New research shows that when adults participate in mindfulness training, there are positive effects, including improved anger management and adult-child relationships.1 Teachers who have had mindfulness training showed lower stress levels, burnout rates, and positive changes in teacher-student interaction.2
What is mindfulness? One model of parent training includes these five dimensions: Listening with full attention, non-judgmental acceptance of self and child, emotional awareness, self-regulation by the parent and compassion for self and for child.
Mindfulness education with young people, from preschoolers to adolescents, is proving to have numerous positive effects too. Improvements in academic performance, social competence, self-regulation and a lessening of anxiety are a few of these gains.2
Want to try mindfulness? Washington State University provides a sample activity called “Kindness to Myself and to My Child” available from their website.3
~ St. Francis of Assisi
Sources:
1. Changing Parent’s Mindfulness, Child Management Skills and Relationship Quality With Their Youth: Results From a Randomized Pilot Intervention Trial (April 2010) by Coatsworth, Duncan, Greenberg, and Nix. www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3765025
2. Mindfulness in Education Research Highlights (Sept 2014) by E. Campbell. greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/mindfulness_in_education_research_highlights
3. Mindful Parenting for Parents and Caregivers (2013). Washington State University. http://cru.cahe.wsu.edu/CEPublications/FS108E/FS108E.pdf
Children and Nonviolence page 9 – print version pdf