I don’t know about you but going back to school with new students used to get my tummy turning. Dread hung on my shoulders and motivation was nowhere to be found. How was I to keep control of new students, teens I didn’t know and who were different from me? But my experience as the training coordinator for a youth development organization saved me. I learned to maintain control of kids I didn’t know and that it’s all about classroom management relationship-building.
To keep control of new students when going back to school, classroom management is essential. But setting boundaries and rules upfront at the beginning of the school year, being consistent, having clear expectations and consequences, effective transitions, and intentional classroom layout as well as other strategies are only half — the businessy half — of classroom management.
Get to Know Your Students when Going Back to School
Image from Freepik
The softer strategies of relationship building, the engaging with and understanding of students, is the other half of classroom management that makes the businessy side to maintain control of new students fall into place without much effort. Getting to know your students is one of the highest forms of respect. Everyone desires respect and once gained, young people will rotate to and honor its source — you!
For the upcoming school year, I have put together a bundle of, not only my favorite youth development-based classroom management resources to help maintain control but my students’ favorites! With the “What’s Your Style,” “Circle of Community,” and “Strong Suits” resources in the “Classroom Management Relationship-Building Bundle,” students are not the only ones who will engage, understand, and learn about their classmates ( while building communication skills). Teachers will too. While figuring out what makes students tick —why they do what they do — you’ll also empower and engage them, all at the same time.
Let me know if you have any questions about the aws Studios Back to School Must Have –
“I want to be a doctor… but I don’t think that will ever happen.”
That’s what I heard when I asked two teens what they dreamed of becoming. At first, they said “pediatricians!”—with excitement and a sense of purpose. But then came the doubt. “Kids like us don’t become doctors,” they shrugged. It was heartbreaking—but not unusual. We need to help teens set goals.
Why We Need to Help Teens Set Goals and See the Possibilities
Many teens have big dreams, but they don’t always have the tools or support to believe those dreams are possible. They may lack the guidance to break goals down into steps or simply haven’t had a chance to practice thinking about their future in a focused way. That’s where Master Your Mountain™ comes in.
A Fun, Easy Goal-Setting Activity for Teens
Master Your Mountain™ is a colorful, creative activity that helps middle and high schoolers identify their goals and begin making a realistic plan to reach them. Whether your teen or pre-teen wants to become a doctor, open a bakery, or just figure out their next steps after graduation, this activity makes the future feel doable—not daunting.
With just a few printable worksheets and a simple step-by-step process, your teen will:
Think about what they really want for their future
Identify what it will take to get there
Break that down into small, manageable steps
It’s like turning a foggy mountain into a clear hiking trail—one step at a time.
A Master Your Mountain™ Review
“My students loved using this resource. I used it as a class starter. My students had no trouble getting started with this assignment and were all very engaged. I was delighted with this resource and plan to reuse it.” Adrianne S. Used with 10th grade students. “Extremely satisfied.”
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 5.
You Don’t Need to Be an Expert
Whether you’re homeschooling, parenting, or just want to support your teen in a meaningful way, Master Your Mountain™is easy to use. It includes scripts to help guide conversations, and it can be completed in just a couple of sessions. Want to keep the momentum going? A monthly check-in or journaling session helps reinforce your teen’s progress and keeps them thinking about what’s next.
Help Your Teen Believe in What’s Possible
When teens begin to see that their goals are within reach, you’ll notice a shift—more confidence, more motivation, more engagement. It’s one of the most rewarding experiences as a parent.
A Handy, Research-Based Guide to Help You Connect with Your Teen
Raising a teenager isn’t easy. Between shifting moods, growing independence, and the rollercoaster of high school life, parenting during the teen years can feel overwhelming. Thankfully, there’s a straightforward, science-backed resource for parenting teens that can help: The Five Basics of Parenting Adolescents Pamphlet.
A Simple, Practical Resource for Parenting Teens
This two-sided, easy-to-read parenting teens guide is based on the respected research compilation, “Raising Teens: A Synthesis of Research and a Foundation for Action.” It breaks down the research into five clear, essential practices for building a strong, supportive relationship with your teen. Think of it as your parenting cheat sheet—one you can keep handy and revisit whenever things feel off-track.
Why This Matters
We all want to do right by our kids, but so much parenting advice is either too vague or buried in academic jargon. That’s what makes this pamphlet so helpful: it pulls the key takeaways from a large body of adolescent development research and puts them into a format you can actually use. You’ll find strategies that are simple to understand, easy to try, and powerful in practice.
Whether you’re dealing with daily homework battles, communication struggles, or just looking for ways to stay connected as your teen grows more independent, this guide can help.
How to Use This Easy Resource for Parenting Teens
Keep it visible. Put a copy on the fridge or in your planner so you can glance at it when you need a reminder.
Revisit it often. Parenting teens is not a “one and done” job. You may find new insights each time you read it.
Share it. Got a friend who’s also raising teens? Pass it along. Parenting is easier when we support each other.
Bring it to conversations. Whether you’re meeting with a teacher, counselor, or fellow parent, the pamphlet can be a great starting point for discussions about what teens need.
After 9/11, I remember hearing a news report that said over the following five years, the US would see a sharp rise in mental health issues and an increased need for access to treatment. During that time, the topic slowly crept into the news. Ten years later, the pandemic and athletes’ mental health advocacy created a new and bigger wave of reporting on the topic.
A Focus on Treatment
These media reports focused on the treatment of mental illness. In addition, because of the increased incidence of mental health issues, getting treatment has become both difficult and expensive.
A Critical Shortage of Available Treatment
In an article on children’s mental health, best-selling author Judith Warner calls the shortage of available treatment a “supply-chain [issue].” Importantly, even before the pandemic, says Warner, there was an “obscene shortage” of mental health practitioners. And, she adds, issues caused by the pandemic “multiplied the problem exponentially.”
Building Skills to Address the Treatment Shortage
Along with this extreme shortage of care, Warner found how, after frustration with the current access to treatment system, “[a] growing number of frustrated practitioners and researchers”… had begun to create “new approaches.” These programs focused on prevention. States Warner,
“The common element, in all the new programs is a focus on skills — tools and techniques, validated by decades of science, which build resilience and enhance mental health. Skills that help kids be mindful of their feelings. Skills that enable them to calm themselves and pause to think before acting or speaking. Skills that empower them to act — in positive ways — when they’re feeling down, anxious, or angry, or overwhelmed. And skills that help them understand other people’s perspectives, and communicate their own needs, feelings and perceptions in ways that are both more thoughtful of others and more likely to be effective.”
Acquiring Skills is Not Always Easy
Skills help combat mental health issues. Moreover, they often go unpracticed.
This is due to a variety of reasons including the inability for people to see an immediate benefit, financial barriers, limited access to resources, a lack of support systems and a lack of the awareness of prevention services
aws Studios.art seeks to address barriers to social and emotional learning. Building mental health with the Studios is not only easy but also affordable. And, in regard to addressing the lack of support systems, phearnik!® is, in essence, designed to be a personal safety net.
portable support system
Because it’s small and meant for travel, the plush acts as a portable support system. The idea is to have phearnik!® accessible whenever and wherever one might experience irrational fear and anxiety. Its presence reminds us to keep our fears small and not let them get big where they take control and make us freeze. See more about the phearnik!® support system here.
Because of increased incidences of mental health issues and a shortage of treatment, social emotional learning provides an effective alternative. With more prevention and skill building, the need for treatment subsides.
But providing more skill building opportunities is not enough. There are barriers people experience to their social and emotional learning. These barriers include financial, access, and awareness limitations.
To address this issue…
The aws Studios.art brand works to break down some of the barriers to skill building. Through the Studios, I provide resources that offer immediate benefit and are low cost and often free. And, if someone lacks a support system for practicing skills, phearnik! is just the thing. The plush acts as a portable personal guide and safety net.
What About You?
Have you experienced an inability to access mental health treatment? What do you think about skill building? Is this something that comes easy for you or is it difficult to practice? Do you have a support system in place to help with your social and emotional learning? What do you think of the phearnik!® plush as a support system? Let us know in the Comments.
If you are inclined, “Like” this post. Feel free to “Share” it with others. And, as always, thanks for reading.
Previously, I wrote about phearnik!® and how to use it with kids. In addition, the little plush also helps adults overcome irrational fears and anxiety.
The phearnik!® plush provides a way to practice mindfulness. Also, I didn’t make it for kids. I made it for an adult…me!
Fear Of The Blank Canvas
Collage illustration from the “Phoebe and phearnik! Fight BIG Fears” picture book
As an artist, I often dealt with a “fear of the blank canvas.” It’s like the “fear of the blank page” or “writers’ block” that some writers experience.
While it’s impossible to know the exact number of writers in the US who experience writer’s block or fear of the blank page, it’s a common experience, even for those considered successful.
The same is true for artists. It’s impossible to put an exact number on how many artists in the US experience “blank canvas syndrome.” Still, it is recognized as a common experience among artists from newbies to seasoned professionals.
Overcoming Fear of the Blank Canvas
For years, I studied what I could do about my irrational fears and anxiety of the blank canvas. I read books like Art and Fear, Affirmations for Artists, and The Artist’s Way. But none of these helped me break through my debilitating fears until I read Elizabeth Gilbert’s “Big Magic: Creative living beyond fear.”
Gilbert’s “… Road Trip”
In the book, Gilbert offers a new way for artists to confront their fears. Instead of trying to ignore it or get over it or get rid of it, she suggests we accept and acknowledge fear. In a vignette titled, “The Road Trip,” Gilbert uses the metaphor of taking a road trip as a lesson in acknowledging fear.
On the trip, you bring fear along, but it must sit in the backseat. And it doesn’t get to control anything. It doesn’t get to drive, and it definitely doesn’t get to control the radio.
This idea of acknowledging fear but not letting it take control was, for me, revolutionary. I immediately embraced this new way to deal with my irrational fears. I liked the idea of embracing fear. It makes sense because it’s always there. But it needs restraint. It needs to be kept in its place, restricted, tamped down.
The Birth of phearnik!®
I wanted something to represent this fear in “the back seat,” an actual “thing.” This “thing” would remind me to practice the skill of keeping fear “small” or in its place. It is how and why I created phearnik!® – my “little fear.” And it works.
phearnik!® Works
My phearnik!® helped me with, not only my fear of the blank canvas, but as a way to practice mindfulness to overcome fear in other areas of my life. It has helped me do what I have needed to do to bring this concept to others. I believe artists and others who struggle to overcome their irrational fears would benefit from a reminder to keep their fear under control. I believe this could help them live more fearlessly while experiencing new things and adventures.
Are you an adult dealing with irrational fears? Have you struggled with letting your fears get the best of you? Maybe you’re artist or writer that has experienced fear of the blank canvas or page? Or are you someone who would like to make art but you are afraid of what people would say about it?
If this is you, do you think a phearnik!® could help you remember to keep your fear “small” and in its place? Do you think having the little plush around could help you fight your fears? Tell us what you think about it in the Comments.
Want To Know More?
If you would like to know more about phearnik, join the phearnik! Campaign.
Help bring the plush to all who could use its subtle power!
When I parented my first-born, I didn’t know about the power of parent sharing. Instead, I often struggled on my own. This created a growing frustration with not always knowing what to do when, as a toddler, she misbehaved.
One time, I asked my mother for help. Her reply, “Oh, I never had that problem. You were so good.” Obviously, my mother didn’t remember her “yardstick” parenting strategy. As a tiny tot when I disobeyed, she came after me – stick in hand. Though, more often than not, she used it to threaten me, not hit me. Even so, this was not a strategy I wanted to use with my children. Poor memory or not, my mother was no help.
Parenting Classes
One day, I mentioned my frustration to my health care provider. She suggested I enroll in a parenting class provided by our health maintenance/insurance organization.
Who me?! A parenting class?!
With an air of superiority, I thought, “Who me? A parenting class? Weren’t they for parents involved with child protective services? Weren’t they for parents who abused their kids and had them taken away?” That wasn’t me! Plus, I was a college graduate! I had a degree! I shouldn’t need parenting education! But, actually, I did.
Too good for class. From Phoebe and phearnik! Fight BIG Fear picture book
So, begrudgingly, I attended the classes.
Yes, a Parenting Class
Taught by a nurse and a nurse practitioner from the HMO, the class introduced 15 parent participants (of which only one was a social service mandate) to the “Systematic Training for Effective Parenting (STEP)” program. The course consisted of strategies found to be effective in raising socially and emotionally healthy children.
Parent Sharing, the Best Parenting Education
What I particularly liked in the classes was “parent sharing.” This happened when one parent asked about how to deal with an issue, and another would say something like, “Oh, that? I don’t have an issue with that because this is what I have done when that happens….” I learned some of the best parenting “strategies” from parent sharing.
Over time, I came to embrace the class – strategies, parent sharing, and all. The program provided me with information to direct my child’s behavior with less stress and more consistent love and understanding. I prospered. And, excited about the things I learned, I wanted to spread the word. I set out to share them with others. This ignited my journey as a mental health and parenting educator.
Soon after I completed the STEP program, a course on conflict resolution came to town. Conflict resolution or conflict management interested me. Even though I had been having a challenging time with my toddler, my husband and I had some communication challenges too. Again, the classes delivered. They provided me with an arsenal of additional skills and strategies to implement whenever I needed them.
EPIC
Then, after this, I became a trainer of the EPIC parenting education program. EPIC stands for “Every Person Influences Children” developed by Bob Wilson from Buffalo, NY. Frustrated by the high rate of local unintended teen pregnancies, a concerned parent in our town wanted to do something about the problem. Her pregnancy prevention strategy included providing parents of teens in the community with a parenting program. Along with some other moms, I traveled to Buffalo and received the EPIC training. We then came back home and started facilitating parent groups.
A Combination of Courses
After training the EPIC program for a while, I thought parents could benefit from combining it with both the STEP and conflict resolution classes. Taking a little bit from EPIC and STEP and most of the information from the conflict management course, I developed a new parenting education program.
I then taught the course at the NY State Education Dept. Board of Cooperative Education Services (BOCES) Adult Education Program in Syracuse, NY. I enjoyed teaching the new curriculum. But, again, more importantly, what was best was the parent sharing.
Parent-to-Parent – Head of the Class
As a facilitator of the classes, I both supported and reveled in the participants’ sharing of their parenting ideas, tips, and strategies. A parent may have had an issue in one area but in others they provided well tested ideas or techniques for someone else. This became a constant and welcome cycle within our learning community.
Through my years as an educator, my colleagues and I always agreed that one of the most important teaching strategies is facilitating the sharing of ideas from one student or participant to another. This is particularly true when parents share parenting strategies with each other.
What about you?
Have you particpated in parenting education? If you did, was it in-person or virtual? Did you like it? Why or why not? Do you have a child rearing tip or strategy that works/worked well for you that you’d like to share?Tell us about it in the Comments.
Looking for resources?
Check out the National Parenting Education Network (NPEN), a national organization that promotes the field of parenting education and encourages information sharing, professional development and networking opportunities for individuals who educate and support parents.
Without a doubt, high school classrooms today are more diverse than ever—culturally, emotionally, and socially. As educators, you likely face students with varying communication preferences, personalities and “social styles”, making it challenging to foster meaningful relationships and manage your classroom effectively. Importantly, one-size-fits-all approaches to classroom management don’t work anymore. When you’re striving to build an inclusive and supportive learning environment, you need better tools.
This is where my freeSocial Styles Listcomes in. In particular, it’s designed to help you easily identify and understand your students’ communication type. These are “styles” present in most classroom settings. Understanding the styles helps you create better connections. and guide classroom interactions in a way that feels authentic and supportive for each student.
Why Knowing Your Students’ Social Styles Matters
From Medicine Cards by David Carson and Jamie Sams
Understanding social styles can be a game-changer in your approach to classroom management. Students often express themselves in ways that reflect their social and emotional tendencies. By recognizing these tendencies, you can:
Create more effective lesson plans tailored to different communication styles
Mediate conflicts before they escalate by addressing the root of the issue
Build stronger relationships with students by connecting in ways that resonate with them
Foster a positive, collaborative classroom culture where students feel seen and understood
Furthermore, how do you know what social style each student leans toward? That’s where my Social Styles List can help!
What You’ll Get with the Free Social Styles List
The Social Styles Listprovides a simple breakdown of the four main social styles: Analytical, Driver, Amiable, and Expressive. Each style comes with a description of common traits, behaviors, and interaction preferences.
This List is a sneak peek into my comprehensive Circle of Community which is an activity to help you implement these strategies and build stronger student relationships.
How This Resource Solves Common High School Classroom Issues
Current high school teachers are facing challenges like low student engagement, increased social anxiety, and classroom conflict stemming from differing communication styles. In addition, many students are struggling to express themselves. This is further underscored by disruptions caused by the pandemic.
Identify students’ communication preferences so you can tailor your approach
Understand what drives different social behaviors in the classroom
Minimize miscommunication that leads to conflicts or disengagement
Cultivate a classroom environment where each student feels valued and understood
Take the First Step Toward Better Classroom Management
Ready to get started? Download the Social Styles Listfor free and begin using it in your classroom today! It’s a practical tool you can start using right away to improve your relationships with students and help them connect with each other.
Also, if you love this List, you’ll find more resources in my Circle of Community activity. In addition, it is also available as part of my Classroom Management / Relationship Building Bundle. These resources provide deeper insights and actionable strategies to strengthen your classroom community.
This resource can help you build stronger connections with your students. This creates a classroom environment that promotes learning, growth, and mutual respect.
For teachers, this can feel like adding more to an already overloaded plate of dealing with classrooms, getting through their annual curricula, and assisting individual students. And, if teachers do nothing, guilt could add to their own stress.
A Desire to Help Stressed Parents
Teachers know they have good access to students’ parents and would like to help. Plus, supporting students’ parents builds stronger relationships, not only with the parents but also with students and the broader community. To support stressed parents, teachers need something easy to implement, as well as worthwhile.
A Simple and Supportive Parent Resource
The Five Basics Pamphlet is a downloadable PDF that helps stressed parents of teenagers. The “…Pamphlet” contains the five actions parents can take to reduce the stress often felt when living with teens. It is based on evidence MIT researchers found that helps with parenting adolescents.
The Five Basics have compressed parenting strategies into five areas – connecting, observing, modeling, guiding, and advocating – while offering many doable “how-to” examples for each.
Do Your Duty…Check!
The Five Basics is a way for teachers and others to step up, heed the Surgeon General’s call, and support stressed parents. By either emailing the user-friendly PDF to parents or downloading it and handing it out, the pamphlet does the work for teachers making it easy to help. And, even if, parents don’t ‘read and heed’, teachers can practice the Five Basics on their own, using them in their classrooms and giving teen students the adult direction and support they need to succeed.
As a teacher or homeschooler, I would love to hear more about what your needs are. Let me know in the Comments section or email me at alis@awsstudios.art
I don’t know about you but a new school year with new students used to get my tummy turning. Dread hung on my shoulders and motivation was nowhere to be found. How was I to keep control of new students, teens I didn’t know and who were different from me? But my experience as the training coordinator for a youth development organization saved me. I learned to maintain control of kids I didn’t know and that it’s all about classroom management relationship-building.
To keep control of new students, classroom management is essential. But setting boundaries and rules upfront at the beginning of the school year, being consistent, having clear expectations and consequences, effective transitions, and intentional classroom layout as well as other strategies are only half — the businessy half — of classroom management.
You’ve Got to Get to Know Your Students
Image from Freepik
The softer strategies of relationship building, the engaging with and understanding of students, is the other half of classroom management that makes the businessy side to maintain control of new students fall into place without much effort. Getting to know your students is one of the highest forms of respect. Everyone desires respect and once gained, young people will rotate to and honor its source — you!
Classroom Management Relationship Building Bundle
For the upcoming school year, I have put together a bundle of, not only my favorite youth development-based classroom management resources to help maintain control but my students’ favorites! With the “What’s Your Style,” “Circle of Community,” and “Strong Suits” resources in the “Classroom Management Relationship-Building Bundle,” students are not the only ones who will engage, understand, and learn about their classmates ( while building communication skills). Teachers will too. While figuring out what makes students tick —why they do what they do — you’ll also empower and engage them, all at the same time.
This new tagline I created from a Wendy MacNaughton quote should help readers (and Google!) better understand aws Studios. In her “Pencil Skills Part 1” post about drawing with healthcare professionals, MacNaughton declares, “Art and health. No. Brainer.” (Which I understand to mean how ones’ involvement in art or the arts strengthens an individual’s health.) Writer Austin Kleon’s recommendation from Steal Like an Artist, I was inspired to adapt her quote. It best communicates my aws Studios mission – “art and mental health.”
Click on Mr, Onion to get one of your own!
Yes, art is beneficial for social and emotional health. These include helping to manage stress and relieve anxiety, strengthen social skills, promote positive behaviors, increase cognitive abilities, practice mindfulness, etc.
Click pic to view aws Studios mental health resources
