My Life is Worth Living is a mental wellness and suicide prevention series produced by the Cook Center for Human Connection in collaboration with Wonder Media. Each episode models positive coping skills and positive mental wellness techniques. In the Resources tab, you'll find this episode in the following order: English, Spanish, Portuguese, Mandarin, Japanese.
Character Synopsis: Kyle is a 16-year-old high school sophomore, and a talented soccer player. He has plastered his bedroom walls with his favorite “footballer”: Diego Maradona. Kyle longs to be more charismatic and sure of himself like Maradona, and especially like his father Mario, both of whom Kyle sees as strong, confident near-perfect heroes. Kyle finds himself more of an introvert than his idols, which he often sees as a great flaw in his character. Since starting high school, Kyle has struggled with feelings of inadequacy and although he has friends on the soccer team, he often finds it hard to connect with them. After making an embarrassing mistake during a soccer match, Kyle becomes the target of cyberbullying, and soon his inner voice of negativity grows louder and louder. Not wanting to burden his Dad or his friends, Kyle starts turning to alcohol to cope with his feelings when his thoughts become suicidal. With the support and vulnerability of his Dad, a friend, and eventually a therapist, he is able to gain positive coping skills in order to deal with his negative thoughts.
Episode Synopsis: Kyle wakes up after a night of drinking to find that he made a fool of himself at a friend’s house party. Now the social media bullying and mockery he’d been running from is on a whole new level, and his negative thoughts tell him he’ll never live it down. Kyle hides his pain from his father Mario and sneaks out of the house to drink, but finds that alcohol isn’t enough to quiet the voice that tells him it will never get better. Deep in despair, a childhood memory helps Kyle find optimism, and prompts him to return home and open up to his dad about what he’s going through.
In each My Life is Worth Living lesson plan, you will find partner and class discussion prompts, writing prompts, a group activity, and a family resource. This lesson is appropriate for grades 6-12.
