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Pre-planning is essential for group counseling success because it creates the foundation for meaningful work. When counselors take time to thoroughly prepare, they can anticipate challenges, ensure safety, and create an environment where real growth can happen.

By carefully considering everything from participant selection to confidentiality protocols, group leaders can build a structure that supports the group's goals.

Pre-planning also shows respect for participants' time and emotional investment. Middle school students, in particular, need structure and consistency to feel secure enough to be vulnerable in a group setting.

When a counselor has clearly defined objectives, prepared materials, and established safety protocols, it communicates professionalism and creates the contained space necessary for group work.

Pre-planning allows counselors to focus fully on their participants during sessions, rather than scrambling to manage logistical tasks.

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The Pre-Screening Questionnaire contains multiple-choice and short-answer questions to be completed by 7th and 8th-grade students.

This screening process helps identify students who will benefit from participating in the Digital Wellness Group while ensuring a balanced and productive group dynamic. The process aims to create a safe, supportive environment where students can explore their relationship with technology.

The information obtained will remain confidential between the group facilitators and the students involved in the Digital Wellness Group.

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12 Ways to Improve Your Child's Digital Health

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Twelve Ways to Improve Your Child's Digital Health

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Twelve Ways to Improve Your Child's Digital Health

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The Digital Wellness Group will strive to foster digital health by increasing students' self-awareness and understanding of how technology impacts their well-being. This flyer outlines 12 strategies to help parents or guardians improve their child's digital health.

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This lesson focuses on bridging the gap between online and offline relationships. Students create a "Connection Web" to visualize their social networks and practice essential face-to-face communication skills. Through group discussion and hands-on activities, they explore ways to reduce screen time in favor of real-world interactions. The lesson culminates in a practical challenge: planning an in-person activity with friends, taking the first step toward more balanced social connections.

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This lesson connects the dots between digital behavior and emotional health. By creating emotion wheels and sharing experiences, students see how social media shapes their moods - something they might not have noticed before. Adding practical tools like mindfulness techniques and role-playing scenarios turns awareness into action. Teaching students to set emotional boundaries online is important and helps keep them safe and make healthy choices.

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This lesson empowers students through self-discovery rather than lectures. By mapping their own screen time and using the traffic light system to categorize digital activities, students gain practical insights into their habits. When they choose which behaviors to change, they're more invested in the outcome than if we simply told them what to do.

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This lesson makes screen time real. Instead of lecturing students about digital wellness, it lets them discover their patterns. Visual mapping is powerful because you see your day laid out in front of you. The "Traffic Light" system keeps things practical. Not all screen time is bad, and this activity helps students sort the helpful from the harmful. By choosing their own "red light" behavior to change, students take ownership of their digital habits. They're more likely to follow through on changes they choose themselves than ones we force on them.

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This lesson builds trust and self-awareness through reflection and experiences. The Digital Time Capsule activity measures progress and allows students to examine their tech habits non-judgmentally. By setting goals and creating group rules, students engage actively. participants in their digital wellness journey rather than passive advice recipients.

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Steps to Improve Digital Health and Wellness

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Setting Clear, Consistent Rules, & Boundaries

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Setting Clear, Consistent Rules, & Boundaries

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By setting clear and consistent rules and boundaries, and modeling behavior, parents and guardians can support their children as they work to improve their digital health. The Digital Wellness Group will address ways students and parents/guardians can work together to improve digital health and wellness.

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This lesson helps students package what they've learned into a personalized toolkit they can use long after the group ends. By practicing with real scenarios and getting peer feedback, they strengthen their confidence in managing digital challenges. The focus on celebration and peer support creates a positive framework for maintaining healthy tech habits, while beginning the conversation about the group's end ensures a smooth transition to independent practice.

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This lesson makes the abstract concept of "digital balance" tangible through visual tools and concrete actions. By creating pie charts of their time and designating tech-free zones, students see where technology might be crowding out other life experiences. The alternative activity cards give them practical escape routes from mindless scrolling, turning vague wishes for "less screen time" into specific, doable actions they can take.

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This final lesson transforms individual insights into lasting change through creative visualization and peer recognition. The vision boards help students project their digital wellness goals into the future, while the Circle of Support reinforces their progress and commitments. By celebrating achievements and providing ongoing resources, we bridge the gap between group support and independent practice, ensuring students have the tools they need to maintain healthy digital habits on their own.

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Securing the signed Parent/Guardian Consent and Agreement form is one of the most imperative pre-group tasks. Parent/guardian consent must be obtained for each student before the Digital Wellness Group begins. This form not only obtains permission for the student to engage in the Digital Wellness Group, but it also informs parents/guardians of the purpose and benefits of the group.

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Parents and guardians of students in the Digital Wellness Group will be asked to complete this assessment, providing group facilitators with valuable information to be used as they develop effective and creative lessons to foster digital wellness.

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The Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development

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The Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development

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The Effects of Excessive Screen Time on Child Development

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This study examines the effects of screen time on several developmental domains and covers management and limitation techniques for kids' screen usage. Screens can improve education and learning, however, too much time spent in front of a screen has been related to worse executive functioning and academic performance, and can also impact language development. Excessive screen usage has detrimental effects on social and emotional growth, including a rise in the likelihood of obesity, sleep disorders, and mental health conditions including depression and anxiety. Setting boundaries, utilizing parental controls, and demonstrating good screen behavior are all techniques that parents may use to manage children's screen usage. The Digital Wellness Group will focus on how possible negative impacts of excessive screen time can be reduced and how healthy development and well-being can be promoted by increasing knowledge and encouraging alternative activities that stimulate development.

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How to Teach Children Digital Citizenship at Home

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How to Teach Children Digital Citizenship at Home

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The Digital Wellness Group will provide parents/guardians with resources that complement the lessons their children are learning during the 8-week program. This blog can be used as a resource to educate parents/guardians about digital citizenship and guide them in their efforts to teach their children the importance of digital citizenship. The blog includes links to additional resources.

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How to Teach Kids Digital Citizenship at Home - Education.com Blog

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I was the typical first-time mom with my firstborn—I pureed food he refused to eat, used cloth diapers, disinfected anything that touched the ground, and

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After obtaining signed consent and agreement forms from parents/guardians, the signed student consent and agreement form must be obtained from each group member before the Digital Wellness Group begins. The group agreement sets the tone for standards, norms, and expectations that each student will be held to, fostering trust and comfort throughout the Digital Wellness Group.

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This Week 4 worksheet focuses on developing healthy digital habits and emotional awareness.

1. The Digital Emotion Tracker helps students monitor their screen time and its impact on their emotions, encouraging them to notice patterns in how different online activities affect their moods.

2. The Mindfulness Practice Log introduces the STOP method (Stop, Take a breath, Observe, Proceed), which is a mindful pause before engaging with devices. This technique helps users check in with themselves and make more conscious choices about their technology use.

3. The Cyberbullying Response Plan creates a structured approach to handling online harassment. It includes identifying trusted adults, specific action steps like documenting evidence and reporting incidents, preparing appropriate responses to situations, and maintaining personal well-being through self-care practices.

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Mayim Bialik, shares her personal self-disclosures about the old and new life about the usage of cell phones. For the listener, she brings helpful interventions to the conversation that she uses to reduce cell phone usage.

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4 Tips To Break Your Phone Addiction || Mayim Bialik

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The Need of Digital Citizenship Education for Adolescents

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The Need of Digital Citizenship Education for Adolescents

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This article discusses the need for Digital Citizenship Education (DCE) for adolescents in the current digital landscape. A survey conducted among school-going adolescents revealed that many lack awareness of cyber laws, struggle to assess the reliability of online information and believe everything they see online is true. ​Digital citizenship education is crucial for teaching individuals to navigate the digital world safely, ethically, and responsibly. ​This study emphasizes the importance of integrating DCE into school curriculums to equip students with the necessary skills and knowledge to be responsible digital citizens. ​The Digital Wellness Group will address these important aspects of digital citizenship to foster positive growth as students navigate their digital worlds and strive to utilize technology positively and responsibly.

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Examining the need of digital citizenship education for adolescents

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50 Screen-Free Activities for Tweens and Teens

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50 Screen-Free Activities for Tweens and Teens

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This resource offers screen-free alternatives that are appropriate for teens and tweens. Parents can use this resource to spark ideas for different screen-free activities, or use it to engage their student in a specific activity listed.

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50+ Screen-Free Activities for Tweens and Teens

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Worried your teenager is on their device too much? Here are 50 screen-free activities for teens when you want them to unplug.

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This parent resource explains the process of finding screen-free hobbies and provides examples. The article highlights how to establish appropriate and accessible activities and begin integrating them into your schedule to create habits and hobbies.

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Unplugged and Happy: 100 Hobbies Your Child Will Love More than Screens

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End tech battles: give your child a choice they will want more than their digital devices By engaging your child in hobbies that capture their interest, you can successfully reduce their dependency

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Supporting Digital Wellbeing: 8 Ways to Help Teens Unplug from Technology

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Supporting Digital Wellbeing: 8 Ways to Help Teens Unplug from Technology

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This website gives parents tips on how to help their teen unplug from technology.

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Supporting Digital Wellbeing: 8 Ways to Help Teens Unplug from Technology

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Discover the importance of digital wellbeing for teens. Learn how excessive screen time can impact mental health and overall well-being.

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This video works well as an opener for the week 2 session:

It provides a scientific foundation for understanding why tracking screen time matters

The information naturally leads into the "Tech Traffic Light" categorization activity

It's engaging enough to capture student attention at the start of the session

The content aligns with the lesson objectives about understanding digital lives

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This video supports the lesson's goals by featuring authentic teen voices discussing the balance between online and in-person friendships. It creates relatability and naturally transitions into our Connection Web activity. The content addresses our objectives of examining online vs offline relationships and encourages critical thinking about building meaningful face-to-face connections.

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Teen Voices: Friendships and Social Media

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The "Teen Voices: Who You're Talking to Online" video from Common Sense Education.

By presenting real-world scenarios and peer perspectives this video bridges digital concepts with practical real experiences making it a good transition into the "Future Self Letter" activity.

The video's content naturally supports the lesson's core objectives of:

helping students critically examine their online presence

understand potential long-term consequences

develop personal guidelines for social media engagement

This video encourages students to reflect on their digital choices making it a powerful tool for fostering digital citizenship and self-awareness during the critical middle school years.

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Teen Voices: Who You're Talking to Online

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A Parents’ Guide to Supporting Family Online Safety

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A Parents’ Guide to Supporting Family Online Safety

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This parent guide talks about screen time and how parents can take control by setting boundaries.

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A Parents’ Guide to Supporting Family Online Safety - Culture Reframed

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This worksheet guides students to reflect on their current online identity and clarify the kind of digital presence they hope to develop. Through self-assessment and goal-setting activities, students will explore how they present themselves in various digital spaces and identify strategies to align their online behavior with their personal values and aspirations.

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Week Three Worksheet: Focusing on Who Students Are Now and Who They Want to Be Regarding Their Digital Presence

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Week Three Worksheet: Focusing on Who Students Are Now and Who They Want to Be Regarding Their Digital Presence

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Week 8 activity: Digital Wellness Vision Board

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Week 8 activity: Digital Wellness Vision Board

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Participants use magazines, images, art supplies, or digital collage tools to create vision boards that depict their ideal relationship with technology—such as balanced hobbies, meaningful online connections, or limited screen time.

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The Digital Wellness Guide is designed to provide parents and caregivers information and guidance based on clinical evidence and scientific research. It discusses the benefits and risks of digital media use and provide recommendations for navigating and supporting healthy media use.

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2023-2024 Update: A guide for helping kids build healthy and safe digital habits

We hear directly from youth that their lived reality is one seamless environment with little distinction between their digital and non-digital experiences - making digital wellness a journey, not an end state.

With technology constantly evolving, we understand that parents and caregivers may feel concerned, confused, or even guilty about their decisions around their children's use of screens. We recommend that instead of worrying about how you're handling your child's technology use, ask yourself, "How can I help my child utilize interactive media in a way that creates a positive effect on their overall mental and physical health?"

Because we know from our research that technology and digital media, when used with intention, can support well-being, we have designed this guide to empower families as they navigate their way through the ongoing process of intentional engagement with these powerful tools, both online and off.

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Family Digital Wellness Guide - The Digital Wellness Lab

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We hear directly from youth that their lived reality is one seamless environment with little distinction between their digital and non-digital experiences - making digital wellness a journey, not an end state.

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Social Media Checklist serves as a quick reference before posting anything online

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Your digital footprint is the trail of data you leave behind online every post, like, comment, and photo becomes part of your digital story. This worksheet helps you think critically about your online presence and intentionally choose what you share.

Why This Matters:
Your digital footprint can impact your future opportunities, relationships, and reputation. Just like you wouldn't put up embarrassing posters of yourself around town, you should be thoughtful about what you post online.

Remember: The internet never forgets. But with careful thought and good habits, you can build a positive digital presence that represents your best self.

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This worksheet helps you become more aware of how you spend time with your devices throughout the day.

The 24-Hour Tracker lets you log each digital activity as it happens. Note what you're doing, which device you're using, why you're using it, and how it makes you feel. These details reveal patterns you might not notice otherwise.

The Traffic Light section helps you sort your digital activities into three categories:

🔴 Red Light activities are ones you should limit or stop

🟡 Yellow Light activities need careful boundaries

🟢 Green Light activities support your goals and well-being

Take a moment each day to reflect on your digital wellness journey. What worked well? What could you improve tomorrow? Small adjustments to your tech habits can make a big difference in how you feel and function.

Remember, this isn't about judging yourself - it's about understanding your habits so you can make choices that work better for you.

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Set your digital wellness goal for the week and define what success looks like. Being specific helps turn your intentions into actions. Think of what you want to change about your tech habits, then write down exactly how you'll know when you've done it. Keep it simple - one clear goal is better than three fuzzy ones.

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This engaging short video tells the story of a student who gets caught up in an endless group chat. As messages keep piling up, they stay up later and later trying to keep up with every notification.

The video cleverly shows how digital overload can affect sleep and next-day performance, using a relatable scenario that middle school students will recognize from their own lives.

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This powerful TEDx talk breaks down how social media and screens compete for our attention.

Think of it this way: by age 18, most of us will spend more time looking at screens than doing almost anything else in life. But here's the real question - is that how we really want to spend our time?

The speaker challenges students to think about social media differently. Instead of asking "How much time do I spend on it?" ask "What am I giving up to spend that time?" It's about making conscious choices about where our attention goes.

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The Battle for Your Time: Exposing the Costs of Social Media | Dino Ambrosi | TEDxLagunaBlancaSchool

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Is time on your phone affecting your relationship with your kids?

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Is time on your phone affecting your relationship with your kids?

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This video addresses ways in which parents/guardians can set examples for their children when it comes to cell phone use.

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Is time on your phone affecting your relationship with your kids?

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Interactions With Peers Without Digital Devices

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Interactions With Peers Without Digital Devices

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This image exemplifies what we would like to see: Students engaged in face-to-face interactions, participating in activities together and enjoying in-person interactions.

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By mapping their "Connection Web" and practicing face-to-face skills, students discover the different qualities of online versus offline relationships. The hands-on challenge to plan in-person activities helps them turn insight into action, bridging the gap between digital convenience and genuine human connection.

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How Is Cell Phone Use Impacting My Social Interactions?

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How Is Cell Phone Use Impacting My Social Interactions?

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This image highlights the negative social impact that technology has on our students. We see no face to face interaction or connections being made.

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This image shows the power that youth can have within themselves by managing screen time and building resilience to focus on mental wellness.

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How Are Digital Devices Impacting My Life?

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How Are Digital Devices Impacting My Life?

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How Are Digital Devices Impacting My Life?

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The Digital Wellness Group will ask students to explore how digital devices impact their lives.