A Good Life Skills Curriculum for High School Students

by ARISE Foundation

ARISE Blog: A Good Life Skills Curriculum for High School Students

A Good Life Skills Curriculum for High School

A strong life skills program for high school youth should prepare teens to thrive independently, make responsible decisions, and succeed personally and professionally. The best programs balance practical daily living skills, emotional intelligence, and social responsibility.

What should be included in a life skills curriculum for high school:

1. Personal Development & Emotional Intelligence

  • Self-awareness: Understanding strengths, weaknesses, and values.
  • Self-regulation: Managing stress, emotions, and impulses.
  • Resilience: Coping with failure and bouncing back from setbacks.
  • Goal setting and motivation: Creating and following through on short- and long-term goals.
  • Growth mindset: Viewing challenges as opportunities for learning.

2. Communication & Relationship Skills

  • Active listening and empathy.
  • Assertive (not aggressive) communication.
  • Conflict resolution and negotiation.
  • Teamwork and collaboration.

3. Financial Literacy

  • Budgeting and saving.
  • Understanding credit and debt.
  • Banking basics (checking/savings accounts, interest).
  • Smart consumer choices (buying vs. renting, avoiding scams).
  • Taxes and paychecks.

4. Practical Daily Living Skills

  • Time management and organization.
  • Personal hygiene and health management.
  • Using public transportation and travel safety.

5. Health, Wellness, and Safety

  • Physical health: Exercise, sleep, and nutrition habits.
  • Mental health awareness: Recognizing anxiety, depression, and when to seek help.
  • Substance use education and prevention.
  • Healthy relationships and consent.
  • Personal safety.

6. Career Readiness

  • Resume writing and job applications.
  • Interview skills and workplace etiquette.
  • Exploring career paths and vocational interests.
  • Entrepreneurial thinking.
  • Networking and professional communication.

ARISE life skills curriculum for high school provides many of these important skills. View the ARISE Life Skills Program for High School Students.

 

A good curriculum with easy-to-follow lessons makes it easy for the group facilitator to present life skills lessons for teens.

Presentation Methods to Build Trust, Engagement, and Relevance

These methods are built into the ARISE life skills lessons for high school.

  • Role plays: Job interviews, conflict resolution, budgeting scenarios.
  • Simulations: Managing a budget, creating a resume, creating a positive way to deal with conflict, meditating to get rid of stress.
  • Games and Stories: Makes learning active, not passive. Youth work in groups in a safe place and they engage in real-life choices. Create budgets together, create ways to handle conflict with positive results. A story of a young person avoiding debt hits closer to home than abstract advice. A narrative about a teen navigating peer pressure or learning from failure demonstrates how to think, not just what to think.

After hearing a story, the teens can discuss questions such as: What would they have done differently? Why did the character make that choice? What lessons apply to your life? This encourages critical thinking and emotional expression in a non-threatening way.

 

A Sample Activity for a Life Skills Lesson for Teens

Activity Title: The $100 Choice

Topic: Budgeting and Understanding Consequences

Youth get their first paycheck of $100 after working a part-time job. There are lots of things you could do with the money. Every choice has a consequence which can be good or not so good. Give the youth five spending options:

  1. Buy new shoes you've wanted.
  2. Go out to eat with friends all weekend.
  3. Save half, spend half.
  4. Help a family member who needs gas money.
  5. Put it all into savings for a goal (bigger purchase, going out with a friend for an event).

Small group discussion: Ask the youth to discuss the following:

  1. What are the short-term benefits of your choice?
  2. What are the long-term consequences (good or bad)?
  3. How would this choice make you feel tomorrow? In a month?

Have each group quickly present their reasoning.

Group reflection questions:

  1. Which option felt most realistic?
  2. Have you ever made a choice like this in real life?
  3. What did you learn about yourself from this activity?

 

Every decision, big or small, shapes your story. Smart life choices
provide better outcomes for tomorrow.

ARISE Evidenced Based Life Skills Curriculum

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