Mindfulness does wonders for regulating emotions and improving mental health. It is a simple yet effective practice that can be incorporated into daily life. It is important for kids to be introduced to it early on in their lives, during their school years, so they can carry it with them into adulthood and for the rest of their lives. Many schools have already incorporated the practice into their lesson plans, and the improvement they have seen in their students has been noteworthy.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is “the basic human ability to be fully present, aware of where we are and what we’re doing, and not overly reactive or overwhelmed by what’s going on around us” (Mindful Staff). Often people get overwhelmed by the idea of mindfulness itself because it seems like something that requires lengths of extra time and effort allotted in a day, when – really – every single thing that occurs during a day can be done mindfully.
For example, simple walking (not even as exercise) can be done mindfully. Most of us (as in teenagers and adults) get straight onto our phones while we walk to our car or to a building we need to enter, and we remain scrolling on that phone while we’re walking until we actually get to where we need to be. A mindful way to change this situation would be to, of course, get off the phone and instead notice the details of where you are, what you’re feeling, and what you’re hearing (eg. hearing birds chirping, feeling the cool breeze, seeing trees). Moving your attention from stimulating your brain’s wants to what is really happening in the physical world creates mindfulness.
Benefits
Mindfulness has multiple benefits, including – but not limited to – stress reduction, increased attention span, memory boosts, and increased creativity. Practicing mindfulness has the overall quality of calming the mind and preventing it from being swept away to places by obsessive thoughts. These thoughts are often the root cause for stress, anxiety, depression, and other mental health conditions. In addition, training the mind to focus on only what is in front of it or what is really happening does wonders for attention span and focus, as – often – the reason we are unable to focus on things and pay attention is because the mind is filled and overwhelmed with overbearing thoughts that seem more pressing than what is actually happening.
Practicing mindfulness can be especially beneficial for children, who are always struggling to keep their focus on tasks at hand, which can be particularly difficult at school. Regular practice of mindfulness trains their mind to not wander with their thoughts so much and, instead, stay attached to what is happening right in front of them. In addition, introducing this practice to them early on and showing them how simple it is to incorporate into their daily life could lead them to practice it on their own when they feel overwhelmed and even take it along with them into adulthood.
Implementation Into Schools
As shown, mindfulness is very important. Thus, it is crucial schools find ways to implement the practice into their days and lesson plans so their students are introduced to it early on and can carry it with them for the rest of their lives. The first step educators should take is providing lessons to all their students about what mindfulness is. A simple slideshow and 10-15 minutes would be enough to teach them what it is and why it’s important before they begin practicing it. After that’s done, the students can start practicing! Here are some great practice ideas:
- Guided Meditation
Meditating is a proven practice that increases mindfulness naturally and calms the mind. It is often difficult for children to sit still for long and practice it, however, guided meditation is a good way to at least introduce them to the practice in bits so they can, one day, hopefully, put the pieces together and be able to do it completely on their own.
Guided meditation for kids usually starts with them finding a quiet place to sit and practicing some guided breathing exercises (lots of good ones here). These exercises incorporate fun elements to make them more engaging and relatable for the kids rather than just telling them to take deep breaths for 2 minutes. After this, usually the meditation guide will ask them to imagine something or someplace – usually in nature (ex. forest, river, jungle) – and be present in that place. If they’re in a forest, maybe they hear birds chirping, trees rustling, twigs snapping, etc. This is an alternative to them noticing what sounds they hear in real life, where they are actually sitting, as that can cause their minds to wander. Teachers can even use guided meditations from youtube and the internet if they can’t come up with anything on their own.
- Journaling
This mindfulness practice is good for all students, from elementary to high school. Journaling can be as simple as asking students every day to take 5 minutes when they enter class to write answers to some prompts. Some good ones include “Where am I right now?” “What matters right now?” and “What do I know right now?” (for more, see here). This allows for them to ground themselves – especially helpful for older kids who are rushing around from class to class, worrying about what is due and what they need to get done – and set the tone for the rest of class. They’ll be more present instead of letting their thoughts take them elsewhere.
- Five Senses Check
This practice centers around, similar to the others, giving attention to what the students can physically sense rather than what is happening inside their minds. A common way this is practiced is by using the 54321 check: 5 things you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste (if applicable). Teachers don’t even have to allocate extra time just for this, they can ask their students (after first introducing it, of course) to do a 54321 check during transitions from one activity to the next or from lesson time to recess, for example.
Another way educators can implement the five senses check is by using raisins. Each student will be given a raisin and asked to examine it using their five senses: what the raisin looks, feels, smells, and tastes like (hearing would probably not be applicable here). They can either be asked to write their experience as they go or share it with a classmate. This practice would need some extra time allocated, though, however it is effective and important thus it would not be a waste of time.
- Daily activities
As mentioned earlier, adults can easily incorporate mindfulness into their everyday lives. The same goes for kids in schools. If teachers can’t seem to find – in their packed lesson plans – time to alot for mindfulness, they can try to incorporate it into their students’ daily lives. For example, when a young student decides to throw markers everywhere, the teacher can pull that student to the side and ask them if that was a mindful decision. The two can walk through what led to the student doing that, and maybe they’ll realize that it really wasn’t a mindful decision, the student was just very angry and did something without thinking about the consequences.
Of course, there are many other ways these students can incorporate mindfulness into their daily lives, like when their walk they can be present in just that action instead of being on their phone or trying to find something in their backpack, or when they’re eating they can limit external inputs (like technology), however, these practices can only be encouraged by educators so far as students don’t take advice about their personal life from teachers very often. Nevertheless, teachers can always encourage these kinds of practices and talk about them in their lessons instead of directly making their students do them.
In conclusion, as shown, mindfulness is very important for mental health and overall well-being, thus it is important for educators to make a more conscious effort to implement the practice into their schools. It is a simple practice and truly does not take much effort to introduce and guide. Students could be much more successful and view school as a better experience if they started practicing mindfulness there.
Sources:
- Breathe with Me: Mindful Breathing Exercises.
- Garey, Juliann. “Mindfulness in the Classroom.” Child Mind Institute, Child Mind Institute, 2 Feb. 2016, childmind.org/article/mindfulness-in-the-classroom/.
- “Guided Meditation for Kids – Google Search.” Google.com, 2016, www.google.com/search?q=guided+meditation+for+kids&rlz=1C1AVFC_enUS825US825&oq=guided+&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUqBggAEEUYOzIGCAAQRRg7MgYIARBFGDsyBggCEEUYOTIGCAMQRRg9MgYIBBBFGDwyBggFEEUYPNIBCDEyMDNqMGo3qAIAsAIA&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8. Accessed 12 Aug. 2024.
- Marie, Robyn. “50 Mindfulness Journal Prompts for More Self-Awareness – Robyn Marie Coaching.” Robyn Marie Coaching, 11 Apr. 2023, www.robynmariecoaching.com/64/50-mindfulness-journal-prompts-for-more-self-awareness/.
- Mindful Staff. “What Is Mindfulness?” Mindful, 8 July 2020, www.mindful.org/what-is-mindfulness/.
- “Mindfulness in the Classroom.” Western Governors University, www.wgu.edu/blog/mindfulness-classroom2010.html.
