Mindfulness with children - how does it work?
The first task sounds solvable: simply stand up. Without leaning against anything. Take your hands out of your trouser pockets and let your arms dangle at your sides. Both feet are on the floor, the weight is evenly distributed. «This is extremely difficult for many children,» says Vera Kaltwasser. «Simply standing can be the beginning of refining their self-awareness; the children can playfully feel the sole of their right foot, then the sole of their left foot and thus make contact with their body.»
Vera Kaltwasser is a teacher at a Frankfurt school and the author of several books on the subject of mindfulness. She learned Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) from Jon Kabat-Zinn, the inventor of this programme - actually for herself.
People under stress often fail to see the simplest solutions.
This worked so well for her that at some point she came up with the idea of trying out part of this method with her pupils. Conscious standing is one of the periods of silence that Kaltwasser repeatedly incorporates into her lessons - even with the youngest children.
«Aischu» is the name of the concept she developed to inspire children and young people to continuously explore their inner world in small steps and learn to feel themselves better.
«For example, I ask the children to imagine a lemon. They are then amazed to realise that their mouths are watering. Imagining something causes a physical reaction,» explains Kaltwasser.
«In this way, the children understand that they put themselves under stress with fears and worries, even though they are only thoughts. The next step is for children and young people to learn how to defuse their stress response themselves, for example by consciously paying attention to their breathing.»
Meditating is a process
Even if it doesn't look like it from the outside: Being mindful and meditating is a highly active process. The mind is trained. For example, the focus is the breath. Whenever your thoughts wander, your awareness is brought back to your breath.
Scientific studies have shown that people who regularly practise mindfulness become more attentive. This also has an indirect effect on pupils' performance. After all, people under stress often fail to see the simplest solutions, and nobody performs at their best when they are tense.
You come up with the best ideas when you are relaxed. Numerous studies have shown this, and it is precisely this experience that Vera Kaltwasser shares with her students.
«It is important that we do not devalue mindfulness as a tool for self-optimisation, but instead recognise the ethical potential that unfolds when we learn to treat ourselves and others consciously,» emphasises the Frankfurt teacher.
Meditation - regular practice is important
The key to successful mindfulness is continuity. It is much more important to practise regularly, even if it is only for a few minutes, than to practise for a long time. «That's why it's great when children not only meditate at school, but also when their parents are a little familiar with it and work with their children to be more mindful in their everyday lives,» says Vera Kaltwasser.
She advises against making meditation a fixed item on a child's daily programme, which is often already too full anyway.
Instead, parents should pay close attention to when a good time arises to start a conversation with the children in specific situations. For example, when a child comes home frustrated and says that the teacher doesn't like them.
Children gain new experiences by listening to themselves.
It is then a good idea to give the anger or disappointment space, but also to show how the stress caused by such a rejection can be defused.
This does not mean minimising the problem, but it does mean learning coping strategies at an early age. In times of constant sensory overload from media and digital devices, mindfulness is a way that can help children and young people to refine their self-awareness.
Mindfulness in everyday life
Mindfulness can also be integrated into everyday life. Sharpen your senses and those of your child: How does it feel to walk across the concrete slabs on the way to school? What do you hear on the balcony in the evening when it's already quiet outside? How do objects feel that you pick up every day - the toothbrush, the page of a book? What does it smell like at home? And what do you taste first when you eat ice cream? The sweetness? The cold? Or the fruit? If you practise this regularly, mindfulness will soon become an important part of your life.
«A little boy once said to me after the first exercises: «I'm a friend of mine now.» I think that sums it up pretty well,» says Vera Kaltwasser.
«Through breathing, children familiarise themselves with themselves and learn to treat themselves kindly and lovingly. They also learn to recognise early on when they are giving themselves a hard time with their thoughts. And they also learn to treat others with kindness and respect.»
Whilst children often come up against boundaries on the outside, get offended and are regulated, they can have completely new experiences when they listen to themselves on the inside. They realise that they often make the world for themselves and that seeing things one way or another changes things.
Mindful media consumption
Being mindful can also help when dealing with media. Kaltwasser advises parents not to simply impose a ban - «You can't use the tablet any more» - but to take a mindful approach to doing nothing and suggest to their children: "Feel what it does to you when you're not playing on your smartphone or computer, but just sitting there.
This is basically good old boredom - and it is known to lead to creative flights of fancy. How difficult it is for children to have an idea of time and doing nothing often becomes apparent at the very beginning of mindfulness practice.
Vera Kaltwasser likes to ask whether they can manage to close their eyes for 30 seconds. Of course, the boys and girls laugh, that's easy! And after five seconds they are amazed at how long it takes. «After about six weeks,» says Vera Kaltwasser, «all the children can usually stand still or close their eyes for half a minute.»
Teachers and parents should take a closer look at those who are still disruptive because they can't pause: "This is a kind of cry for help, because these children realise for the first time what is actually going on inside them during the periods of silence, and sometimes they can't stand it.
The «Aischu» intervention programme and science
The «Aischu» intervention programme has now also been put to the scientific test. In a small pilot study, Niko Kohls and Sebastian Sauer, researchers at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, investigated the influence of mindfulness on attention performance, quality of life, well-being and stress in fifth-graders.
The results show that mindfulness has a positive effect in all areas. The improved attention performance was particularly striking. The scientists emphasise that the study is of a pilot nature and that the results could only serve as initial indications that need to be further validated.
What do you taste first in ice cream? The sweetness? The cold? Or the fruit?
Professor Gunther Meinlschmidt from the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Basel and Ruhr University Bochum finds «the topic so exciting that several studies and investigations are currently underway and we will know more in a few years' time».
What we already know, however, is that stress can lead to so-called epigenetic changes. This refers to changes in the genes that are not inherited but are caused by external factors.
Stress is one such factor. «As parents, practising pausing and noticing together with your child can benefit everyone,» says Meinlschmidt. Take a walk in the forest, for example: breathe in deeply and sniff the individual scents, prick up your ears and listen to the sounds of the animals and plants, touch a tree and feel the bark with your fingertips - all of this can promote mindfulness.
