Cool-down Strategies

Purpose
When people become angry, emotions can get in the way of peaceful conflict resolution.
Cool-down strategies are ways for students to bring their emotions under control
before getting into trouble or causing harm to anyone or anything. With their anger in
check, students can then take steps to resolve the conflict peacefully.

Breaking It Down
■ The students must fi rst recognize that they are getting angry and that they
need to take steps to bring their anger under control. (See the Emotional
Thermometer section.)

■ Next, they need to employ an appropriate strategy for talking themselves into a
less volatile state of mind. To do this, they can use the Stop and Stay Cool steps,
self-talk, or any other technique that works.

STOP AND STAY COOL
In this strategy, the students identify that they are in danger of losing control
and then practice regulating their breathing as a way of defusing their anger.
(For more on this, see the Stop and Stay Cool section.)

SELF-TALK
In this strategy, each person thinks of a phrase or statement to repeat silently
when he or she is getting angry. Statements might include: “I can stay in
control,” “This will pass,” “There is no need to get upset,” “I can get through
this,” “People make mistakes, and I can excuse them,” or any other phrase that
interrupts the cycle of angry thoughts.

■ Once the students have their emotions back under control, they can begin
taking steps to resolve the confl ict. (See the Confl ict Stoppers, Problem
Solving—My Part, and Problem Solving—Our Part sections also.)

Fine-Tuning Technique
■ Emotions are invisible, and the students will need help recognizing the signs
in themselves and others. Use the Emotional Thermometer technique to talk
about the incremental—or immediate—escalation of emotions. Use role-play
or a Looks Like/Sounds Like/Feels Like chart to introduce and talk about signs
that might indicate when someone is getting angry: clenched fi sts, raised voice,
tensed upper body, etc.

■ Help the students develop a more complex range of vocabulary to describe
their feelings. This will attune the students to the nuances of their emotions
and allow them to recognize the difference between frustration and fury,
for instance.

■ Model, model, model. Use a Think Aloud to show the students how to analyze
a problem. Practice working through cool-down strategies in hypothetical
confl icts, or talk about confl icts in books that the students are reading as a way
to discuss alternatives.

■ Discuss why cool-down strategies work: they interrupt the cycle of angry
thoughts that could otherwise escalate and lead to violence.

■ Acknowledge that anger and frustration are emotions that can be hard to
handle. Reassure the students that feeling angry or frustrated is not bad, but
that they need to learn how to control their reaction to these emotions. It is
their reactions that can get them into trouble.

■ Not every cool-down technique will work for everyone or in every situation.
Work with individual students to fi nd a strategy that fi ts. Suggestions include
taking a break, counting to ten, taking a deep breath, or fi nding another task
like exercising, playing music, doing a puzzle, reading a book, or writing to
a friend.

■ Provide experimental stations where the students can try different strategies,
such as listening to a cassette tape or sculpting clay, to cool down, and
encourage the students to share their own ideas with others.