Mindfulness has become popular in recent years, with even multinational corporations introducing it to their staff. But can young kids reap the benefits as well? NIKKI FUNG finds out that they can.
Mindfulness has become popular in recent years, with even multinational corporations introducing it to their staff. But can young kids reap the benefits as well? NIKKI FUNG finds out that they can.
“Put on your mindful bodies. You have a string above your head; pull it up, spine straight, bottoms stuck to the floor. Calm down; put your hand on your anchor spot. Breathe in, breathe out.”
This might seem like any other meditation session, but the setting and participants say otherwise. After all, how often do you come across a circle of children doing breathing exercises in a colourful classroom? And despite the waves of giggling and chatter, the teacher continues with her instructions, calm and unfazed.
This is a mindfulness session with the kindergarteners at Chiltern House Preschool. While some might be quick to dismiss mindfulness as one of those hipster trends that’s all hype and no substance, Charlene Teo, a counsellor at Shan You Counselling Centre, rebuts:
Mindfulness is simply a mind-body based training in which an individual learns to direct his attention to an experience as it unfolds, moment by moment. “ In other words,” she explains, “Mindfulness draws a person’s attention to thoughts, feelings and body sensations to become directly aware of them, and better able to manage them.”
In addition, “early research suggests that mindfulness may provide young people with a valuable life skill by supporting them in a number of areas: to feel calmer and more fulfilled, to get on better with others, to concentrate and learn, to manage stress and anxiety, and to perform well in music and sport,” Charlene adds.
DISTRACTIONS GALORE
But can children really learn and apply the concept? Back at the Chiltern House session, discussion has turned to the topic of feelings. The kids play a game miming various expressions, while others guess the emotion being portrayed.
“We have a different theme every week because we need to make mindfulness – which is really just about being present and being nonjudgmental – very evident and concrete for children,” founder and director Julia Gabriel, who spearheaded the pilot programme, shares.
“So we try to translate it into mindfulness values that they can put into place.” To make it more accessible for the kids, each theme is enacted through drama and then reinforced with a small drawing activity in a mindfulness journal.
The programme, which was designed for Chiltern House by Julia Gabriel Centre, was created partially because of feedback from parents who were concerned that their children were struggling to take part in a class due to short attention spans.
Julia, who attended an online Mindfulness Curriculum course with Mindful Schools in California and practises mindfulness in her own life, explains: “We are all very conscious that children are subjected to a great deal of distraction these days. Even from an incredibly young age, they’re given an iPad to play with and they are not used to sitting and being.
“Maybe where they would in the past have sat and read a book, drawn or played with their toys, it’s now all bing! Bing! Bing!” she adds, imitating the bells and whistles of the flashy games kids play. “We see it in the classroom that it aff ects their ability to focus and concentrate,” she elaborates.
“Many children in classes are struggling not because of their lack of intellectual or academic ability to keep up with the curriculum, but because they can’t focus.”
KEEPING CALM
It’s been about 17 months, and the programme seems to be bearing fruit. Both teachers and parents have noticed improvement in the kindergarteners who attend the class, which is currently held once a week at the preschool’s Mountbatten centre. “The teachers told us that they have noticed the children using the strategies on their own,” Julia shares. “Saying,
‘You know, you really need to think a little more, take a deep breath’ to each other. And they think that the kids are able to pay more attention because of it.” Jean Tan, whose son Ethan Kuan attends the weekly session at Chiltern House, shares that she, too, has seen improvement in her six-year-old in terms of his temperament and his interactions with his friends.
The stay-at-home mum, 46, recounts a time when Ethan had piped up in the middle of an argument she was having with her husband. “I was raising my voice and suddenly Ethan – who was only five then – said, “Mum, calm down, okay? Breathe; you have to breathe.’” Surprised, she asked him where he had learnt that. “He told me, ‘I learnt it in mindfulness.
You have to breathe in and breathe out, and then you can calm down and not get angry.’ “I’m surprised such lessons are being taught to five- and six-year-olds,” she adds.
“I thought meditating was more for adults, and if you had asked me previously, I would have said I didn’t think it would work. But now I see that it does,” Jean concludes. “Ethan has actually quelled a few heated discussions within the family,” she says with a chuckle.
“Many children in classes are struggling not because of their lack of intellectual or academic ability to keep up with the curriculum, but because they can’t focus.”
