Oct
05
MiE: A new training program from Eline Snel
Sitting Still Like a Frog by Eline Snel is found on the bedside tables and bookshelves of families the world over. Although only one of the hundreds of books on mindfulness written for parents and their children, this little book with real stories and anecdotes resonates with all of us, whether or not we are parents. With the help of the Little Frog and other supportive guided meditations, children and adults alike are able to experience the benefits of paying attention. Attention to our inner world, bringing attention to our breath, our body and our feelings at anytime throughout the day. For children, their parents and their teachers, Mindfulness Matters!
Sitting Still Like a Frog is one of the many of books, training guides and courses developed, written and gifted to us by Eline Snel. The crown of this collection is a beautiful new program for parents, educators, and anyone working with children. Mindfulness in Education (MiE) is a mindfulness-based intervention (MBI) geared towards parents, carers, educators, counsellors, and therapists who work with children.
This is an eight-week training course for you, not so you can then teach your kids, but so you can take care of yourself first and foremost through the ABC‘s of Mindfulness: Awareness of what is here and now, Be willing to stop and be, and Cultivate compassion.
For more information about the program go to the Course for Adults page. For now, I will share some more about the benefits for parents and teachers.
Mindfulness in Parenting
For mindfulness to be most useful in your life it should begin at home, within you, within each of us. That is to say, practicing being mindful with oneself before we try and teach others. Becoming aware of ourselves through the curious and kind observation of the inner workings of our mind and the physical sensations in our body. In these experiences, we learn about our emotions, our reactions, our thought patterns, and how these influence our behavior and attitudes, as well as how others (the kids, your partner, colleagues, and others) influence our experiences.
With mindfulness, there is an opportunity to be consciously present moment by moment, offering ourselves compassion and not judging but acknowledging and accepting that we are right here, right now, with what is. Not needing to get carried away by this experience, or trying to push it away if it is difficult. Knowing that there is more right with you than not! Jon Kabat-Zinn reminded us of this at a retreat recently, saying “you are perfect the way you are including the laundry list of imperfections you will come up with.”
Parenting can involve a lot of self-doubt, self-criticism, and not wanting to fail or be too vulnerable. Mindfulness offers us one way of taking care of ourselves, and from this place, we can better look after our relationships with children, partners, colleagues, and others who engage with each day.
Mindfulness is being praised as a method and even model to improve wellbeing in parenting, education systems, businesses and in healthcare, and fortunately, high-quality research is increasingly supporting its application in these fields.
A very recent parenting study conducted by the University of Washington found the most significant outcomes in parents, after completing a six-week MBI program, was being able to successfully manage their emotions which helped them be more consistent, more encouraging to their children, and reduced their negativity. These positive outcomes also had a knock-on effect on the children particularly with regard to their social behavior, with the lead author sharing this insight; “our data show that when parents improve, kids improve.”
Another recent study conducted in Hong Kong involved teaching a mindfulness program (Method Eline Snel) to children diagnosed with ADHD, and another to their parents. The researchers found “impressive” benefits to parents, with decreases in parental stress and increases in psychological wellbeing.
During the 8-week MiE you have the opportunity to bring attention to yourself as well as your parenting goals and objectives. You learn to observe your experiences in a kind and caring way with openness and vulnerability, without being gripped by the storm of emotions, doubts or insecurities.
Mindfulness for Educators
Whether you are a parent, an educator, a therapist or carer working with children, these opportunities are open to all. For educators, however, resilience from stress and improved personal wellbeing have been identified as essential to preventing burnout. Teachers suffer from burnout at rates far higher and earlier than they should. The psychological and physical symptoms that can lead to burnout can often go unseen until it is too late, and one reason for this is a lack of self-awareness. Just as mindfulness can be supportive to parents, it can be equally supportive to teachers.
In an article published just this month in the American Journal of Education, researchers found that after receiving an MBI (CARE*) teacher resilience improved and with that, they were more likely to exercise mindfulness awareness and non-reactivity. Support factors included self-efficacy, community support (school, colleagues and professional development opportunities), self-care and the sustained use of practices focusing on emotion regulation. The researchers inferred that; “teachers’ mindful awareness and non-reactivity coupled with a healthy distress tolerance and sense of efficacy enables their ability to respond to others in a way that recognizes their humanity and maintains effective relationships, which, in turn, improves teachers’ well-being.” They went on to conclude that all of these capacities enabled teachers to respond more compassionately to their students. Other recent reviews of MBI’s for teachers, also supports the use of mindfulness for emotion regulation, which in turn helps teachers in their relationships with the children.
MBI’s are increasingly showing promise as a means to reduce perceived stress (physical and psychological) in teachers and ultimately distress (anxiety, depression, and burnout). In fact, a feasibility study for a customized MBI for the Mindfulness in Schools Project in the UK found that compared to the controls the participants in the MBI scored higher for wellbeing and reduced stress, and showed increases in mindfulness and self-compassion.
For a more comprehensive (but older) review, you might like to have a look at this report by Katherine Weare and the University of Exeter: Evidence for Mindfulness: Impacts on the wellbeing and performance of school staff.
Want to know more?
Check out the course details page. If you are ready to signup please complete this google forms enrolment form.
*Cultivating Awareness and Resilience in Education
Sources:
Beshai, S., McAlpine, L., Weare, K. et al. (2016) Mindfulness 7: 198. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-015-0436-1
Emerson, LM., Leyland, A., Hudson, K. et al. (2017) Mindfulness 8: 1136. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-017-0691-4
Lengua, L.J., Ruberry, E.J., McEntire, C. et al. (2018) Mindfulness. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-1016-y
Schussler, DL., DeWeese, A., Rasheed, d., et al.(2018) “Stress and Release: Case Studies of Teacher Resilience Following a Mindfulness-Based Intervention,” American Journal of Education https://doi.org/10.1086/699808
