We have heard over and over again about how mindfulness is great for adults and children alike but sometimes it’s difficult to explain to your children why practicing mindfulness is good. This video will help…
We have heard over and over again about how mindfulness is great for adults and children alike but sometimes it’s difficult to explain to your children why practicing mindfulness is good. This video will help…
In the chaos that ensues in our daily lives, there is rarely a moment where we can rest, be still and be fully present. Drifting away with our thoughts of yesterday and tomorrow, it is easy to forget how to be present today. We are always on the move and in haste, and we hardly stop to take a breather and relish the moment.
I’ve been trying to encourage the boys to be mindful and present, at least that’s the task for G1. For G2, I’ll settle for him just learning to be still and silent – which alone is already a big ask since he has ants in his pants and an itch in his mouth that must be scratched by talking. So for just 10 minutes a day after school or just before bedtime we listen to alpha wave music or meditation for kids.
Kenobi: But Master Yoda says I should be mindful of the future.
Qui-Gon: But not at the expense of the moment. Be mindful of the living Force, young Padawan.
There so many reasons to encourage children to be mindful and to meditate that you can take your pick…
Resources:
Our interest in mindfulness began when we learned about how:
Mindfulness Meditation is a type of meditation that focuses attention on breathing, bodily sensations and mental relaxation. The primary focus is to concentrate on our current physical state.
It works by engaging six neuropsychological processes:
See also: What is Mindfulness Meditation?
See also: Teach children how practicing mindfulness can help them
We were also very interested to see how it has been applied into school programs:
Mindfulness practice is quick and easy to implement in school and at home. We felt that the potential benefits for teaching children such practices are worth that little effort it takes to incorporate it into our day so we’ve collected some resources that can help you introduce mindfulness meditation into your family’s way of life.
Mind Body Green offers 5 tips for teaching children mindfulness and meditation:
How we can teach our children mindfulness – HuffPost
The Parent’s Guide to Mindfulness and Anxious Children:
Other Mindfulness resources:
A few guided mindfulness meditation apps that are available:
10 Mindful Minutes by Goldie Hawn
Teaching Our Children to Help Themselves Be Happy
Practical, timely, relevant, and inspiring, 10 Mindful Minutes is Goldie Hawn’s gift to parents who want to help their children learn better and live happier lives. Inspired by the revolutionary MindUP program (developed under the auspices of the Hawn Foundation), the book offers easy-to-grasp insights from current behavioral, psychological, and neurological studies to show how our thoughts, emotions, and actions—including our ability to focus, manage stress, and learn—are all exquisitely interconnected. Hawn presents simple and practial ways to develop mindfulness in children and parents alike, and shares her own heartfelt experiences with the challenges and joys of parenting.
Calm Kids by Lorraine Murray
‘At school, we believe education should touch the whole child. This includes the physical, emotional, spiritual, social and cognitive aspects of the child’s life. We teach children quietness as a skill to reflect and recharge their inner lives. Lorraine Murray helped us on this journey.’ — Sheila Laing, Head Teacher Stress and behavioural disorders are common in children, who are increasingly bombarded by marketing campaigns, faced with school and peer pressure, and able to sense the stress of adults around them. Mindfulness and meditation can help children recognise and cope with these pressures, releasing bad feelings gently and giving them simple tools to deal with tension and stress throughout their lives.
In this practical and inspiring book, Lorraine Murray shows parents, teachers and youth workers how to lead fun and peaceful meditation sessions with children. Lorraine explains a variety of different approaches, from meditations around daily activities for busy families, to ideas for group ‘quietness’ sessions in schools. She provides fun, tactile rhymes for toddlers to help them calm down before bedtime, and suggests ways to help teenagers reduce anxiety. She goes on to explain how these methods can help children with ADHD and those on the autistic spectrum, giving a range of case studies. This book is suitable for complete beginners, or those with some experience of relaxation and meditation techniques. It offers all the advice needed to lead sessions with children, whilst encouraging the reader to adapt and develop their own ways of helping children to feel calmer, happier and more peaceful.
Goldie Hawn created an early childhood education curriculum?! Yes, she did. I chanced upon it when I was flipping through her book – 10 Mindful Minutes – at the bookstore. The only reason the book caught my eye is because I have been looking into the benefits of mindfulness meditation and discovering that there surprisingly number of positives to be derived from this type of training – especially in today’s hectic lifestyles.
I confess, I raised an eyebrow when I saw that the author was Goldie Hawn. I probably wouldn’t have given it a second look if I hadn’t already been digging into the literature about the benefits of mindfulness. I have to say that I am pleasantly surprised – Hawn has really done her homework and there is quite a bit of science behind her curriculum. Is it all sound, though? Well, I haven’t dug that deep, but based on what I have seen so far, it fits in with the picture I have.
Last but not least, the part about the MindUP curriculum that really chimes with me is the focus on developing the whole child – cognitive, social, and emotional development. If we are going to prepare our children to take their place in this world, they are going to need much more than just a good academic transcript. The fact that MindUP recognises this goes towards to the credit of the curriculum.
This is a curriculum that promotes children’s academic success in school and in life through social and emotional learning. It follows the premise that our children’s intellectual abilities are connected to their emotions, how they relate to others, and to the rest of their bodies. These are some of the aspects included in the curriculum:
Based on preliminary research, it looks promising…
Kim Schonert-Riechl, an applied developmental psychologist at the University of British Columbia and her colleagues tested the effectiveness of MindUp in 75 schools in her area. So far, the program seems to have had “incredibly positive effects,” says Adele Diamond (developmental cognitive neuroscientist at the University of British Columbia). It not only boosted kids’ self-reported feelings of happiness, liking of school, and sense of belonging, but also moderated kids’ cortisol levels, suggesting it lowered stress in the classroom. It [also] improved children’s executive function. – Scientific American
Executive function is one of the qualities that have been identified as an important factor for success (which was previously discussed under the Tools of the Mind Curriculum).
Study Source: The Effects of a Mindfulness-Based Education Program on Pre- and Early Adolescents’ Well-Being and Social and Emotional Competence – Mindfulness (2010)
In a later study that is under review “Enhancing Cognitive and Social-Emotional Development Through a Simple-to-Administer School Program“:
These findings demonstrate that a relatively simple-to-administer curriculum including mindfulness training added onto the regular curriculum for a period of only 4 months can yield noteworthy positive behavioral and cognitive change. MindUP children showed significant improvements in EFs, neuroendocrinological and self-report measures of stress, and self- and peer-reported social-emotional competence. They also tended to miss fewer days of school and to show better math performance (the only subject for which grades were provided by the school) relative to controls. Particularly noteworthy is the convergence of results across multiple-levels of functioning from objective computerized measures of attention and biological measures reflecting neuroendocrine regulation to observational measures of both positive, prosocial behaviors and aggression.
The Hawn Foundation has also posted its own results demonstrating benefits across well-being, academics, social behaviour, emotion, and executive function:
If you’re not really familiar with “Mindfulness Meditation”, let me introduce you to Andy Puddicombe’s TED Talk on it. Even though it sounds like a lot of fangled nonsense, it is actually grounded in science.
You can also read what we wrote about it in Mindfulness Training.
Related:
by Shen-Li Lee
In a previous post, we learned about the benefits of meditation (in particular “mindfulness meditation”) for modifying alpha brain waves and improving learning and memory processes. Recently, I stumbled upon an article that talked about how mindfulness improves reading ability, working memory, and task-focus.
- 48 undergraduate students were randomly assigned to either a class that taught the practice of mindfulness or a class that covered fundamental topics in nutrition.
- baseline tests were conducted with a modified verbal reasoning test from the GRE (Graduate Record Examination) and working memory capacity (WMC) test. Mind-wandering during both tests was also measured.
- after two weeks, both groups were tested again and they found that the mindfulness group significantly improved on both the verbal GRE test and the working memory capacity test. They also had less mind-wandering during testing. These changes were not observed with the nutrition group.
There are lots of programs you can join but if you want to get started quickly, these articles provide a lot of helpful information:
The essence of mindfulness meditation is to be present and fully attentive to what is happening right now. I don’t know if it can be considered to have the same effect as mindfulness meditation but whenever I was rock climbing, I was always very conscious of my present state. Can it be said that any activity that forces you to give your full attention to the “now” can be substituted for mindfulness meditation and allow you to reap the same benefits? I wonder…
Even if you aren’t after working memory benefits or reading comprehension, I believe mindfulness meditation is an important activity for today’s ultra-busy society where everyone is multitasking with their thoughts at almost every waking moment of the day.
SHEN-LI LEE, author of “Brainchild: Secrets to Unlocking Your Child’s Potential”, is best known for her parenting website, figur8.net. Formally trained in dentistry, Lee found her calling when she discovered the challenge in seeking consolidated resources for raising a “wholesome child” in Malaysia. Garnering more than 20,000 visitors every month, figur8.net is a chronicle of Lee’s experience in raising children in the 21st Century. Read More…