6th Grade Alternative Family Life Curriculum Course

This comprehensive 6th grade curriculum prepares students to navigate adolescence with confidence, critical thinking, and strong decision-making skills. Students develop active listening and emotional intelligence, explore how family and peer influences shape their choices, and build media literacy to evaluate advertisements and messages critically. The curriculum emphasizes self-esteem through identifying personal strengths and practicing positive self-talk, while teaching students to recognize and respect personal boundaries through consent and refusal skills. A dedicated unit on bullying and cyberbullying equips students with assertiveness techniques and strategies to respond to harassment in all forms—from direct confrontation to online harm. By balancing growing independence with responsibility, this curriculum empowers 6th grade students to communicate effectively, make informed decisions, develop a foundational understanding of consent and personal safety, recognize their rights, and advocate for themselves and others in an increasingly complex social landscape.

Question 1: How can I communicate effectively, build healthy relationships, and make responsible decisions while navigating the increasing influence of media, peers, and my own growing independence?

Question 2: How do I recognize bullying and cyberbullying, practice assertiveness and refusal skills, make thoughtful decisions about my health, and understand the importance of consent and personal safety?

Back to Curriculum Family Landing

These foundational lessons teach students essential interpersonal skills and self-awareness as they navigate increasing independence. Students begin with active listening, understanding six key components. Through activities and expressing emotions with different tones, students practice distinguishing emotional cues and responding with empathy. The lessons address how families influence adolescent health through discussions of family functions, daily routines, and changing family structures, helping students understand that as they age, peer influence grows while family influence remains important.
Students analyze family relationships and responsibilities, recognizing that family members have different roles and that conflict between parental expectations and peer influence is normal and can be resolved through communication. '

The curriculum then shifts to media literacy, where students critically examine television commercials and magazine advertisements, discussing what products are advertised, how they're presented, and what messages are conveyed. The lessons emphasize self-esteem and self-confidence, with students identifying personal strengths, creating positive affirmations ("I know I am ___ because ___"), and learning to "flip the script" from negative self-talk to growth-oriented thinking. Students explore personal boundaries—standards for how people can treat them—and practice consent (voluntary permission) and refusal skills.

These critical lessons equip students with strategies to recognize, respond to, and prevent bullying in all its forms. Students learn that bullying involves a power differential—one person having more authority or status than another—and that bullying can occur through direct confrontation or behind the scenes. They study cyberbullying as a modern form of harassment through technology (social media, texts, online games), recognizing that it can be particularly harmful because posts can be saved and shared, creating lasting damage.

The curriculum teaches assertiveness as the middle ground between aggression (prioritizing your needs and using threats) and passivity (doing things you don't want to do because of pressure). Students learn specific assertiveness techniques, setting clear boundaries, asking for thinking time, stating needs calmly, and using "I feel" messages to communicate personal needs. The lessons emphasize refusal skills—a process of letting others know they're not giving permission—with students practicing through activities showing realistic scenarios.

Students explore the distinction between affection/friendliness (based on respect) and disrespectful behavior, learning that "the person being treated" determines whether an action is affection or harassment. The curriculum connects these concepts to TUSD policies prohibiting harassment and emphasizing consequences for bullying, empowering students to recognize when to ask for help from trusted adults.

This practical portion develops students' ability to make thoughtful health-related decisions, maintain personal hygiene, and understand consent and personal safety. Students learn a five-step process of decision making, understanding that thoughtful decisions consider how choices affect others and have long-term impacts.

The personal hygiene lesson invites students to explore topics using resources. Students learn about infection prevention, proper sanitizing techniques, and health products.

The final lesson addresses consent and personal safety, with students reflecting on activities they do without parents and considering risk factors that could complicate situations. Students learn that each person gets to decide about their own body, that consent must be voluntary and can be withdrawn, and understanding when consent isn't consent (bribes, coercion, deception). The curriculum emphasizes that consent is foundational to empowerment and safety, and that practicing these skills prepares students to make safe choices as they gain more independence.