Life Skills and Leadership Manual - Peace Corps

Life Skills & Leadership: Unit 1, Session 6: Stress and Emotions | Page 69 of 93

and parents and lead to depression. Today we are going to learn about how to respond to stress in

ways that you can be happier and stay stronger emotionally.”

II. Information (30 minutes)
Materials:
Flip chart 1: Emotions and Needs
Markers or crayons

A. What’s Up Here?
Participants identify various emotions typically experienced during adolescence.

1. Divide participants into groups of two or three. Explain the purpose of the next activity and the
   process that will be used. Say:

“Youth and young adults deal with all sorts of emotions that cause stress and make it difficult to

solve problems, make decisions, or interact positively with others. We’d like to identify some of

these emotions and talk about why they can cause such problems. In your small group, I’d like you

to invent and act out a situation that someone might have that’s potentially stressful or emotional.

“I’ll give you a category and you can invent and act out a realistic situation. I’m not asking you to

share anything personal so it shouldn’t be your own situation. Instead, invent a situation you think

many young people encounter or that is similar to what you’ve heard other people talk about. Your

role-play only needs to be two or three minutes long.”

2. Suggest some very general areas as subjects, such as teens and parental control, peer pressure,
   school and academic challenges, risky behavior with drugs, alcohol or other substances, gangs or
   illegal behavior, sexual activity, etc. Let them have 5 - 10 minutes to choose, invent, and practice
   their role-play.

Note: It is important that participants be encouraged to act out a situation that is relevant to them, so give them plenty of

time to think of something that fits their reality rather than assuming the types of situations they might be dealing with.

3. Invite each group to perform their role-play. After each role-play, ask participants to identify the
   emotions that the characters might have been feeling. Write responses on the “Emotions” side of
   Flip chart 1: Emotions and Needs. (Be prepared to define some of the possible emotions
   adolescents feel: affection, anger, fear, love, passion, rage, self-consciousness, shyness, etc.)

Note: Keep these discussions about emotions and unmet needs short so the flow of the role-plays is not interrupted and

each team has adequate time to share their performance.

B. Summary

Conclude the role-plays by thanking everyone for their creativity and their insight about the emotions and

needs of the characters portrayed. Lead the group in a round of hearty applause. Say:

“There certainly is a wide range of emotions that you experience as adolescents. Next, we’ll look at

how to manage those emotions productively.”