Mindfulness strategies are a part of any quality early childhood education program; they just are not traditionally labeled as such. For example, teachers are employing mindfulness strategies when they describe children’s actions aloud, ask open-ended questions, and acknowledge children’s efforts to engage in their community in positive ways.
When implemented with fidelity, common quality teaching practices such as these encourage mindfulness as a habit of mind that develops and strengthens the brain’s social, emotional, and cognitive skills.
Mindfulness strategies support brain development in several ways:
- Promotes integration – differentiation and linkage: development of all parts of the brain as well as building the connections among areas within the brain. When our brains are differentiated, and linked, they are believed to be integrated, a state which supports physical and mental well-being.
- Supports executive function skills: the ability to plan, initiate, organize and carry out tasks while regulating emotions, resolving conflicts and shifting gears when necessary. Focal attention is the key driver to learning and is integral to developing these “school readiness” skills.
- Allows for intrapersonal attunement: tuning into one’s own interior landscape, including thoughts, feelings, and sensations. Noticing “what’s inside.”
- Allows for interpersonal attunement: being able to tune into the mental and physical state of another. Noticing “what’s there.”
- Supports the development of the prefrontal cortex: most notably, attuned communication, fear modulation, physical regulation, emotional regulation, response flexibility, insight, empathy, intuition, morality.
But What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness may be understood as having two components: the quality of focal attention, and the state of mind of openness and receptivity to what is there. Perhaps more specifically, a way I like to define mindfulness is paying attention on purpose with non-judgment, compassion, and loving-kindness.
Focal attention is a key component of mindfulness as it promotes learning or affecting change of any kind. When focal attention is engaged, the brain generates the growth of new cells, or neurons, and the connections between those neurons are strengthened. Focal attention is believed to be foundational for the development of the five brain benefits listed above.
Openness and receptivity are also key components of mindfulness. When the mind is in an open, receptive state, the brain is more integrated, thus promoting health, well-being and the spaciousness that cultivates the strengthening of the mind and brain.
Both components of mindfulness are unpacked here, beginning with focal attention strategies, which can be incorporated across daily activities and common preschool routines.
With the help of focal attention, each of these strategies has the potential to lead to one or more of the five brain benefits listed previously. And while the quality of attention is an important component of mindfulness, so too is the state of mind with which you attend.
The practice of engaging focal attention is coupled with the intention to notice with an open, receptive state of mind that includes non-judgment, compassion, and loving-kindness. And again, such practices are easily woven into the fabric of a quality early childhood program.
| Open, Receptive State of Mind Strategy | Example | Brain Benefit |
| Positive, descriptive acknowledgment (PDA) and PDA Plus: using specific and descriptive language to describe the positive behavior children display and at times, connecting it to a feeling state, outcome, or character trait. | Teacher: Andre and Denae, you are sharing the crayons!
Or Teacher: Andre and Denae, you are sharing the crayons, you look happy to be sharing! Or Teacher: Andre and Denae, you are sharing the crayons, now you can both color! Or Teacher: Andre and Denae, you are sharing the crayons, you are being friendly with each other. | With PDA and PDA Plus (instead of praise), children receive a description of the positive action they are doing and possibly its impact or outcome. This acknowledgment begins to strengthen the children’s internal narrative to include their strengths. A narrative that includes strengths, may help children remain open and receptive when they face challenges instead of dropping into judgment and criticism.
When teachers flood the environment with PDA and PDA Plus, children are more likely to return to an open, receptive state of mind throughout the day. |
| Emotional Literacy: identifying, understanding, and expressing emotions.
Choose from a variety of strategies such as reading books about feelings, referencing feeling charts, asking children how they feel, scaffolding their feelings, and modeling feelings. | Teacher: Salina, you are jumping as you laugh with your friend! How do you feel?
Or Teacher: Looks like you might be angry right now. I see your hands are clenched and your breathing is heavy. Or Teacher: Looks like you might be having a strong emotion, do you want to….draw me your feelings so I know what you are feeling; switch your emotion on the feelings chart; have the puppets talk about your feelings with you; tell me what your body feels like right now; do a body scan with me so we can see what your body is telling you about your feelings? | Using the emotional literacy strategy sends the message that all emotions are acceptable. This helps the mind send signals to the brain that it is safe and the process of regulating a strong emotion may begin.
The brain strives to make sense of information, so regardless of the strength of the emotion the strategy of emotional literacy helps the brain call upon the left hemisphere to help name what the right hemisphere is experiencing. The two parts of the brain work together to integrate the emotion, what’s often referred to as, “Name it to tame it”, where emotional literacy and emotional regulation are working together. |
| Emotional Regulation: using the mind to bring the brain into a more balanced state.
As with emotional literacy, a variety of emotional regulation strategies may be offered for children based on individual need, feeling state, and children’s abilities or developmental levels. For example, opportunities to: smell a flower/blow out the candle, squeeze a stress ball, do a few wall push-ups, walk like a bear or other animal, receive deep or light pressure on various body parts, name it to tame it, count breaths, allow glitter to settle, draw, listen to music, hug a stuffed animal or a teacher. Regardless of strategy, a key component of emotional regulation is the teacher’s validation of the child’s feeling state both through verbal and nonverbal actions. | Teacher: So, you are feeling really angry because the block area is full right now. That makes sense. I can see why you feel angry about that.
Or Teacher: You are feeling angry about the block area being full. It’s so hard to wait. It seems like anger is making your body feel uncomfortable right now. I wonder what might help anger relax its grip on you a little? Or Teacher: You are feeling angry because the block area is full? Ahhh…and your stomach feels heavy? So sorry. I have the relaxation kit right here. What strategy might help your tummy soften a bit? | Emotional regulation for children includes co-regulation with an attuned other. Meaning, engaging in regulation with an unhurried, calm, receptive, and aware adult.
Co-regulating with an attuned other allows children’s brains to shift from an emotionally reactive “downstairs brain” to an open, receptive “upstairs brain”, and to shift the brain to a state of integration. choose. |
| Conflict resolution: solving problems and resolving conflicts in a systematic way that includes all children being involved in a non-punitive discussion and resolution process. | When possible, each child involved in the conflict contributes his or her perspective at each step with the assistance of the teacher.
· Step one: What happened? How does EACH child feel? · Step two: What can we do? (discuss potential solutions, possibly look through visuals of solutions) · Step three: Pick one and give it a try! · Step four: Teacher follows up children. | Resolving conflicts using a step-by-step framework helps children remain open and receptive to working with others to resolve challenges, rather than seeking out retribution.
When children describe their view of what happened, connect that to how they feel, and then seek a solution, they are using the mind to access all parts of the brain to collaborate with others. Inherent in this process is non-judgment, compassion for self and others, and loving-kindness. |
Now that you understand both components of mindfulness, focal attention and an open, receptive state of mind, can you see how they may be (and likely are) incorporated across daily activities and common preschool routines?
A few last reminders:
- It’s important to note that the foundation of practicing mindfulness strategies is the teacher’s commitment to attuned communication and relationships with children. Click here to learn more about attuned communication. Attuned communication maximizes the potential for healthy brain and mind development by creating environments where children feel safe, satisfied, and seen (i.e., connected).
- All of the mindfulness strategies offered here must be adapted to meet the needs, abilities, and/or developmental levels of the children. The key is for teachers to use discernment to develop a culturally and developmentally appropriate approach for all children to cultivate the components of mindfulness at their own pace.
Hear more about this important topic with Laura on Pre-K Teach and Play’s podcast: Mindfulness in the Classroom
For additional strategies to promote mindfulness in your classroom, please check out part two of this series, “Moving Beyond Traditional Mindfulness Practices in the Early Childhood Classroom.”