Many peo­ple ac­cept Mind­ful­ness as a treat­ment for cer­tain med­ical and psy­cho­log­i­cal dis­or­ders, as a tool to deal with stress and even as a strat­e­gy for par­ent­ing. It is ex­cit­ing, how­ev­er, to see the term pop­ping up more fre­quent­ly as an im­por­tant prac­tice for chil­dren to adopt. In this week’s ar­ti­cle, we ex­plore what is Mind­ful­ness and what chil­dren will get out of this trans­for­ma­tive prac­tice.

What is mind­ful­ness and why should we prac­tise it?

While the term mind­ful­ness might seem like a rel­a­tive­ly new buzz­word in the West­ern World, it’s true roots stem from an­cient East­ern tra­di­tions. Jon Ka­bat-Zinn, an Amer­i­can pro­fes­sor cred­it­ed for bring­ing Mind­ful­ness to the West, de­fines Mind­ful­ness as “pay­ing at­ten­tion in a par­tic­u­lar way: on pur­pose, in the present mo­ment, and non­judg­men­tal­ly.” At first glance it ap­pears to be a very sim­ple con­cept, but the truth is our minds are of­ten stuck re­liv­ing some­thing that has al­ready hap­pened or an­tic­i­pat­ing some­thing still to come, that we miss a lot of what is ac­tu­al­ly hap­pen­ing right now.

There are mo­ments in our lives when we are nat­u­ral­ly mind­ful, for ex­am­ple, star­ing at a new­born ba­by and notic­ing every fea­ture, every move­ment and every fa­cial ex­pres­sion, or get­ting lost in work or a cre­ative project where you are com­plete­ly fo­cused on that one task. While we may nev­er be present 100 per cent of the time, when we con­scious­ly prac­tise be­ing mind­ful, we are able to ex­pe­ri­ence the present mo­ment’s aware­ness more fre­quent­ly.

Sci­en­tif­ic stud­ies have shown that when we prac­tise be­ing mind­ful, we can re­duce stress, im­prove anx­i­ety and de­pres­sion, bet­ter reg­u­late our emo­tions, im­prove fo­cus and con­cen­tra­tion and im­prove sleep. In ad­di­tion, mind­ful­ness can al­so en­hance our phys­i­cal health by low­er­ing blood pres­sure, re­duc­ing chron­ic pain and im­prov­ing gas­tro-in­testi­nal is­sues. When we are able to qui­et down the con­stant chat­ter in our minds, we ex­pe­ri­ence life in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent way and feel more joy and con­nect­ed­ness to those around us.

Ben­e­fits of prac­tis­ing with chil­dren

Since habits we de­vel­op ear­ly in life of­ten con­tin­ue in our adult years, it is ex­treme­ly ben­e­fi­cial to start plant­i­ng the seeds of mind­ful­ness at a young age. Mind­ful­ness prac­tis­es are al­so par­tic­u­lar­ly pow­er­ful for chil­dren be­cause their brains are still de­vel­op­ing. In fact, the pre­frontal cor­tex, the part of the brain re­spon­si­ble for de­ci­sion mak­ing and mod­er­at­ing so­cial be­hav­iour, is not ful­ly de­vel­oped un­til around 25 years of age.

While we of­ten think that chil­dren “have it easy” be­cause they are yet to face the re­al­i­ties of fi­nan­cial prob­lems, work-re­lat­ed stress and many of the oth­er chal­lenges we face as adults, in their lit­tle worlds they are deal­ing with their own pres­sures. Think of the tod­dler who gets com­plete­ly over­whelmed try­ing to tie his shoelaces, or the school-aged child deal­ing with mean chil­dren at school or the teenag­er nav­i­gat­ing the changes brought about by pu­ber­ty. Even though these ex­pe­ri­ences are all part of life, it cre­ates a cer­tain lev­el of angst for chil­dren and mind­ful­ness can be an im­por­tant tool to help them cope with these chal­lenges.

Some of the spe­cif­ic ben­e­fits of prac­tis­ing mind­ful­ness with chil­dren in­clude:

• In­creased fo­cus and con­cen­tra­tion and abil­i­ty to block out dis­trac­tions.

• Helps them to be­come aware of their emo­tions and un­der­stand how these emo­tions man­i­fest in their phys­i­cal bod­ies.

• Bet­ter im­pulse con­trol as they learn how to pause and choose their re­sponse rather than their au­to­mat­ic re­ac­tions.

• Im­proved cog­ni­tive func­tions in the brain and en­hanced mem­o­ry

• Pro­vides tools to draw on when deal­ing with a chal­leng­ing sit­u­a­tion

• Helps to low­er anx­i­ety and stress by trig­ger­ing the re­lax­ation re­sponse in the body and cul­ti­vat­ing an ac­cep­tance of things as they are

• In­creased com­pas­sion and em­pa­thy for them­selves and oth­ers.

When I first start­ed learn­ing the prin­ci­ples of Mind­ful­ness many years ago, I won­dered what my life would have been like if I had learned these valu­able prin­ci­ples as a child. While I can­not re­live the past, it is such a plea­sure to have the priv­i­lege to share these tools with both chil­dren and adults. With every­thing else we try to teach our chil­dren, the best way is to mod­el mind­ful­ness through your own ac­tions and be­hav­iours.

Kay­lan Bartholomew

Di­rec­tor, Mind­ful KITES: Know­ing,

In­spir­ing, Think­ing, Em­pow­er­ing Stu­dents

in­fo@mind­fulkites.com

(868) 332-9841