Practical tips for teaching mindfulness to children and adolescents in school-based settings

Mindfulness derives from Buddhist practice and is described as “the process of engaging a full, direct, and active awareness of experienced phenomena that is spiritual in aspect and that is maintained from one moment to the next” (Van Gordon, Shonin, Zangeneh, & Griffiths, 2014). In a previous issue of Education and Health, we briefly reviewed research findings and discussed the growing interest amongst educational stakeholders into the applications of mindfulness for improving both the health and learning environment of school-aged children (Shonin, Van Gordon, & Griffiths, 2012). For example, mindfulness has been shown to improve levels of anxiety, depression, somatic distress, self-esteem, and sleep quality in schoolchildren with and without a psychiatric history (Biegel, Brown, Shapiro, & Schubert, 2009; Burke, 2010). Mindfulness has also been shown to improve childrens’ problematic responses to social stress (e.g., thought rumination, intrusive thoughts, emotional arousal, etc.) (Mendelson et al., 2010) as well as teacher-rated classroom social competant behaviours (Schonert-Reichl & Lawlor, 2010). Additionally, there is preliminary evidence to suggest that mindfulness can enhance metacognition and executive functioning in schoolchildren (Flook et al., 2010)