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| Is mindfulness "cool"? |
I just started using what I learned during the conference organized by Mindful Schools in February with several students of mine.
With a younger audience (grades 1 to 5) mindfulness is rather easy to introduce and it's very easy to get started with the practice. It seems almost natural.
It is less self-explanatory with older children. This is where I found using YouTube videos showing other children practicing mindfulness to be useful: The kids can identify and see that they're not the only one doing it and that I am not a hippy trying to have them practice something 'weird'. They can see how other children participate and engage in activities and how, watching these other children's testimonies, the latter were able to benefit from it.
The other strategy I have found to be useful is using videos showing how the brain functions and the effects meditation can have on the brain. As outlined during the Mindful School conference, students find it almost to be a relief when they start understanding how brain, thoughts and emotions work. They understand how they can feel overwhelmed by feelings, how they can be played by feelings and ultimately how mindfulness can help them to alter the relationship they have with their thoughts and feelings. Out of the distance that is being created over time between ourselves and our thoughts and emotions, through mindfulness, arises room for choices, a new world of possibilities and different ways to relate with ourselves, our thoughts and our emotions.