I often think whether meditation can benefit my son. It’s a thought that pops in my mind many times when my son gets into a tantrum, or can’t cope with his emotions or is self-deprecating.
Sometimes I worry that I am failing as a teacher and as a mother when I feel the rage rising inside of me and I don’t know how to get him to quit his anger/whinging/crying etc. What happened to all those fancy breathing techniques I showed him last week?
At this stage, there is an internal fight between Stubborn Judy and Empathic Judy.
I know deep down it’s me that needs to is breathe.
There are times, many times, Stubborn Judy wants to get to his level. And yes, I put my hands up to this. I am not proud and I’m acutely aware that it just prolongs the inevitable of us being friends again. This is what meditation has done for me. It has made me aware of my thoughts and feelings in the midst of rage. If meditation has helped me during my forties, why can’t children reap the benefits now?
What do researchers say about meditation for children?
Below are three separate studies conducted by science researchers to understand how meditation benefits a young person’s mental well-being. In the first study, a research paper titled “Is meditation conducive to mental well-being for adolescents?” concluded the following:
Positive outcomes in these 36 reviewed projects include not only a decrease in stress, anxiety, impulsivity, self-harm thoughts, disruptive behaviour, and psychological distress; but also improvements in emotional regulation, executive function, anger management, self-control, sleep quality, and social competence. As a result, these children attained better academic performance, quality of life, mental wellness, and equally as important, in child-parent relationships. Meditation, as a non-medicinal and low cost measure, is thus recommended for preventive and curative purposes, for adolescent mental health promotion.
Fung Kei Cheng PhD, Science Direct, 2016
The University of Bristol undertook a study (published in Education Research International), aimed to establish whether mindfulness could be effective at improving mental health and well-being in medical students who are considered more at risk of developing a stress-related illness. It was concluded that:
Mental health amongst university students could be improved by introducing mindfulness training. …these initial findings suggest that mindfulness training had helped students at Bristol reduce anxiety, excessive worry, negative thought patterns and improve resiliency to stress as well as improve emotional well-being and professional development.
Alice Malpass, Kate Binnie, Lauren Robso
University of Bristol. “Mindfulness found to improve mental health of students.” ScienceDaily 11 March 2019.
The final article below, published in Psychology Today, highlighted seven evidence-based ways that practising mindfulness meditation can benefit children. These are:
1) It gives kids the habit of focusing on the present moment and ignoring distractions.
2) It teaches them to stay calm in the face of life’s stressful times.
3) It creates good habits for the future. When faced with life’s challenges, they know they can find peace by taking a few moments to meditate.
4) It promotes happiness by lowering social anxiety and stress.
5) It promotes patience.
6) It can improve executive functions in their brain like cognitive control, working memory, cognitive flexibility and better grades.
7) It can improve attentiveness and impulse control.
Marilyn Wedge, Ph.D., Posted Sep 18, 2018
Doing a couple of meditation classes isn’t going to change your child into a peaceful warrior overnight – but it’s a start to having a healthy mind.
This research is pretty fascinating. We all hope that our kids never get to a point where they can’t cope. Unfortunately, with everything that is happening in the world life does take over. One day you have the happiest child, the next day they change to become a sad, unconfident and angry person.
Some kids find it easy to meditate and some find that it takes a while. Some children unconsciously avoid expressing their feelings because they don’t know how to. But by practising meditation/mindfulness often, it will become a habit for them to use when they feel stressed or anxious – ready to tackle the big wide world.
Judy 💕
PEACE | LOVE | KINDNESS
