Self Management Teaching Resources

Help your students improve their self management skills with activities and printable worksheets created by teachers specifically for elementary and middle school students.

This teaching resource collection has been designed to help teachers help their students develop a host of skills from skills such as self control to impulse control and time management, goal setting. With digital and printable activities available, there is something to fit every lesson plan!

Best of all, each teaching resource has undergone rigorous review by the Teach Starter team to ensure it's ready for the classroom ... and your students!

Curious about teaching self management skills and looking for strategies that will work for your students? Read on for some tips from our expert teachers!

What Is Self Management? A Kid-Friendly Definition

Like so many lessons we teach, it can be helpful to start off by defining what self management actually means to give our students an understanding of the topic at hand. Here's a self management definition for kids from our teacher team:

Self-management means being in control of your own thoughts, feelings and actions. When we have good self management, we are able to make good choices and stay focused on our goals. Self management skills also help us to handle our emotions in a positive way.

Self Management Skills for Kids to Teach in the Classroom

As one of the core competencies of SEL, self management covers a fairly broad area. The skills that kids develop under this umbrella can include everything from means for control anxiety and anger to learning to set goals and make the changes necessary to meet them.

So what are the main skills you should be teaching? Here are some of the more common ones our teacher team focuses on with our students:

Resilience

We help our students develop resilience by teaching them how to bounce back from setbacks, cope with challenges and persevere — skills that they'll need long after they've left your classroom.

Self Control

The names are nearly synonymous, so it's hardly surprising that self control falls under the self management umbrella. Teaching kids these skills can involve discussing techniques they can use to manage their impulses and emotions

Goal Setting

Being able to set realistic and achievable goals — both short-term and long-term — falls under self management. With this in mind, it's important to also teach your students strategies to work toward their goals and track their progress.

Time Management

Helping your students understand the concept of time and teaching them to plan and organize their tasks and activities falls right in line with providing strategies to achieve their goals. Time management is also an essential life skill that will serve your students well into adulthood.

Task Initiation

While the level of independence and ability to initiate tasks is highly dependent on factors like age and person abilities, encouraging your students to start tasks promptly and independently is part of building those self management skills. This also involves helping them overcome procrastination or avoidance behaviors.

Organization

Teaching our students strategies for organizing their materials — whether it's keeping their desks tidy or returning borrowed materials to the appropriate place – is a key component of teaching them self management. As they get older, they should be able to take on more and more responsibility for keeping their belongings organized.

Responsibility

Speaking of responsibility, it's important to promote a sense of responsibility by encouraging students to take ownership of their actions in your classroom, to complete their assignments on time and to follow classroom rules.