Early adolescence represents a particularly vulnerable period of development during which young people are susceptible to establishing lifelong behavior patterns associated with poor life, health, and educational outcomes. Previous research demonstrates older adolescents and young adults often experience negative life events (NLEs) prior to…

"Mental Health and Social Problems" is a textbook for social work students and practitioners. It explores the complicated relationship between mental conditions and societal issues as well as examining risk and protective factors for the prevalence, course, adaptation to and recovery from mental illness. The introductory chapter presents…

Psychologists and educators recommend classroom strategies for helping children cope with their fears. Teachers can: (1) provide a sense of security; (2) ask children for their advice in problem areas; (3) use desensitization techniques; and (4) take advantage of dramatizations, readings, and art to help children express and conquer fears. (PP)

Examination of the number, content, and intensity of fears of 42 visually impaired children, aged 5-18, found more fears of potentially physically dangerous situations than of psychologically harmful ones and little difference between the number of mild and severe fears. Counselors' estimations of children's fears generally disagreed with the…

Excerpts from law students' journals illustrate themes of their early experiences with law school, including idealism, high expectations, exhilaration, frustration, stress, conflict, boredom, alienation, and despair. (MSE)

This article identifies typical problems that gifted students face in social and emotional adjustment, including anxiety caused by advanced knowledge or understanding; heightened sensitivity to feelings of others; perfectionist tendencies; and feelings of being alone, isolated, and different. Resources to help students, parents, and teachers are…

Too much excitement leads to anxiety, resulting in the impetus to reduce stimuli. Adventure experience leaders, in their enthusiasm for challenge and self-discovery through adventure, may ignore those clients who exist in a state of anxiety. This warning is particularly salient in regards to captive populations, such as a school group in a…

This study examined the relationship of self-concept to intelligence, anxiety, and academic persistence and achievement among young adolescents in a rural school division in Saskatchewan. Eighty-five students in grades 7 and 8 were administered the Piers-Harris Children's Self-Concept Scale, Sarason's Test Anxiety Scale, Sarason's General Anxiety…

This guide consists of a set of activities to help elementary school students cope with fears and stress. Each activity includes the curricular areas in which it would fit (i.e., language arts, social studies, etc.), the grade level and group size for which it is suitable, and the approximate time necessary for its completion. The guide is divided…

Not all children cope equally well with the stresses and traumas life throws their way, and every educator recognizes that "deer in the headlights" look some children get when current events and past traumas combine to trigger a fight-or-flight stress response. No matter how safe the classroom may be in reality, trauma deactivates cognitive…