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Between new responsibilities, fluctuating hormones, and complex peer relationships, teens can find that their mental health fluctuates more than ever. Address emotions, self-esteem, stress management, and social-emotional learning with a variety of mental health activities for teens, including high-quality, low-prep instructional resources for any subject in high school.
Great Group Mental Health Activities
Teens (and teachers) often find mental health difficult to talk about. However, studies show that 4 in 10 adolescents have persistent sad or hopeless feelings, making high school a crucial time to talk about it.
Use these group assignments and mindfulness activities for high school students to normalize talking about their emotional well-being and to teach important mental health concepts for student reference.
- Thought, Feeling, Behavior: Have groups storyboard and illustrate a comic strip that shows the connection between a person’s thoughts, feelings, and behavior, and what the consequences may be.
- Shared Values: Small groups of students make a list of values they share, then each student shares which of the values are the three most important to them.
- Coping Skills Poster: Have groups research a common stress coping skill, then create promotional posters to display during testing weeks.
- Yoga Breaks: Incorporate brain breaks in your instruction and lead your students in beginner-level yoga to reduce stress.
Break mental health discussions into small-group stations
While whole-group instruction can be helpful for larger mental health topics, small groups can benefit students in a more specific and targeted way. Implement stations for small groups to rotate through, allowing them to discuss a variety of mental health topics.
SEL & ELA Mental Health Day Stations | Wellness Activities & Sub Plans
By: Books and Bloom Teaching
Grades: 6th-12th, Adult Education, Higher Education
Subjects: Classroom Community, ELA, Social Emotional Learning
Whether you’re focusing on mental health in the classroom, recovering after a stressful testing period, or planning for a sub day, this wellness activity resource is an excellent addition to the classroom. Middle and high schoolers cycle through 6 SEL stations on positivity, gratitude, stress management, and more, with each one focusing on a different SEL skill.
Stress Management and Coping Skills Activities | Mental Health | FCS
The Family and Consumer Science Classroom
Grades: 7th-10th
Subjects: Family Consumer Science
This stress management resource includes a variety of mental health activities for high school students to work on healthy coping skills. Five different activities become stations in the classroom, where groups learn different ways to handle stressful situations or bouts of anxiety.
Inspiring Individual Mental Health Activities
For many students, mental health is a more private matter. Whether high schoolers are working on emotional understanding, self-regulation, or stress management, these individual mental health activities for teens can help them recognize and foster better mental health practices.
- Emotional Art: Brainstorm a list of emotions on the board, then have individual students choose one to represent in a painting, sculpture, or another art form.
- Teen Coloring Pages: Print calming coloring pages for teens to work on during quiet or stressful moments in the classroom.
- Mood Playlists: Have students make playlists or soundtracks to represent their moods (Happy Playlist, Frustrated Playlist, Sad Playlist, etc.)
- Affirmation Station: Encourage students to write at least 10 positive affirmations for themselves, then have them cycle through them as lock screens on their phones.
Hand out mental health self-assessments and reflections
What do your teens really think of themselves? Have them consider and monitor important aspects of their mental health with worksheets and handouts that address self-esteem and self-image.
Self Esteem Worksheet Activities Mental Health Middle High School Counseling SEL
By: Calm and Joyful Kids
Grades: 8th-11th
Subjects: School Counseling, School Psychology, Social Emotional Learning
Empower students to build self-confidence and recover from stress and doubt with a set of worksheets focused on self-esteem. As high schoolers complete activities on positive self-talk and improving their self-image, and complete a 14-day self-esteem journal, they reflect on who they really are and work on taking care of themselves.
Amazing Academic Mental Health Activities
If addressing mental health in the classroom seems too difficult with a busy curriculum, find ways to fold it into academic subjects. These academic mental health activities invite high schoolers to use mathematical, scientific, and critical thinking, along with research skills, when considering key concepts in mental health.
- Scientific Studies: Have students research a study on mental health, then represent the study’s findings and relevance on an easy-to-read poster or slideshow.
- Measure Your Breath: Encourage high schoolers to measure their breath and heartbeat immediately before a stressful event (such as a test or performance), then compare the results to the moment the stressful event is over to discover the rate of change.
- History of Mental Health: Lead a research project into the history of a specific mental health issue, such as women’s mental health, institutionalization, or mood-influencing medication.
- Character Mental Health Study: Have students complete a book report by analyzing a character’s mental health changes and development throughout a novel.
Connect mental health awareness to ELA instruction
Blending psychology concepts and ELA skills is a natural fit for students interested in their own mental health. Use ELA-based resources to both improve reading comprehension and mental health awareness in your classroom.
Mental Health Awareness for Teens Reading Comprehension NO PREP | Anxiety Stress
By: SERENDIPIA Bilingual Resources
Grades: 6th-12th
Subjects: Close Reading, Psychology, Social Emotional Learning
Combine reading skills and social-emotional learning with a CCSS-aligned resource on mental health awareness. High schoolers read passages about important mental health topics, including depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, and warning signs of low mental health, before answering reading comprehension questions and completing a word search and writing prompt.
Reliable Writing Activities for Mental Health
No matter the subject area, writing prompts for high school are tried-and-true mental health activities for teens. Whether they’re journaling, answering focused prompts, or writing creatively, high schoolers who write about their emotional state are able to reflect on themselves in ways classroom instruction often can’t.
- Letter to You: Have students write a letter to either their past selves (about how they’re doing now) or their future selves (about how they hope to be doing in the future).
- My Perfect Day: Prompt students to write a fictionalized account about a day when everything has gone perfectly well in their lives.
- Daily Gratitude: During warm-up writing periods, students can write a few sentences about something they’re grateful for that day.
- Empathy and POV: Write an interview of two fictional students talking about the same event but from completely different perspectives.
Track self-care and emotions with focused journals
Although the question “How are you doing today?” may seem simple, the answer could be complicated for many students. Guide high schoolers into tracking the way they feel and the way they take care of themselves with mental health journal resources.
Year of Mood Trackers
By: The Adventurous Classroom
Grades: 9th-12th
Subjects: Character Education, Health, Psychology
Teens may have a lot of emotions, but they don’t always know how they feel. This mood tracker resource comes with pre-filled emotions and blank spots for students to add their daily moods all month long, then reflect on any patterns they observe during the time period.
How to Address Mental Health in High School
It’s one thing to know that mental health in high school students can impact every part of their day, but another thing to actually work it into your busy schedule. Consider these instructional tips when deciding how (and when) to address mental health, no matter what subject you teach.
- Make mental health and check-ins a regular part of your warm-up routine.
- Use non-academic time around testing periods to talk about important mental health concepts.
- Ask students what mental health concepts they’d be interested in discussing in the coming weeks.
- Include Mental Health Awareness Month activities during your May curriculum.
- Regularly talk about the importance of self-care as it relates to student mental health.
- Make your classroom a calm, safe place for students to bring their concerns or discuss how they’re feeling.
Foster wholesome mental health habits in the classroom
Adolescence can be a challenge for any teenager, especially those who don’t understand what’s happening with their mental health. By implementing mental health activities for teens in the classroom, you’re giving them the resources and knowledge they need to navigate harder moments in their day. Find additional high school mental health resources for students in need of tools to identify their emotions and improve their self-esteem.