Teaching Mindfulness Skills to Kids and Teens

Visit the link below to download the full version of this book:

https://medipdf.com/product/teaching-mindfulness-skills-to-kids-and-teens/

Click Download Now

 Teaching
Mindfulness
Skills to Kids
and Teens
edited by
Christopher Willard
Amy Saltzman
Foreword by Susan Kaiser Greenland

THE GUILFORD PRESS

New York  London
© 2015 The Guilford Press
A Division of Guilford Publications, Inc.
370 Seventh Avenue, Suite 1200, New York, NY 10001
www.guilford.com

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system,

or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the
publisher.

Printed in the United States of America

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Last digit is print number: 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

The authors have checked with sources believed to be reliable in their efforts to
provide information that is complete and generally in accord with the standards
of practice that are accepted at the time of publication. However, in view of the
possibility of human error or changes in behavioral, mental health, or medical
sciences, neither the authors, nor the editors and publisher, nor any other party
who has been involved in the preparation or publication of this work warrants that
the information contained herein is in every respect accurate or complete, and they
are not responsible for any errors or omissions or the results obtained from the use
of such information. Readers are encouraged to confirm the information contained
in this book with other sources.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Teaching mindfulness skills to kids and teens / edited by Christopher Willard, Amy
Saltzman ; foreword by Susan Kaiser Greenland.
  pages cm
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-1-4625-2238-5 (hardback)
1. Meditation for children. 2. Meditation—Therapeutic use. 3. Stress in
children. 4. School psychology. 5. Child mental health services. I. Willard,
Christopher (Psychologist) II. Saltzman, Amy, 1958–
BF723.M37T43 2015
204.′35071—dc23
2015015974
About the Editors

Christopher Willard, PsyD, is a clinical psychologist and educational

consultant with a specialty in mindfulness and self-compassion. He speaks
on the topic of mindfulness and meditation with young people nationally
and internationally, and holds teaching appointments at Lesley University
and Harvard Medical School. Dr. Willard is on the board of directors of
the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy and the Mindfulness in
Education Network. He has been practicing sitting meditation since 1999.
Dr. Willard is the author of Child’s Mind: Mindfulness Practices to Help Our
Children Be More Focused, Calm, and Relaxed; The Mindfulness and Anxiety
Workbook for Teens; and the forthcoming Growing Up Mindful. His website is
www.drchristopherwillard.com.

Amy Saltzman, MD, is a holistic physician and mindfulness coach whose

passion is supporting people of all ages in enhancing their well-being and
discovering the Still Quiet Place within. She is recognized by her peers as a
visionary and pioneer in the fields of holistic medicine and mindfulness for
youth, and her current work focuses on sharing mindfulness with school-age
youth in socioeconomically diverse school and community settings. In col-
laboration with the Department of Psychology at Stanford University, she has
conducted two research studies evaluating the benefits of teaching mindful-
ness to child–parent pairs and to children in low-income elementary schools.
To support others in discovering the joy and peace of the Still Quiet Place,
Dr. Saltzman has written the book A Still Quiet Place: A Mindfulness Program
for Teaching Children and Adolescents to Ease Stress and Difficult Emotions and
created two CDs, Still Quiet Place: Mindfulness for Young Children and Still
Quiet Place: Mindfulness for Teens. Her website is www.stillquietplace.com.

v
Contributors

Marvin G. Belzer, PhD, is Adjunct Associate Professor in the Department of

Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles
(UCLA), and Associate Director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research
Center.
Mark Bertin, MD, is a developmental pediatrician and author of the books The
Family ADHD Solution and Mindful Parenting for ADHD, integrating mindfulness
into evidence-based care. Dr. Bertin is on the editorial board of Common Sense
Media and a faculty member at the Windward Teacher Training Institute. He blogs
for The Huffington Post, Mindful.org, and Psychology Today. His website is www.
developmentaldoctor.com.
David S. Black, PhD, MPH, is Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Keck School
of Medicine at the University of Southern California. He is Founding Director of
the American Mindfulness Research Association ( goAMR A.org) and Editor-in-
Chief of Mindfulness Research Monthly.
Susan Bögels, PhD, is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and Professor
in Developmental Psychopathology at the University of Amsterdam, as well as
Director of UvA minds, the Academic Treatment Center for Parents and Children.
She is coauthor of the book Mindful Parenting: A Guide for Mental Health
Practitioners.
Willoughby Britton, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Public Health
and Director of the Clinical and Affective Neuroscience Laboratory at Brown
University. Her website is www.brittonlab.com.
Richard Burnett, MA, is Cofounder and Creative Director of the Mindfulness
in Schools Project, which has been brought to thousands of students in multiple
countries. He cowrote the highly acclaimed 9-week mindfulness course .b
(pronounced dot-b), designed to engage adolescents in the classroom, which then
led to Paws .b, a new curriculum for primary and prep schools. His website is www.
mindfulnessinschools.org.

vii
viii Contributors

Jennifer Cohen Harper, MA, is Founder of New York–based Little Flower

Yoga and The School Yoga Project, and Cofounder and board member of the
Yoga Service Council. She is the author of Little Flower Yoga for Kids: A Yoga and
Mindfulness Program to Help Your Child Improve Attention and Emotional Balance.
Her website is www.littlefloweryoga.com.
Christen Coscia, BS, is a compassionate educator who has integrated mindfulness
into many diverse educational and community settings. She has been creating and
conducting Wellness Works in Schools classes, including at a juvenile detention
facility, for over a decade.
Marcella Cox, MS, LMFT, RYT, is a psychotherapist, yoga teacher, and mindful
self-compassion instructor. She specializes in mindfulness- and compassion-oriented
psychotherapy for children, adolescents, and adults, and she teaches mindful eating
to help clients cultivate a healthier relationship with food and improve the quality of
their life. Her website is www.marcellacox.com.
Brian M. Galla, PhD, is Assistant Professor of Applied Developmental Psychology
in the School of Education at the University of Pittsburgh. His research focuses
on mindfulness, self-control, and their relationship to academic achievement and
positive youth development.
Matthew S. Goodman, BS, is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at Alliant
International University, San Diego. His research interests include mindfulness
with elementary-age students and clinical interventions for children with autism
spectrum disorders.
Lesley Grant, ECD, is Founder and Director of the Marin Mindfulness Institute
and the Mindfulness and Child Development Institute, which offer certification in
mindfulness in adolescent and child psychotherapy and education to psychologists,
psychotherapists, social workers, and teachers for county mental health agencies,
educational organizations, and to those in private practice. Her website is
www.mindfulness-education.org.
Susan Kaiser Greenland, JD, is Cofounder of the InnerKids Foundation and
author of The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become
Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate. She teaches worldwide on mindfulness
with young people.
Betsy Hanger, MEd, is an instructor certified by Mindful Schools, teaching
mindfulness in the Los Angeles Unified School District and working with
transgender youth and their families.
JoAnna Harper, BA, has been practicing mindfulness since 1999. She is a graduate
of Noah Levine’s Against the Stream teacher training and is currently in the Spirit
Rock/IMS/IMC 4-year teacher training. She leads adult and teen silent retreats and
daylong and weekly classes, and works with all kinds of youth.
Sam Himelstein, PhD, is a licensed psychologist at the Alameda County Juvenile
Justice Center who works with incarcerated youth suffering from trauma, addiction,
and other psychological/systemic issues. He has written multiple articles and two
books, A Mindfulness-Based Approach to Working with High-Risk Adolescents and the
Contributors ix

forthcoming Mindfulness-Based Substance Abuse Treatment with Adolescents: A Guide

for Clinicians, Teachers, and Mentors, and presents nationally on these topics. His
websites are www.samhimelstein.com and www.mbaproject.org.
Iman L. Khan, MS, LPC, is founder and owner of Blooming Minds, where
she is a mindfulness meditation coach and instructor, a certified family mediator,
a speaker, and a learning and behavior consultant. She is a psychotherapist at
Johansen and Fleming Psychological Services in Kenosha, Wisconsin, specializing in
interpersonal neurobiology and contemplative neuroscience. She works with adults,
children, couples, and families treating and preventing a variety of psychological
diagnoses. Her website is www.bloomingminds.org.
Wynne Kinder, BA, Ed, a former classroom teacher, teaches the mindful
awareness program Wellness Works in Schools in settings including urban, general
education, special education, and alternative classrooms. She developed mindful
brain breaks with www.GoNoodle.com, a free online digital tool for teachers and their
students; FLOW is a new category of 3- to 5-minute activities with self-care and
self-regulation in mind and in practice. Her website is www.WellnessWorksinSchools.
com.
Lindsey M. Knowles, MEd, is a doctoral student in clinical psychology at the
University of Arizona. She is certified as a mindfulness facilitator by the UCLA
Mindful Awareness Research Center, and is a staff member for Inward Bound
Mindfulness Education (iBme) retreats. Her research interests include mindfulness,
bereavement, attachment, and psychoneuroimmunology.
Gregory Kramer, PhD, is Founder and Guiding Teacher of The Metta Foundation
and has been teaching insight meditation since 1980. He is the author of multiple
books and the developer of Insight Dialogue practice, which he has been teaching
since 1995, offering retreats in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia. His
website is www.metta.org.
Jeffrey Pflaum, BA, has been an inner-city elementary school teacher in the
New York City Department of Education for over 30 years. He is the author
of Motivating Teen and Preteen Readers: How Teachers and Parents Can Lead the
Way and is a featured blogger on The BAM Radio Network’s EDWords (www.
bamradionetwork.com/edwords-blog/blogger/listings/jeffpaul), where he writes about
the mindfulness curricula that he started in the 1970s. His website is www.
JeffreyPflaum.com.
Deborah M. Plummer, BSc, is a writer, Imagework practitioner, and workshop
facilitator. She is formerly a clinical lead speech and language therapist working
within the NHS in the United Kingdom and senior lecturer in health psychology
and counseling at De Montfort University, Leicester. She is the author of 10 books,
including Focusing and Calming Games for Children: Mindfulness Strategies and
Activities to Help Children to Relax, Concentrate and Take Control. Her website is
www.deborahplummer.co.uk.
Betsy Rose, MA, is a singer, songwriter, and mindfulness educator. Her in-school
programs and trainings for teachers, parents, and youth invoke the magic of song,
breath, and presence—mindfulness with a beat! Her recordings include Calm Down
x Contributors

Boogie and Heart of a Child. Her websites are www.betsyrosemusic.org and

www.mindfulsongs.org.
Amy Saltzman, MD (see “About the Editors”).
Randye J. Semple, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the University of Southern
California, Los Angeles. She is the codeveloper of mindfulness-based cognitive
therapy for children and Mindfulness Matters, Associate Editor of the journal
Mindfulness, Consulting Editor of the journal Spirituality in Clinical Practice, and
past president of the Mindfulness and Acceptance special interest group of the
Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies.
Arielle Sydnor, BA, works for Teach for America and is pursuing a master’s degree
in teaching.
Suzi Tortora, EdD, LMHC, is a dance movement and creative arts therapist,
working with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, the New School for
Continuing Studies, the Pratt Institute, the 92nd Street Y, and the Harkness
Dance Center in New York City. She is the author of The Dancing Dialogue: Using
the Communicative Power of Movement with Young Children. Her website is www.
suzitortora.com.
Ozum Ucok-Sayrak, PhD, is Assistant Professor at the Department of
Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Duquesne University, where she teaches
courses on intercultural communication, integrated marketing communication,
business and professional communication, and public speaking.
Vanessa CL Weiner is Founder and Executive Director of the ResilientKids
organization. Her website is ResilientKids.org.
Char Wilkins, MSW, LCSW, is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist working
with women with childhood trauma and disordered eating. She is a senior teacher
of mindful eating–conscious living and mindfulness-based stress reduction
professional trainings for the Mindfulness-Based Professional Training Institute at
the University of California, San Diego. For information on mindful eating, visit
www.me-cl.com.
Christopher Willard, PsyD (see “About the Editors”).
Foreword
Susan Kaiser Greenland

Reading this excellent volume has been like catching up with old friends.
Many of the authors were among the first to advance the once slightly wacky,
yet remarkably commonsensical, idea that mindfulness could benefit youth.
It almost felt hubristic to think we could teach children mindfulness at that
time, especially since meditation was rarely taught to youth in the Eastern
cultures where it had originated. As Willoughby Britton and Arielle Sydnor
explain in Chapter 21, “Most young monastics spend their preteen and teen-
age years engaged in the memorization of liturgical and philosophical texts
and are rarely required to meditate as part of their training” (p. 412). We
knew this was the historical truth. Yet, we were emboldened by our own
meditation practices and trained by teachers who were respectfully bucking
the conventional wisdom in a similar way. Those Eastern cultures that rarely
taught meditation to young people didn’t teach meditation to lay people
much either. So it made sense that the more inclusive, experimental approach
spearheaded by teachers in the West would spawn a new wave of practitioners
eager to share what we had learned with the youngest generation.
We came from various backgrounds, trained in different traditions,
were spread out across the globe, and met infrequently, if at all. However, we
shared important commonalities. Notably, we were influenced and inspired
by Jon Kabat-Zinn’s secular approach to mindfulness training, specifically
mindfulness-­based stress reduction, and by the mindful parenting book he
wrote with his wife, Myla Kabat-Zinn, entitled Everyday Blessings. Perhaps
the most striking common characteristic we held was that we were absolutely
certain that mindfulness would benefit young people even though there was
no scientific evidence to prove it.

xi
xii Foreword

For starters, we hoped that mindfulness would address a common com-

plaint we heard from our students. Adults told them time and again to “pay
attention,” but no one taught them how. We knew from our own practices
that meditation trained two stances of attention, both of which had been
helpful to us: a focused stance that had helped us concentrate and manage dis-
tractions and a more open, receptive one that had helped us calm down when
we were upset, manage stress, and navigate strong, difficult emotions. Based
on our positive experiences we threw caution to the wind, simplified the adult
practices, and began trying them out on our kids, in their schools and com-
munity centers. Sure enough, parents, teachers, and the children themselves
reported back that mindful strategies were helping them at home, at school,
and with friends. There’s now empirical evidence to support what was then
merely anecdotal. In Chapter 19, David Black and his colleagues review the
scientific findings with respect to mindfulness training and youth, including
those related to the development of attention and cognitive control. In Chap-
ter 20, Mark Bertin delves deeper into the relationship between mindfulness
and executive functioning and examines how mindfulness can be integrated
into care and treatment of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder.
Attention training wasn’t the only thing we were asked about in the
beginning. “Isn’t mindfulness the same as teaching kids to stop and count
to 10 when they feel angry or upset?” was another common question. The
two strategies are similar. But what is missing in the count to 10 approach
that is inherent in a mindful approach is noticing what happens in your mind
and body during that 10-second interval. Rather than clenching down on
the anger and hoping to wait it out by counting to 10, mindfulness suggests
a different approach. We notice we’re angry or upset and then stop what
we’re doing, relax, and breathe into a more open, receptive perspective. It’s
from there that our nervous systems can settle down and we can watch our
strong feelings come and go. When prompted, children can then see how, if
given a chance, challenging thoughts and emotions tend to morph and fade
away. We were certain that teaching kids this other way of attending to their
experiences—­coupled with a worldview in which an understanding of com-
passion, impermanence, interdependence, cause and effect, and less binary
thinking is baked in—could change how they relate to challenging situations
and people. We saw meaningful applications in the classroom and clinic (see
Chapter 1, by Lindsey Knowles and colleagues; Chapter 4, by Betsy Hanger;
Chapter 13, by Marcella Cox and Char Wilkins; and the Introduction by
Christopher Willard) and with populations generally considered difficult to
reach (see Chapter 6, by JoAnna Harper; Chapter 3, by Wynne Kinder and
Christen Coscia; and Chapter 7, by Sam Himelstein).
Getting parents and school administrations to buy into the “why” of
mindfulness for youth was the first hurdle. Once that hurdle was jumped, the
question of “how” to teach mindfulness in an age-appropriate, secular manner
emerged. In Chapter 5, Lesley Grant provides a helpful look at mindfulness
Foreword xiii

training through a child development lens while presenting games and activi-
ties appropriate for specific age groups. Suzi Tortora (Chapter 11), Jennifer
Cohen Harper (Chapter 10), Betsy Rose (Chapter 15), Iman Khan (Chapter
14), Vanessa Weiner (Chapter 16), Deborah Plummer (Chapter 17), Jeffrey
Pflaum (Chapter 18), and Amy Saltzman (Chapter 12) combine mindfulness
with the established disciplines of dance, yoga, music, writing, art, nature
studies, and competitive sports to offer joyous and ingenious ways to engage
children in practice. These chapters are a generous, multidisciplinary trea-
sure trove of creative ideas for sharing mindfulness in playful, powerful, and
developmentally appropriate ways.
Working with children who don’t want to be in your class is challeng-
ing for a teacher regardless of the subject matter. It is especially common in
our field, given that students are often required to attend mindfulness classes
because their teachers, parents, or therapists think it will be good for them.
Like it or not, these students are stuck in a “conscript classroom” and would
rather be anyplace but there. In Chapter 2, Richard Burnett suggests strate-
gies that encourage resistant students to give mindfulness a chance. He urges
us to start by explaining to our charges how mindfulness will help them
manage the stress and strain of daily life. He continues by answering practical
questions on classroom management ranging from “What do I do if a pupil
starts crying?” to “What do I do when a pupil starts giggling?”
Whether working with a child who is resistant at the beginning or with
one who starts out enthusiastically, the key to nurturing continued engage-
ment is connectedness. Students generally begin mindfulness training by
learning to bring awareness to their minds, bodies, and surroundings and
in so doing they better connect with their present-­moment experiences. But
mindfulness doesn’t stop with our own life experiences (intrapersonal mind-
fulness). Equally important is how we integrate mindful awareness into our
actions and relationships (interpersonal mindfulness). In Chapter 8, Ozum
Ucok-Sayrak and Gregory Kramer unpack the practice of both intra- and
interpersonal mindfulness, while Susan Bögels, in Chapter 9, explores the
interpersonal practice of mindfulness in the context of parenting. Work-
ing with kids on their own, outside of their homes, has its limitations, and
Bögels’s work reminds us that when mindfulness is offered to the entire fam-
ily system the possibilities for transformation increase exponentially.
In Bögels’s mindful parenting program, parents begin by practicing
themselves before sharing mindfulness with their families. That approach is
echoed throughout the book. To borrow from J. B. Priestley, “It’s not what
is taught but what’s emphasized,” and the authors’ common emphasis on the
development of your own practice first and foremost is no coincidence. Sam
Himelstein points out that “one of the most important factors in developing
trusting relationships . . . is the degree to which you are authentic” (p. 124)
and, further, that “authenticity begets authenticity” (p. 125). Personal prac-
tice is the threshold for authenticity in this work, and the moments that we
xiv Foreword

embody a worldview that supports mindfulness are when the strongest, most
authentic teaching can take place.
I came to this work via meditation. In the tradition in which I was
trained you needed years of practice, experience, and permission from your
meditation teachers in order to teach others. When I received permission, one
of my teachers gave me a specific instruction that remains a daily lesson in
humility. She told me to only “serve the child in front of me now.” Lindsey
Knowles and her colleagues echo this wisdom:

We do not know what we someday will know about teaching mindfulness to

children. As we learn more, we adults can simply do our best to bring our own
mindful attention to the complexities and uniqueness of each child we work
with. (p. 40)

When teachers bring their full attention to the children in front of them
now it throws the commonality they share with their students into sharp
relief. JoAnna Harper’s description of what it was like to practice with youth
labeled “at risk,” “challenging,” or “troubled” after having worked with “typi-
cal’ kids” illustrates this:

Though it might seem hard to believe, the years of working with “typical” kids
informed my teaching with this [at-risk] population more than I can say. They
[“at-risk,” “troubled,” or “challenging” youth] truly feel no different to me; I can
see the innocence, joy, and curiosity just below the surface that takes only a little
encouragement and care to draw out. Many times I have walked into a room
of tough, shutdown, and disinterested faces, yet within an hour, they look like
different people, literally transformed. By the time they left our circle these kids
were calm and had laughter in their eyes. One young man that I am working
with now told me that the class gives him hope, and he now believes that he can
have a better life. (p. 108)

Wynne Kinder and her colleagues, who also have extensive experience
working with “atypical” and “at-risk” students offer another example of how
working with kids can be humbling when they point to the opportunities for
co-teaching and co-learning that emerge in a classroom:

So often students will chime in, “I have an idea . . . ” and announce something
relevant, creative, and innovative. They may think of an extension of what we
are doing or envision another way of doing it that makes much more sense. With
their permission and blessing, we have adopted many of our students’ insights.
Their judging minds do not get in the way of what they have to offer. (p. 56)

The theme of approaching this work with humility is echoed through-

out this book. Given that consumer enthusiasm has outpaced the science, it
is crucial that we foster caution in this emerging field. Evidence now sup-
ports what was once only a belief: that mindfulness offers strategies to help
Foreword xv

children, teens, and families focus, relax, and better regulate their emotions.
These are remarkably helpful life skills. In the context of popular mindfulness
training, however, they are often taught outside of the worldview in which
they were developed. We don’t know what this unbundling of classical prac-
tice to emphasize some elements and deemphasize others will mean in the
long run. Nor, as Willoughby Britton and Arielle Sydnor point out in Chap-
ter 21, do we know whether it makes sense to wait to train some aspects of
mindful attention until children reach a certain age or whether mindfulness
practice is equally beneficial for everyone. These are just a few of the ques-
tions that will need to be answered for the field to mature.
In closing, a heartfelt thanks to Christopher Willard, Amy Saltzman,
and The Guilford Press for integrating the work of these talented authors into
the comprehensive volume that you’re holding in your hands. It is an invalu-
able resource and serves as a reminder of how much has been accomplished
in a relatively short period of time. Yet there is much more to be done. If
the development of secular mindfulness tracks the development of classical
meditation in only the smallest of ways, this is just the beginning. Hopefully
this volume will inspire parents and professionals to continue the spadework
that’s needed to answer the open questions, foster new ones, and, through
that process, develop best practices for sharing mindfulness with children
and families. May this effort benefit children, teens, and families everywhere.