Learning Links
Dating/Marriage / Pregnancy / Birth Control / HIV/AIDS/STDs / Death and Grief / Divorce / Rape / Suicide / Abuse / Discipline / Self-control / Adoption / Baby-sitting / Day Care / Geriatrics
Related Concepts
Communication Skills / Rights & Responsibilities in Interpersonal Relationships / Parenting / Conflict Resolution / Child Development / Sexuality / Human Life Cycle / Family Crisis / Family Violence / Personal Safety / Abstinence Skills
Demonstrators should be read from bottom to top, but need not be demonstrated sequentially.
Elementary Demonstrators
• Determine roles of family members.
• Recognize rights and responsibilities in family relationships.
• Demonstrate appropriate ways to express feelings.
• Examine different types of families and changes within families.
• Create solutions to problems that occur in family relationships.
• Demonstrate positive ways to resolve conflicts.
• Determine situations that are abusive or unsafe.
Middle School Demonstrators
• Choose strategies for responding to sexual abuse and family violence.
• Analyze effective practices which prevent Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STDs).
• Describe changes (e.g., physical, emotional, social) that occur during adolescence.
• Distinguish between rights and responsibilities in family relationships.
• Evaluate constructive and destructive family relationships in different types of families.
High School Demonstrators
• Investigate protective strategies for dealing with sexual abuse and family violence.
• Interpret the impact of changes throughout the life cycle.
• Assess parenting skills that lead to a nurturing family life.
• Analyze the impact of family planning on individual, family, and society.
• Evaluate the impact of sexual choices on the health and well-being of self and others.
• Analyze personal rights and responsibilities in family relationships.
• Apply skills that promote healthy relationships among family and friends.
• Analyze lifestyle decisions that promote healthy family living.
Sample Teaching/Assessment Strategies
Collaborative Process: Cooperative Learning / Community-Based Instruction: Field Studies / Continuous Progress Assessment: Self-assessment / Problem Solving: Inquiry, Investigation, Simulation, Role-play, Interview / Whole Language Approach / Writing Process
These sample strategies offer ideas and are not meant to limit teacher resourcefulness. More strategies are found in the resource section.
Ideas for Incorporating Community Resources
• Invite a lawyer, police officer, or spouse abuse representative to discuss dating and/or domestic violence.
• Visit one or more childcare centers to observe developmentally appropriate activities.
• Invite a community member from another culture (e.g., foreign exchange student) to visit the class and talk about family in his/her country of origin.
• Invite a social services or Family and Youth Service Center representative to class to discuss community agencies that offer assistance or protection to families or children.
Core Concept - Family Life and Parenting
Sample Elementary Activities
• Use a word processor to draft, revise, and finalize a story which portrays a real-life conflict; include ways to resolve the problem. Discuss the effectiveness of the solutions. OE, P
• Brainstorm household chores/jobs. Chart the tasks each family member performs. OE
• Role-play ways to express personal feelings experienced in given situations. PE
• Make or draw a house in which your family members are placed. Display the house and discuss the similarities and differences with other households to examine types of families. OE
• Read a book/article where people are in safe and unsafe situations. List actions that have led to both the safe and unsafe circumstances. Compare this to situations you might face. Determine what actions you could take. P
• Create and perform a skit that demonstrates rights and responsibilities of family members. OE
• Make a chart which lists likes and dislikes of family members. Analyze the lists to predict why certain problems occur in families. PE, OE
Applications Across the Curriculum
Language Arts
· Read stories about family relationships. Web the responsibilities of the family members. Create your own book about family members and their responsibilities toward other family members. P
Science
· Prepare a graphic representation (e.g., circle graphs, line graphs, histograms, charts) to describe survey information from your classmates regarding roles and responsibilities of family members. Compare it to a honeybee society. P
Mathematics
· Consider several household chores for which you feel you should be responsible and the allowance you think would be fair for each activity. Identify the basis for establishing the rate of allowance. OE
Social Studies
· Role-play family roles in agrarian and urban societies. PE
Arts and Humanities
· Create a soft sculpture of someone special to you. Promote a family life week during which the soft sculptures will be displayed. PE, P
Vocational Education
· Determine solutions to family-life problems resulting from a family crisis or change (e.g., illness, move, new baby, handicapped or elderly family member) by using problem-solving techniques. PE, OE
· Role-play solutions to sibling conflicts. Identify the consequences of each solution and determine if there are preferred actions. PE
Sample Middle School Activities
• Simulate the responsibilities of parenthood by caring for an inanimate object (e.g., egg, two pound bag of flour) for an extended period of time and relate how being a parent would change the lifestyle of an adolescent. PE, P
• Write, perform, and critique a skit which communicates effective refusal skills. PE, OE, P
• Generate and role-play scenarios where adolescent issues/concerns (e.g., gossip, peer pressure, sexual relationships, sexual disease, exploitation) are resolved. P
• Use desktop publishing to write articles on blended families for the school newspaper. Include ways (e.g., communication, distribution of chores) to ease the transition. OE, P
• View a television program and determine the roles and responsibilities of each family member. Discuss and analyze why certain problems occur and how they can be resolved. OE, P
• Research community agencies that offer assistance or protection to families or children. Make a booklet that identifies the agencies and include services, addresses, and phone numbers. OE, P
• Gather information on prevention of Sexually Transmitted Diseases (STD's). Evaluate the accuracy and credibility of the data. PE, OE
Applications Across the Curriculum
Variations on a theme: Home Safety
Language Arts
· Write a play about home accidents and how to avoid them. PE, OE
Science
· Inventory the cleaning and painting supplies in your home. Assess current storage facilities for the products and design an alternative storage plan, if needed. PE
Mathematics
· Research the type and number of in-home accidents and design a plan to eliminate those risks in your home. PE, OE
Social Studies
· Research the history of first-aid procedures; create a visual on how they have changed (e.g., seizures, water safety, choking). P
Arts and Humanities
· Design posters for home-safety awareness and display in the community. PE
· Videotape the home-accident play and share with a class of elementary students. PE
Vocational Education
· Prepare a baby-sitter's manual emphasizing home safety and dealing with emergencies. PE, OE, P
Sample High School Activities
• Create an exhibit which focuses on lifestyles that promote healthy family living; display the exhibit in the local community. PE, P
• Brainstorm, by working in small groups, possible solutions to problems or situations involving family roles and responsibilities; select the most viable and defend the solution(s). OE, P
• Design a poster on the physical, social, and emotional risks of becoming sexually active. Describe how the life of a young woman or man might change. PE, OE, P
• View laser-disk technology dealing with teenage sexuality and discuss social concerns. OE, P
• Write a manual for middle school students communicating effective refusal skills. P
• Collect data which show the connection between occupations and family relationships. Develop a presentation which shows how career choices may affect family life styles (e.g., location of job, salary). PE
• Examine how the aging of family members affects relationships in the family. Write a piece which discusses ways to deal with these life changes. P
• Volunteer to work with a community agency that addresses family violence. PE, OE, P
Applications Across the Curriculum
Language Arts
· Interview a cross section of single parents and their children for a series of articles for your school newspaper. Analyze effects of social and economic status, gender, age, cultural and/or ethnic heritage, educational level, and other factors on each parent-child relationship. Discuss coping mechanisms for single parents and their children, benefits and liabilities of living with or being a single parent, and other information of interest to the readers of your series. PE, P
Science
· Evaluate the reliability of the means (e.g., physical characteristics, personality traits, blood types, DNA mapping) by which paternity is determined. OE
· Research the effects of a chronic illness on familial relationships. Create and present a multimedia report of your findings. P
Mathematics
· Investigate the financial impact of divorce on a family with children ages 10 and 16 with two working parents. P
Social Studies
· Research family life in America from colonial times to the present. Using a multimedia presentation, show reasons changes have occurred in family structure. PE, P
Arts and Humanities
· Create and perform an improvisation where two family members must resolve a real-life, family issue/problem. PE
· Create individual designs for a bulletin board depicting the impact of changes throughout the life cycle. Select the designs or "merged" design to be displayed in the library. PE
Vocational Education
· Plan and conduct activities (e.g., recreational, educational) for the elderly. Create and publish an article on your experience. PE, OE
· Research activities which address the social, emotional, mental, and physical needs of a four-year old. Plan and implement a variety of appropriate activities in a nursery school program. PE, OE, P
· Write an article for the school newspaper regarding the risks of premarital sex. P