another.
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<--Speak Up For Kids: Depression - YouTube video to briefly introduce depression, some symptoms, what it might feel like, and how it can be helped.
Parentbooks - Website dedicated to books, novels, and resources dedicated towards depressed kids and teens. |
How Full Is Your Bucket?The book "How Full Is Your Bucket" by Tom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer is a childrens book that explains the concept of being a nice person, giving compliments, and avoiding negative behaviours in general. Many elementary teachers use this book as a metaphorical way to increase classroom community and to encourage cooperative, accepting attitudes. By incorporating a book like this into your classroom, it may help to make children more sensitive to each others' feelings and make the blow of depression less difficult at school. The book is especially helpful because it gives kids a physical representation of what damage they are doing when they are mean to people or “taking drops from their bucket”. It puts difficult topics like bullying and depression into a relatable form and teaches kids to be empathetic towards each others’ feelings and even to be accepting of people who are being cranky or maybe just having a bad day.
Teachers can constantly use the theme to reinforce class rules and good behaviour if they use the metaphor in daily conversations. For example, they mights say “Oh thank you for your manners! That just filled my bucket!” or say “I bet that makes your friend’s bucket feel low when you do that...” to make students conscious of how they might be hurting others by their own actions. CLASSROOM IDEA: Many teachers have a “Bucket Filling” bulletin board with actual buckets on it with a corresponding student's name on each bucket. Then they have a supply of blank “drops” and when students feel like saying nice things to each other, they can write something nice on a drop and place it in another student’s bucket. It is just a way of encouraging a positive classroom and there are numerous activities that go along with it. It is a theme that you could continue for an entire school year, and many schools even make it a school-wide theme! **BONUS!** The bucket wall is great because it is also a way that teachers can discretely thank students who go unnoticed in class, who have good manners, who need plenty or reward for small accomplishments, or who simply need a confidence boost on a bad day...all with one simple little note! AND it doesn't reinforce extrinsic rewards such as sugary treats or material possessions, but it is reinforcing the value of intrinsic reward instead!! eg. "Thank you for being so quiet during individual reading today" or "I loved how good of a leader you were in gym today, Thank you!" Below are some more resources and ideas that can be used to reinforce the lesson in your classroom: |
***RESOURCES***The Book:A YouTube Version of the Book:"Bucket-Filling Song"This is a bucket-filling song that could be used to recap the story a couple of days after reading the book, or you can play it during “clean-up times” or during transitions, and the kids would eventually learn the words and sing-a-long!
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