Posts
Hi Everyone!
Do you live in the present the majority of the time, or do you think more about what went wrong in the past or what you have to do in the future? Mindfulness is a practice which helps people live more in the present moment. In the past as children we certainly did live more in the present moment. Like this picture above, as a child, I grew up playing outside most days, especially when out of school for the summer. Today this is not so much the case. Children are taking on our adult behaviors and thinking at earlier ages.
Metacognition means "thinking about our thinking." We not only need to think about our own thinking but need to help children do the same. An article by Aran Levasseur, The Importance of Teaching Mindfulness, discusses studies which have found teaching Mindfulness to children can reduce their stress & anxiety and thus their aggression as well. The studies also found teaching Mindfulness to children can increase their attention, self-control and self-awareness. If you click the "studies" link in the article, you can read about the schools which taught a variety of Mindfulness meditations and all the benefits they receive as a result of teaching the children how to be Mindful. At the bottom is a list of the peer reviewed journals the studies were published in. You might want to share this with your children's school and also consider teaching your children how to be Mindful yourself. And yes...do it with them! :-)
