Bennington Public Schools

This unit will be taught during the first semester. 

Lesson 1: Welcome!

This lesson will show students how this curriculum can help them navigate physical, social, and emotional changes in adolescence. 

You Can Try This at Home

Have a conversation with your child about what you felt was the most difficult part of being an adolescent. Ask your child about any changes they’ve noticed in friends and what they think about these changes.

Lesson 2: Who Am I? My Identity

In this lesson, students will learn that their identity is complex. They will create an identity map that names unique and important aspects of their identity.

You Can Try This at Home

Share your response to the following questions with your child. Then have your child and any additional family members share their responses.

1. Who am I?
2. What are the most important aspects of my identity and why?

Lesson 3: My Interests and Strengths

In this lesson, students will reflect on how they have used their personal strengths to develop an interest, skill, or ability.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a skill, interest, or ability you have and how you developed it. Discuss the skills, attitudes, or people who helped you along the way.

Lesson 4: Harnessing My Strengths

In this lesson, students will choose something they’d like to get better at and think about how they could apply their unique strengths to do that.

You Can Try This at Home

Help your child make a list of strengths they have. Ask your child about how they could use these to get better at a new skill.

Lesson 5: Pursuing My Interests

In this lesson, students will identify and respond to positive and negative influences that may affect them while pursuing a goal.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about something positive or negative that influenced you as you were working toward a goal. For example, a friend who helped you find a job or learn a new skill. Ask your child about positive and negative factors that may influence them.

Lesson 6: My Future Self

In this lesson, students will imagine who they want to be in the future.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child what they want their life to look like in the future. What skills or abilities do they want to have? What qualities or values do they want to develop?

Lesson 7: My Path Forward

In this lesson, students will envision a path to become their best self by using strengths and skills they already have.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child what skills, interests, or abilities they want to develop and how you can help

This unit will be taught during the first semester. 

Lesson 8: Agency

In this week’s lesson, your child will learn about agency—the power to make and act on their own decisions. They’ll identify some areas in their lives in which they have agency and learn that focusing on those areas can help them feel empowered.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about an area in your life in which you have agency. Ask them to describe where they have agency in life.

Lesson 9: Sources of Confidence

In this week’s lesson, your child will learn about confidence—their belief in their ability to do something—and that there are four sources of confidence.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a time when you felt confident and then describe a time when you didn’t feel confident or when you increased your confidence. Ask your child what the four sources of confidence are.

Lesson 10: How to Build Confidence 1

In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to build confidence by preparing their physical and emotional state and by observing others.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a time when you watched someone do something and it helped you feel more confident. Ask your child to describe one of the confidence-building strategies they learned about.

Lesson 11: How to Build Confidence 2

In this week’s lesson, your child will learn how to build confidence by getting encouragement from others and by reflecting on past experiences.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a time when you got encouragement from someone and it helped you build confidence. Ask your child to describe one of the ways they’ve learned to build confidence.

Lesson 12: Agency and Confidence

In this week’s lesson, your child will think of ways to build confidence as they transition to high school.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child about the confidence-building strategies that work best for them. Ask them what they’d like to feel more confident about as they transition to high school.

Lesson 13: Your Confidence-Building Plan

In this week’s lesson, your child will create a plan for building confidence in an area of their choice.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a time when you successfully increased your own confidence. Ask them to describe their plan for building confidence. Ask how you can help them with their plan

This unit will be taught during the second semester.

Lesson 14: Understanding Stress and Anxiety

In this lesson, students will examine how they feel, what thoughts they have, and how their body responds when they’re stressed.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child what they do or feel when they’re stressed. These signs will help you notice when your child is stressed, so you can ask them how to help or support them.

Lesson 15: Where Does Stress Come From?

In this lesson, students will learn where stress comes from, identify stressors in their life, and examine which stressors they can control.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child if they have any stressors they can’t control. Discuss what they do have control over.

Lesson 16: Can Stress Help You Grow?

In this lesson, students will learn to reframe stressful situations as opportunities for growth.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a stressful situation you were recently in and how you were able to use that stress to improve yourself or the situation. Ask your child if they have any stressors in their life that they need help with.

Lesson 17: Strategies for Managing Stress

In this lesson, students will learn some strategies for managing stress. These strategies include: slow breathing, reframing challenging situations, positive self-talk, and progressive muscle relaxation.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child what makes them feel stressed and how they cope with that stress. Share your own stressors and helpful ways you manage stress.

Lesson 18: Changing Strategies and Getting Help

In this lesson, students will analyze stressful situations and decide if they need to change their strategy or get outside help to manage their stress.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a time you needed help managing stress.

Lesson 19: My Stress-Management Plan

In this lesson, students will complete their own stress-management plan. It will include their own signs of stress, the situations that contribute to their stress, strategies they can use to relieve stress, and people they can reach out to for help or support.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask to see your child’s stress-management plan. Talk about the strategies they’ve identified and offer your support if you see them displaying any signs of stress

This unit will be taught during the second semester. 

Lesson 20: My Values

In this lesson, students will explore their values and identify how behaviors that are important to them show them what they value.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child about some of the values they have identified and why. Share a few of your own values and how you live out those values in your day-to-day life.

Lesson 21: Values and Relationships

In this lesson, students will draw connections between their values and the healthy relationships in their life.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child about how one of their values shows up in a healthy relationship they have. This could be a friendship, a sibling or other familial relationship, or even a professional relationship with a teacher or coach.

Lesson 22: Recognizing Others’ Perspectives

In this lesson, students will practice viewing conflicts from multiple perspectives to keep conflicts from escalating.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a time when your view of a conflict changed because you were able to see it from another person’s perspective. Ask your child if they have changed their view of a conflict lately.

Lesson 23: Finding the Best Solution

In this lesson, students will learn to find solutions to a conflict that everyone can agree on.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child about a conflict they recently had where they got something they wanted after it was resolved. Share a similar situation of your own.

Lesson 24: Making Things Right

In this lesson, students will learn ways to make amends after a conflict and restore a relationship they may have harmed.

You Can Try This at Home

Tell your child about a time you had to make amends with someone. What did you do to repair the harm?

Lesson 25: Unhealthy Relationships

In this lesson, students will identify signs of an unhealthy relationship.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child who they would go to for advice and support if they found themselves in a relationship that was unhealthy. Share why one of your close friends or family members is someone you turn to for advice and support.

Lesson 26: Guide to Healthy Relationships

In this lesson, students will create a guide to healthy relationships to inform, encourage, and inspire their peers.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask to see your child’s project. If they don’t have it, have them describe it. Ask them what the most important thing they learned about healthy relationships is.

Lesson 27: High School Challenges

In this lesson, students will think ahead to some of the challenges they might face when starting high school and identify people they can go to for help.

You Can Try This at Home

Ask your child about something that makes them nervous about starting high school. Share one thing you were nervous about when you first started high school, but that got better over time