It’s not easy to teach mindfulness to children.

Some kids take to it like a duck to water. In general these kids tend to be more introverted and higher in anxiety. They also tend to be kids who enjoy school and have more positive attitudes towards school, themselves, and others.

Other kids—the ones that teachers say “need it the most”—are resistant to practicing mindfulness, calling it “boring.” Or they say, “Mindfulness doesn’t work.”

So I asked my followers on Instagram how they would have responded to someone who says that mindfulness doesn’t work. Below are some of the answers I got.

mymagicmind.me: It’s not the answer to everything, but it’s an amazing tool to have in your toolbox!

meredith.leeann: I’ve had a couple of kiddos who’ve said it. Sometimes it is mimicking a parent’s response. Most often it is them feeling they will lose control or safety if they settle into their breath.

drkellercoach: True! Sometimes kids who’ve had trauma in their lives don’t    want to do it, and I respect that. Maybe something too difficult for them to handle might come up. I always tell kids if they don’t want to practice to just put their heads down and not disturb anyone else, please. Sometimes they experience the effect of mindfulness because everyone else around  them is doing it too.

For some people, mindfulness exacerbates traumatic stress. They close their eyes and disturbing images come flooding into their mind.

David Treleaven has trained thousands of people in Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness.™ In 2006, he started experiencing difficulties on a silent retreat.

One evening I felt something akin to a circuit breaker going off in my body,   leaving me numb and dissociated. In that moment, I trusted that like every other experience I’d had in meditation, this too would pass. It didn’t. At least, not entirely. In the coming days my senses became muted and muffled, my appetite vanished, and I found myself bombarded by intrusive thoughts and images.

In a talk at the 2019 Mindful Education Summit on trauma-sensitive mindfulness in education, Treleaven focused on several potential problems and pitfalls in teaching mindfulness:

1. Mindfulness is not one-size-fits-all. While mindfulness can increase attention and emotion regulation and body awareness—all skills that can help with trauma recovery—some people feel tightness and constriction when meditating.

1. Teachers think they will know if someone is struggling with trauma. This is not true unless teachers have been trained to understand and respond to symptoms of stress in their students.

So what do teachers need to do?

1. Say at the beginning of mindfulness training: “If any of you are having a difficult experience, let me know.”

If you think of trauma as an injury and mindfulness as an exercise, not everyone benefits from the same exercise.

1. Recognize signs of trauma during practice—when energy in students is extremely high or low.

Back to the Instagram conversation:

lovingpeaceangels: That’s like saying ‘taking a deep breath doesn’t work’, meditation is a practice, it needs to be practiced daily.

Lovingpeaceangels is saying something I’ve always thought—that deep breathing is always good, right? According to David Treleaven, breath is not always neutral.

That is, breathing may increase anxiety, especially for trauma survivors.

However, if a teacher recognizes that breathing is increasing a child’s stress, other “anchors” (or places to focus on during meditation) can be used instead—such as focusing on sound or in sensations in your hands or feet.

lovingpeaceangels: But this style of meditation isn’t for everyone. At this point in my life, I prefer to garden and be in nature for meditation. And if parents want to opt their children out of a school mindfulness program for religious reasons, that is their right as parents, as we all have religious/spiritual freedom and the right to raise our children with the views and values that we believe are best for our family.

maria_kenneally: I agree with all the points above. In educational settings I teach mindfulness in a secular context but am totally open to opting out for personal reasons.

           

drkellercoach: Yes, parents (and kids too) should be able to opt out. Nothing’s worse than having a reluctant kid in your mindfulness class.

maria_kenneally: absolutely…and for ethical reasons that opt out is really important too. I emphasize that it is not a quick fix and not for everyone. For some people physical activity, gardening, making art can bring present moment awareness, inner connection and calm.

Gardening can be used as a mindfulness practice. Cassie Johnston, a Certified Master Gardener, practices mindfulness in the garden by scheduling at least 30 minutes a day (rain or shine) to commune with Mother Nature. During this time, she leaves her phone inside and actively observes her sense impressions by identifying three things she sees, hears, feels, touches, and tastes (when the veggies are growing). She tries not be as goal-oriented (putzing around is okay) and gives even mindless tasks (like weeding) her full attention.

What are some things you do—besides mindfulness meditation/breathing—that bring you into the present moment? My husband likes to play chess, a game that requires a great deal of concentration. Other people have found that “mindfulness and chess go hand in hand.”

Do you have other ideas about how to respond when someone says, “Mindfulness doesn’t work?” I’d be interested in hearing your ideas!