Refusal Skills
Objective: To learn effective refusal skills.
Materials:
Stop Light handout
Crayons
Board/Overhead
SAMHSA Refusal Skills
Procedure:
Ask children what kind of choices they make every day (get up on time for school or stay in bed,
eat healthy food or junk food, walk in a straight line at school or stray out of line, sit quietly in a
seat or constantly move around) List all ideas on the board.
Then ask, has anyone ever been asked to do something not very nice that you did not
want to do?
List examples (say a mean thing to someone, tell a lie for someone, steal something, are
mean to an animal).
What do you think we should do when we are asked to do something like that?
(Show Stop Light handout: Red – Stop, Yellow – Think, Green – Choose)
Explain to students that they should stop and think about what they are about to do,
and then choose-----not to do it.
If someone asks you to do something not nice, what would you do? Show the stop light
as everyone says:
Stop, Think, Choose
List some refusal skills on the board/overhead. Discuss with the students what refusal
skill they think is the best.. (See SAMHSA Refusal Skills) Have the students color the
Stop Light the appropriate Red-Yellow-Green and again discuss how Stop-ThinkChoose correspond with the colors.
Benchmarks:
HE.1.B.3.2 Identify healthy options to health-related issues or problems.
HE.1.C.2.3 Recognize health consequences for not following rules.
LA.1.5.2.1 Listen attentively and understand directions for performing tasks (e.g., multi-step oral
directions), solving problems, and following rules.
· STOp
.THIN/(
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