Feel Your Best Self: Insights from elementary teachers’ use in teaching emotion-focused coping strategies

Abstract

Feel Your Best Self (FYBS) teaches 12 emotion-focused coping strategies to strengthen emotion regulation and day-to-day experiences of positive emotions. Released in 2022, FYBS was designed to be implemented flexibly and with minimal preparation by elementary educators. In this manuscript, we present findings from a case study of early adopters (n = 6), sharing insights into how they have used, adapted, and generalized the program with their students. Participants ranged from first to fifth grade teachers. Four teachers implemented in English and two teachers implemented in Spanish. Findings suggest that early adopters “kept it simple;” leaned into opportunities to promote joy, engagement, and access using FYBS; adjusted instructional activities for developmental appropriateness; and integrated additional best practices. These insights suggest that FYBS is achieving its intended goal of simple and flexible instruction of emotion-focused coping strategies in elementary classrooms. We conclude by discussing next steps in expanding FYBS materials and testing the program’s cultural responsiveness and impact on student outcomes.