3 Activities to increase Mindful Awareness

I am trying to get back to updating this blog on a regular basis regarding my work with mindfulness and children. I wanted to write about a few activities that I have been doing that seem to be fun and well received by my kiddos.  I am currently working with 4th grade boys that struggle with attention and focus. Although they are not all diagnosed with ADHD, they have been recommended for my group as children who "struggle with attention and self-control." Recent studies have suggested that  mindful training not only helps children with ADHD increase attention skills, it also helps with developing executive functioning skills. Executive functioning skills are the skills necessary for us to control our behavior as well as  plan and self monitor our actions. Due to this growing area of research (which I recently contributed to and will write about on this blog) I have started to focus more on building mindful awareness with my students. One of the ways we do this is to focus on sensory exploration. Whether its exploring breath, pulse or the sense of touch; focusing on sensory input is one way to build the awareness needed to stay in the current moment. Here are three recent activities I have been doing with my students to build sensory awareness.

Tactile Awareness

Our hands are one of the most sensitive parts of the body. Our fingers have over 100 touch receptors in just their tips. All of this information is rushed to our brain and relays messages within a blink of an eye. However; we are often unaware of the sensations our fingers and hands send to our information processing system and having the sense of sight to go with this information we often take tactile sensation for granted. One way to increase tactile awareness is to play the "What is it?" game. In this game you gather a random assortment of small toys (race cars, action figures ect.), office supplies, coins and anything else that is lying around your office or room and throw then into a sack or tote bag that can not be seen through. Write the names of all the objects on note cards and shuffle the cards. Have a student pick a card and then try to find that item in the bag without looking. They must only use there sense of touch. I like to set a timer or have a song play (students choice :))  for 15 seconds while they search. Before I set the timer I have them describe what the item may feel like. Is it smooth? Rough? Round or Soft? If the student finds the item they get to keep the card. The first student to get to 3 cards wins the game. I got the idea for this game from this amazing educational activity called the the Touch Game, which appears to no longer be in production #sadface. The Speech/ Language therapist at my school had one that I borrowed and the students loved it. It even has a timer built into it. You can buy them on Ebay, but 80-100 dollars seems a lot for a game you can recreate with random objects laying around the office.

Awareness of Breath

Often times when I have students focus on their breath, they start to breath in a loud and labored manner, which is not only unsustainable it also causes a distraction to the group. I began to realize that children may need a fun way to practice sustaining and modifying their breath. The old fashion Floating Ball Game is a great way to facilitate breath awareness. These floating ball games can be purchased for a cheap price on Amazon. I bought one for each of my students. I start by demonstrating how to make the ball go up and down, as well as sustaining it at a certain height. I then show them how to get it to land back in the cradle. After the first demonstration the children are given a couple minutes to practice making the ball go up and down and getting the ball back into to the cradle. We talk about how one must modify their breath to make the ball go up or down as well as focus on the rate they breathe in order for the ball to get back into the cradle. After the students spend some time practicing and focusing on their breath, I then turn the game into a competition. Each person gets two tries to see how long they can keep the ball in the air and get it back into the cradle. The trial only counts if they get the ball back into the cradle. Who ever was able to keep the ball up longest gets a prize (by the way I kept my up for 15 seconds and its not as easy as it looks). After the game we do a 1 minute silent meditation. The students try to focus on their breathing in the same manner they did during the game so they can "practice their breath" for next time.

Pulse Awareness

Our pulse is a great barometer of how our body is feeling in the present moment. Just as a barometer tells us about the future weather patterns our pulse can also tell us how we are about to act or feel in any situation. When there are sudden changes in barometric pressure there may be a storm brewing. When we have sudden changes in our heart rate or pulse, dynamic and unpredictable emotions or behaviors may be coming. However; the great thing about a barometer is that by watching for changes in pressure (or pulse in this case) we are better able to prepare for the coming storm. Listening to the waring signs in our body can lead to improvements in our mental health. Teaching children to listen to their pulse is an easy way for them to gauge how they are feeling. I begin this activity with first teaching students how to find their pulse. There are three different easy ways to find your pulse. The first is by placing you index and middle finger just below your wrist.

If the children have trouble locating their pulse here then they can also try to locate it by placing two fingers just above and to the right of their adam's apple. Finally if this is not working they can lay their hand over their heart, which seemed to work for a couple of my students. Once they find their pulse, I have them count how many heart beats they feel while just sitting. We record each persons heart beat. Next we have 2 minutes of active time. I usually let them pick a song to listen to and we do jumping jacks, run in place and pretty much just run around crazy. For my students who know Yoga, we do 5 sun salutations in row. After two minutes is up we again find the pulse and count how many beats are in 10 seconds. After we record each student's number we then talk about the difference in number of beats as well as how it feels when your heart is beating so quickly. I have them share times when they became nervous or angry and their hearts started beating quickly. Finally we do 1 minute meditation where we focus solely on our breath. After the one minute has ended I ring a mindful bell and the students raise their hand when they can no longer hear the sound. The students then find their pulse again for 10 seconds and notice if focusing on their breath has made their pulse go up or down. We then discuss ways to use breath awareness when we may be faced with times that make our pulse go up.

The great thing about teaching mindfulness to children is the many different activities one can use to help facilitate awareness. Whether it is mindful walking, mindful eating or mindful breathing, teaching children to slow down and be mindful of their actions helps them to cultivate their ability to actively pay attention to the world around them. These three activities alone will not create perfect executive functioning skills or laser sharp attention skills in children. However, my goal  is to help children start to become aware of themselves and aware of their ability to control and regulate behavior. This will help them achieve what ever goals they have for themselves, whether it is passing a math test or getting through a parents' divorce. Hopefully the skills I teach them will turn into future techniques for self regulation. Or as Thich Nhat Hanh puts it, "planting seeds" of effective emotional tools for creating future peaceful, happy lives.

Resources:

Thich Nhat Hanh (2011), Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children, Berkley: Parallax Press

School Psychology Awareness Week 2012 #SPAW

 

The National Association of School Psychologists (NASP) is proud to sponsor School Psychology Awareness Weeek (#SPAW). This year's theme is "Know your own strengths. Discover them. Share them. Celebrate them." This theme highlights the importance of creating supportive learning environments that help students identify, build and employ their strengths in school, at home and throughout life. As a School Psychologist I think this is one of the most important things we can do with our student populations. By exemplifying strengths we build confidence, self-efficacy and long term goals, which in turn create future healthy members of society. I will be tweeting ideas for helping students find their own personal strengths all week.  


One way I like to foster students in recognizing their owns strengths is drawing a comparison to superheros. I currently run a school program which focuses on building mindful awareness through the medium of superheros and super powers. We meet as a group and talk about what each of the students would like to be when they grow up. We then discuss what super powers would be helpful to be successful in that field. For example, a student recently told me that he want sto be a Football player when he grows up. We talked about super speed, super agility and super balance- all of which are things the student feels he is good at and led him to want to be a Football player. Another student indicated that he wants to build robots (I suggested becoming an engineer). We discussed his super powers as being super curiosity, super imagination and super attention. As a group we then meditate on these super powers trying to make sure we stay self-aware of them and keep them at the forefront of our daily intentions. The hope is that the students keep a strength based approach to their goals and aspirations; staying mindful of whether their actions are congruent with their "super powers." This is just one way I am trying to employ this years SPAW theme. For more information on how to spread the "Know your own strengths" theme, the following links may be helpful:

  Activities for School Psychology Awareness Week: Know Your Own Strengths

  Handout for Teachers and other school professionals regarding "Know Your Own Strengths"   

5 Ways for Teachers to increase Mindful Awareness in the Classroom

As Mindfulness in schools goes mainstream, new and practical ways of classroom integration continue to be explored and enjoyed by teachers. Increasing mindful awareness in classrooms can help reduce teacher and student stress, increase attention and focus and foster social emotional competence. Although not a full mindfulness program, teachers can implement these quick and easy mindful based activities into their daily routine in order to help foster the awareness that comes from a full mindfulness practice. The following 5 activities can be implemented throughout the day in order to help students transfer between activities, de-stress after a test, and refocus after an exciting project or experiment. Although created for elementary age students, these ideas could easily be revised for high school or college age students as well.



1. Mindful Minutes- Mindful Breathing is the foundation of any Mindful practice and should be the first thing that is taught to children. This technique is best taught by teaching children to focus on a sound, then slowly transfer their attention to their own breathing. A mindfulness bell is a great way of transitioning between a sound and  breathing. By focusing on breathing children "anchor" themselves in the moment and focus inward. If you cannot find a mindfulness bell, a chime, triangle or singing bowl can also work. Once the sound goes away have the students focus on their breath for 1 "Mindful Minute". These Mindful Minutes can be included at any time of the day between any activity. It's especially good to start the day with a Mindful Minute or have one after coming back from lunch or recess. As children get better at focusing for the full minute you can increase the time to 2 minutes or 5 minutes.

2. Cool Down with Yoga- A simple series of Yoga poses are a great way to get children moving within a classroom and ground themselves in the moment. For teachers that are unfamiliar with Yoga there are a few classroom based Yoga programs that give more detail about how to infuse Yoga into a school setting such as Go Grounded Yoga, Yoga 4 Classrooms, and Yoga in My School. Learning a simple Sun Salutation and guiding your class through it, is a quick and easy way to get them moving and mindful of their bodies. Have your students focus on where their bodies are in space as well as how they feel after 1-2 rounds. Also encourage them to focus their attention on their breath, coordinating in and out breaths with each pose in the series. If there is not enough room to do sun salutations focus on some standing poses such as Tree, Mountain or Warrior. Here is the Grounded Flow Clock from the Go Grounded program which is a great visual to help student learn the classic sun salutation. A Yoga break is a great way to transition between activities and get kids blood flowing between long periods of sitting.

3. Mindful Seeing- This a great activity to build children's awareness and ability to sustain focused-attention. It helps children recognize the difference between just looking/labeling something vs. acknowledging/being aware of the personal experience of seeing something in its individuality. Mindful seeing can be accomplished with any object. I like using lemons. Grab about 6 different lemons and have your classroom break into 6 different groups. Assign each group a lemon and have them all look at the lemon very closely. Have them touch it, look for special bumps, notice the size and any individual characteristics. After five minutes collect all the lemons and put them in a basket. Shake the basket then pull out one lemon at a time and have each group try to decide if that is their lemon. This activity helps the children understand the multi-sensory aspects of memory as well as how we engage all of our senses during active observation.

4. Mindful Listening- As music lover I really enjoy this activity and often practice this on my own when I am listening to music or taking a walk. You can pick a children's song (there are a variety of children's songs out there) or a current song from the radio. Try to have the students actively listen to each instrument and melody in the song. It may be helpful to pause the music and hum the bass line, or the melody and then play the song again. Try to have the students focus on one particular part of the song and only that part of the song. For example the guitar may be playing a melody. Teach the students to recognize the guitar and focus on the guitar only. After a couple of minutes switch to another instrument. This is great activity to try during music class. Another listening activity that I enjoy is having students close their eyes and listen to the quiet room for thirty second. After thirty seconds have them list all the sounds that they came up with on the board. Try the same activity again and this time listen quietly in the room for a full minute. See if the class is able to  notice more sounds than before. This is a great activity to anchor students in the moment and practice focused attention and concentration.

5. Wishing Good Will-  Good will wishes are a great way to develop gratitude in your classroom as well as a positive classroom environment. Research has shown favorable results from positive affirmations as well as acknowledging gratitude. Positive Psychology is a growing field that touts neuroscience as support for the positive effects of optimism and other positive thoughts within a classroom setting. One activity to facilitate positivity and interconnectedness in the classroom is developing good will wishes. This can be completed by having students take a mindful minute (as stated above) and think about someone granting them one good will wish that can help someone else. They can send the wish to themselves silently saying "I wish that .....". Have them repeat the wish to themselves silently. Encourage them to notice how they feel when they say the wish. Next, after a minute or two, they can focus on a friend in the class or a family member. Send that person the wish and silently say " I wish that (person of choice)......" Again, encourage them to recognize how they feel when they wish good will to others. After about five minutes have them focus back on their breathing and slowly switch attention back to the classroom. These well wishes can be referred to throughout the day if disagreements arise. It is also a great way to start of the day or week.

By incorporating these ideas into their classrooms, teachers can begin to build mindful awareness and social emotional competence with their students. Although not a full curriculum, these activities can help to foster stress reduction and awareness. They can also help with transitions between activities and create a classroom culture that is ripe for learning. For more information regarding mindfulness in schools, refer to the following links:

• Mindful Schools
• Mindful Kids
• MindUP
• Association for Mindfulness in Education
• Tools For Peace

Mindful Documentary and more links

• Great documentary about the work Mindful Schools is doing in the Bay Area.... love the way the girl looks at the bell the first time she hears it.

Room to Breathe Official Trailer from Russell Long on Vimeo.

• Interesting article about the effects of pot usage on the developing adolescent brain.

• Here is a great video showing how to incorporate mindful awareness and it links to memory using rocks (This again is apart of the awesome MIND UP curriculum)

• Are toddlers susceptible to peer pressure ?????

• Looks like schools in Memphis are finding success in meditation... maybe there is hope for the South.

• Interesting research regarding the different neural pathways activated during pleasure reading vs. critical reading

• A great quick intervention that I like to use for Anxiety

Mindful Consultation

The previously posted quote "We don't see things as they are, we see things as we are" is a great example of why Mindfulness is important in the area of School Based Consultation / Instructional Consultation (IC). The above video halariously shows how school based problem solving can go terribly wrong. As School Psychologists we also serve as  instructional consultants. Effective collaboration skills are imperative for providing school-based service delivery that enhances academic achievement in students.

In general School Psychologists enter into a consultee-centered relationship with school staff and parents that usually has the basic goal of enhancing academic achievement in students (this may also include increasing or decreasing behaviors which impede upon this goal). School Psychology: A Blueprint for Training and Practice III (Ysseldyke et al., 2006) identified interpersonal and collaborative skills as foundational competencies that are "indispensable for school psychologists" (p. 15). As a Consultant you possesses some piece of knowledge that a consultee inherently seeks. This knowledge is the foundation of the data -based decision making and problem solving process. However, it should be noted, that  psychological consultation consists of a problem-solving, interpersonal relationship that develops through periodic face-to-face contacts between consultant and consultee (Erchul, 2003). This  interpersonal relationship is just as important as whatever knowledge the consultee is seeking. Building a positive relationship is imperative and must be approached in a nonherarchical manner in order to resolve a problem. This may be difficult for some  Psychologists (like our friend above) or other porfessionals that have sacrificed 6 years of their life on a PhD that ultimately screams hierarchy (the below graph is by no means scientific)

This is where Mindfulness comes into play and can inform how we build and maintain interpersonal relationships. Practicing Mindfulness not only helps us acknowledge our own thoughts and emotions, but it can also foster compassion for those around us. Practicing Mindfulness actives neural integration of the Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC). When activated, the specific area of the PFC know as the "medial prefrontal cortex", supports our ability to take in communication signals and be influenced by that information (Siegel, 2007). This area of the brain is also responsible for Empathy, which helps us stay open with others during difficult times.

By increasing awareness of what is happening in the moment we can acknowledge our emotions or assumptions that may impede on what is trying to be communicated. This ability is at the heart of Mindful Listening. Some of the ways one can listen Mindfully include:

• Body Awareness: Paying Attention to your body and facilitating openness during listening (e.g. arms not crossed, relaxed shoulders)
• Eye Contact:
• Listen for Significance: Why is the person saying what they are saying, what do they need from me in this moment, Do they need advice? or just need to share without feedback? Many times teachers and other school personnel just need to vent and do not need your expert opinion.
• Ask for Clarification: Clarifying questions help you better understand what a consultee may need. This is especially important in with regards to Problem Identification within the IC framework.

If Listening skills are necessary with regards to building interpersonal relationships then Mindfulness of Speech is the other side of the same coin. Before any verbal exchange one should take a moment to establish what their intention is in this exchange. Marshal Rosenberg, author of Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life, breaks intention down to two categories, the intention to create connection or the intention to create separation. With regards to IC the intention should always be to connect the consultee to information that helps resolve a problem they are having . Acknowledging preconceived notions or judgments that may impede upon this intention are a crucial part of engaging in Mindful Speech. This includes paying attention to how and why we say things. This may be difficult during a heated exchange, or a conversation that involves unresolved feelings (the Speech/ Language Therapist above may have a previous negative history with the Psychologist); however, with a Mindfulness practice that includes staying in the moment and creating space between thoughts and actions this ability will soon become part of your communication style.

Therefore, when talking about Instructional or Behavioral Consultation within the context of School Psychology, one must not be primarily concerned about problem solving (or declaring who has a greater knowledge base). It is also important to build and maintain an active and healthy personal relationship that has foundations in Mindful Communication skills which foster intentions that include collaboration, empathy and connection.

References:

Erchul, W. P. (2003).  Communication and interpersonal processes in consultation: Guest editor’s comments. Journal of Educational and Psychological Consultation, 14, 105-107.

Siegel, Daniel J. (2007) The Mindful Brain. New York, New York: W.W. Norton Company