Ariana Marisol of RealFarmacy.com writes:
Often, when kids act up in school, they get detention or they get suspended. This school has replaced these forms of punishment with meditation to help kids calm themselves.
Instead of punishing disruptive kids, Robert W. Coleman Elementary School, located in Baltimore, has been offering meditation to its students. This school calls its meditation room the Mindful Moment Room.
The room looks nothing like the standard detention room. Instead, it is filled with lamps, decorations, and comfortable purple pillows. Kids that have been misbehaving sit in the room and go through breathing practices or meditation exercises. This helps to calm and center them. They are also asked to talk through what happened during their disruptive action.
Mindful meditation is an ancient practice that has been around for thousands of years. Recently, science has begun to look into its effects on the body and mind. What has been found is very interesting.
One study suggests that mindful meditation can give practicing soldiers a kind of mental armor against disruptive emotions while also improving memory. There is another study that suggests that mindful meditation can improve a person’s attention span and focus.
Overall, science is beginning to understand the mental and physical health benefits of meditation and mindfulness has become a part of certain successful psychotherapy techniques.
Holistic Life Foundation, a local nonprofit, helped the school create the the meditation room. The foundation has been offering an after-school program called Holistic Me for over 10 years. Kids from pre-K to fifth grade learn to practice mindfulness exercises and yoga. The program also mentors and tutors children while also teaching them about the environment.
It might be hard to imagine young children sitting in silent meditation but the program is highly successful and has many participants. The children are even bringing what they have learned about mindful meditation into their home and teaching the techniques to their parents.
Read more HERE
About the Author
Ariana Marisol is a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. She is an avid nature enthusiast, gardener, photographer, writer, hiker, dreamer, and lover of all things sustainable, wild, and free. Ariana strives to bring people closer to their true source, Mother Nature. She graduated The Evergreen State College with an undergraduate degree focusing on Sustainable Design and Environmental Science.