Mindfulness Through the Ages

 Mindfulness is for ALL ages and all stages of life.

With infants its the adults mindfulness that matters. Your calm will be essential to ensure that you can handle the highs and lows of parenting.

Changing our brains to help others

As you move into toddlerhood mindfulness will help with tantrums and moods. I previously shared that I will often pick up Leila and hold her and take exaggerated deep breaths and this has shown to shorten meltdowns.

We are now working on mindfulness for Leila, per her request. Last week Leila found one of the mindfulness books I had home to read to students for my google classroom. She asked to read it and did such a wonderful job taking deep breaths. Since reading the book, when I say deep breath, Leila knows what I mean and takes a good deep breath.

Leila and My Magic Breath

The more we practice mindfulness the more our little ones see it and want to join in.

As we move into childhood we can continue to teach deep breathing and begin to build the concepts of mindfulness. We can share that mindfulness is; paying attention on purpose (without judgement and with curiosity) . This will help our younger students learn to listen to their bodies and moods and as they become aware they will do it in a positive way. They will learn to accept their feelings and show them in a way that does not harm themselves or others.

A Michigan Elementary School and Mindfulness 

Imagine a student that explodes. Imagine a student you have to have carried out of your class. Imagine a student that spends hours a day screaming. Imagine them screaming "give me what I want and this will stop." What if this student began to practice mindfulness and then turned around and chose to teach mindfulness skills to others? We have one such students. Those of us who have been on the journey with this young lady know the great distance this young girl has come. For those that are not as familiar, as you watch the video take a minute to think about a students who is difficult and presents challenges. What if that student could one day become like this young lady?

Jessa's Mindfulness

The older our students get the more their brains are changing. The brain is more generalized in childhood, ready to absorbed all the knowledge it can. As the brain grows into pre-teen and teen years it become more specific to interests. The changes can create challenges in how students learn. At this time mindfulness is crucial in order to help the youth learn to focus on a subject their brain may be signaling they are no longer as interested in as they previously had been. Mindfulness is a great opportunity to train the brain and emotions to work together instead in opposition.

Teens share about mindfulness 

We can takes 5-10 minutes a day to provide a safe space for our students to learn and grow in mindfulness. I have heard it over and over that there just isn't time in the day. How much time do you spend redirecting students in a given day? What if instead you used 10 minutes at the start of the day to teach students self-regulation and mindfulness? Perhaps students later in the day can learn to redirect themselves.

At our school we have a wonderful and easy to use program. I have shared it previously but it worth sharing again. Please sign up for Inner Explorer. If you cannot find the link I have sent, email me and ask for a new link. I will happily support you with getting started. 

At the beginning of the school year I talked about the idea of mental contrasting and using WOOP. It takes 5 minutes a morning to set a daily goal. 

I am working to grow a mindfulness library. I have some books, cards, and can always point you to a good video. Feel free to come to my office and explore ideas for your students. Don't forget that I myself am a resource and will happily come to your class and help you start your day the mindful way. 

Our Actions Can Un-Make A Bully

To Sir, With Love

Dangerous Minds

Freedom Writers

These are a few movies which often inspire adults to be great and work hard to have a lasting positive impact on the lives of youth.

Today, as we continue to use October to place a focus on bullying and it's lasting negative impact on the lives of our students, I want to introduce to some different videos, to inspire you. 

When we think about talking with our students about bullying, it is important to address the facts, statistics, and provide education on what bullying is and what it is not. It is equally as important to provide our students with way to stop bullies, stop bullying, and be an upstander. I would also argue that it is just as import for us, as adults to start the anti-bullying process by providing our students with a positive and caring atmosphere. 

Our students are young and many from challenging backgrounds. Our students may not know how to show empathy because no one has ever shown them empathy. 

Dr. Becky Bailey has a wonderful YouTube channel called Conscious Discipline. Dr. Bailey talks about how to interact with various age group to help overcome some of the home factors which create behavior concerns for our students. On her channel we are also introduced to a man by the name of DJ Batiste. DJ Batiste talks about going from gang to graduation. DJ shares about the one teacher who made a difference by simply showing him how important he was to her.

Dr. Bailey talks about how bullies are made from before the time they are born and how this then creates a path for their lives which needs a lot of caring people to help change the path.

How To Make A Bully 

In the link above Dr. Bailey walks through all of the stages a child travels through to create/make a bully. If you want more information, broken down by the age groups, check out her YouTube channel. The videos have great information and ideas on how to help students. 

In this next link DJ Batiste shares some of his story, as does the teacher who helped him change the direction of his life. DJ was a challenging young man who was a bully, DJ could easily be a student you see everyday. Do you know the student that is looking to challenge your authority, make you uncomfortable, and make sure that all eyes are on them and not you? I'm sure a face and name can come easily to mind. How do you handle this student's behaviors? Do you fall into the challenge and allow a power struggle to ensue? This is what the student is hoping to have happen. This student is often the bully in school. Bullies are looking to control and have power. Watch this next video to gain inspiration on ways to give those students what they need (power and control) in a healthy and helpful way.

DJ Batiste story

My hope for us all is that we take time to find ways to encourage our students, be a positive force in their lives, and help create an atmosphere that doesn't allow bullying to begin.

Conscious Discipline

Using Mindfulness to Stop Bullying

 October is Bullying Awareness and Prevention Month. As a school we take this month to focus on teaching our students what bullying looks like, how to stop it, and how to prevent the bullying. 

How can we utilize mindfulness to promote an anti-bullying environment?

Bullying is often described as; an imbalance of power, where the bully feels powerless and wants to control their environment or a person in order to gain power. 

Mindfulness helps us be aware of our surrounds, feelings, and the present moment. Using mindfulness we can help teach our students to recognize, understand, and share feelings in a healthy way. Mindfulness encourages a deeper understanding of oneself. This can help the bullied as well as the bully. 

At school we encourage all teachers to utilize the program Inner Explorer. Mindful.org reports a study showing that schools who use the Inner Explorer program have seen a 50% reduction in bullying behaviors.

Check out the information present in the article and video.  Using Mindfulness to reduce Bullying

We have an incredible tool to use to help our students and ourselves. The studies around the use of the Inner Explorer program have also presented results showing that teachers have seen a 43% reduction in their perceived stress when they too practice the program.

1 out of 5 students report being bullied

42% of the bullying has been reported as occurring inside the classroom

School based programs help reduce bullying by 25% (and Inner Explorer studies have shown around a 50% reduction in bullying behaviors).

Bullying Statistics

Let's start off the month of October with a commitment to ourselves and our students. A commitment that we will help educate them on bullying and how to prevent it. We will also equip them with the ability to reduce stress, better identify feelings, and promote a positive learning environment for them. We can implement this commitment by providing a daily mindfulness opportunity utilizing the Inner Explorer program. 

Inner Explorer provides; 90 daily practices which are around 10 minutes, 10+ transition practices, 30+ sound practices, and testing mindfulness. The program provides printable journal pages to provide to students, information to send home to families, and is considered a "plug and play" program making it easy on teachers. 

From a personal view point, I enjoy exploring the program. I have taken time to test out all age levels of practices. Middle school don't be afraid to utilize the 8-12 grade age group practices. They are very practical for middle school. Last year I had students who would come to my office and ask for specific Inner Explorer practices such as: Shark Fin and Relaxation Train. I too enjoy the Relaxation Train.

At the beginning of the school year I emailed out the invitation to our school subscription of Inner Explorer. I encourage you to take some time to set up your account or log in again to your account from last year. Explore the program and test out some practices for yourself and then begin them with you students. October's challenge is to take time each day to practice with your students. 

Let's educate our students about bullying and equip them with skills to prevent bullying. Don't find yourself working downstream with bullying, lets work Upstream and create a school of Up-Standers and Bully Stoppers.  

Character Strengths lead to Strength of Character

1. Love

2. Spirituality

3. Gratitude

4. Honesty

5. Kindness

Positive Psychology is a growing focus in the realm of psychology. The idea is that you can utilize many psychological tools to positively impact your life and well-being. One of the foundations of positive psychology focuses on character strengths. After a lot of research it has been proposed that there are 24 signature strengths we all possess. Knowing your strengths can help you utilize your strengths to their fullest potential.  

The list I started with is the list of my top 5. According to positive psychology if I focus on utilizing these strengths daily, I will have better well-being.

What are your strengths?

https://www.viacharacter.org/

VIA Institute on Character offers an opportunity to take the free assessment. I encourage you to take about 10-15 minutes to take the survey and discover your top five.

This website also offers an opportunity for youth, age 10-17,  to take the assessment.  This would be a great mindfulness opportunity for your classes one morning. You can help your students discover their strengths. Once they understand their strengths, they too can begin to build on them and utilize them daily.

For younger students, after you have taken your assessment, you can share about how we all have strengths that help us. You could share with them your strengths, share with them the full list of strengths, and then ask them what they think they are best at and what strengths they have. 

It would be a benefit to you and your students to make a list of strengths belonging to the students. Then when you see them utilizing their top strengths you can point it out with praise. You could even utilize their list to help them build on lower strengths and encourage them when you see them working to do better at a bottom strength. Studies show that people respond well to praise for their strengths and are happier and more productive.

Wouldn’t it be amazing to see your students grow as people, be happier, and reach their fullest potential?

Wouldn’t be wonderful if you could see yourself grow, become happier, and reach your fullest potential?

I would love to be able to continue to utilize some of my stop strengths to help you. Utilizing my love, gratitude, and kindness; I still have treats in my office to share. I would love to see you, have a quick hello, share some chocolate, and wish you a great day! If you came by Monday for World Gratitude Day and picked out some gratitude, feel free to come by again and receive more kindness.

Let's have a vision for this year that focuses on building strengths in ourselves and others. During difficult times it is easy to focus on what we cannot do and where we lack. If we take time to find our strengths and the strengths of others we can build positivity and optimism.

World Gratitude Day and Our Gratitude

 Monday September 21 is World Gratitude Day!

What are you grateful for today? 

Last week we looked at some studies that show the many benefits of writing and expressing gratitude. 

As we continue to navigate hybrid and online learning we find an increased need to find things in which we are thankful for with this school year.

Are we thankful for smaller class sizes and a quieter building? Or are we wish for the sounds of students to remind us where we are and what we are doing?

Are we thankful for Wednesday's without in-person students? Or do we wish to have every student, everyday?

Are we thankful for the support of administration? Fellow teachers? Behavior team? Support staff? Parents?

Are thankful for the fact that we can provide free meals to all students? 

Are we thankful for technology, enabling us to connect with students we do not get to see in person?

I would encourage us all to take some time to think about the school related things we are grateful for this year. It may be a challenge, but I'm hoping it's a challenge we can all rise to and conquer. 

It might be easier for some to think about the personal things you are thankful for first. Remember our WOOP and mental contrasting? With WOOP we set a goal and think of positive outcomes before obstacles.

Let's practice this idea with gratitude. After reading this post, take some time to write out a few things you are grateful for in your personal life. I hope this one easy. If it is a challenge due to difficult times, let me help and share some ideas.

Family: Relationship, Parent. Grandparent, Children, Aunts and Uncles, Cousins, etc

Pets

Housing

Food

Clothes

Car/Transportation

Job (I hope we are all thankful for our job and enjoy working at Fortis, I know I am)

Holidays

Fall (I love this time of year, even if I have yet to watch a Big10 football game)

Technology (staying connected with friends and family is such an important part of mental health)

Hobbies (I am grateful for Trisha's hobby, I love being able to take my mask off and still have it on me!)

Coffee (or other hot drinks that warm you up... or other caffeinated drinks that get you moving) 

And Hopefully So Many More!

If we look back at last weeks post we also talked about reaching out to a person we are thankful for and letting them. This is so important. It feels wonderful to let others know how much you appreciate them. The other person also receives a boost in happiness when they learn someone sees what they do and is grateful for their efforts and caring. 

Last week I challenged us to make our gratitude list and then share with someone our gratitude. I again challenge us to complete this task. I would also encourage us to take some time Monday to have our students participate in World Gratitude Day. Take five minutes with your students and ask them to make a list of 5 things/people they are grateful for and then have them share gratitude with at least one other person. 

As an added gratitude bonus I would love to express to everyone my gratitude for what you do. On Monday swing by my office for a little gratitude. 

Mindful Well-Being

In my last post I shared the concept of Mental Contrasting and WOOP to get us started on a new mindful journey of well-being.

Well-Being is the idea that we focus on new or improved healthy life practices which will help us with a more mindful and positive life.

In her course, The Science of Well-Being, professor Dr. Laurie Santos shares that we often want the wrong things in life due to the misconceptions of our minds. Dr. Santos calls these misconceptions "annoying features" of our minds. Annoying features of the mind are what tell our students that they will only be happy if they have the best grade in class. Annoying features of the mind are what tell us that we will only be happy if our job is perfect. Dr. Santos states that working on healthy practices to improve well-being increases intrinsic motivation which will create better wanting and help us have a more mindful outlook. 

To help start our journey to better wanting, I want to share what Dr. Santos has labeled as "rewirements" or ways to change our brains way of thinking about life and our well-being. If you are interested she has an app called ReWi that will help you track your well-being progress.

Lets dive into the well-being that will help us and our students.

Well-Being 

*Gratitude & Gratitude Visits 

*Savoring (a focused gratitude)

*Kindness 

*Social Connection

*Exercise

*Sleep

*Mediation (Mindfulness)

*Utilizing Signatures Strengths

*Goals (WOOP)

As we embark on a this new school year I want to walk us through our well-being. Over the summer, when I took Dr. Santos's course we were required to weekly put into practice these rewirements. I would like to challenge you to also take one or two a week and set a goal to put these into practice.

An easy well-being rewirement to start implementing into your daily life is, gratitude. 

Gratitude has been studied over and over and it has been found to have a profound and lasting effect on well-being.

Emmons & McCullough 2010 found that those who take time to write out 5 things they are grateful for each had better well-being. These participants were able to see life as a whole better, view their upcoming week better, have fewer negative physical symptoms, and do more things which are better for their lives, such as exercising and hour more a day.

Seligman et. al. 2005 took gratitude to the next level and extended that gratitude toward others. If you included a person on your gratitude list, you were then asked to complete a gratitude visit. This visit could be in the form of a note, letter, card, or in person telling someone you are thankful for them. This study discovered that after one gratitude visit participants saw an increase in positive well-being for up to three months.

Grant & Gino 2010 found that a simple gratitude statement to someone at work increased work effort. Those who feel appreciated at work are more likely to work harder, do more work, and have an overall better outlook on work; even without an extrinsic reward (such as increased pay).

So what does this all mean for us and our students? It means that we can help our students feel better about coming to school and wearing a mask, working on online at home, maintaining social distancing, and increase their desire to work on at their studies. We can teach our students to daily write out five things they are grateful for and once a week complete a gratitude visit.

We ourselves can feel better about virtual teaching, wearing a mask, maintaining social distancing, and coming to school daily; by simply remembering our daily gratitude list. We can also increase our well-being by making sure to complete a weekly gratitude visit.

My challenge to us all is to take this next week and start a daily gratitude list. At the end of the week of gratitude look over your gratitude list and find one person for whom you can write a positive note, letter or card to and then give it to them. Also take time to thank someone for their effort and hard work.

The more we put in the effort to increase our well-being and be more grateful the easier it will be to introduce and encourage our students to do the same.

Have you taken time to WOOP?

 Happy 1st Week Back to School.

If any of you are like me, you are feeling a lot of feelings about being back in the building with our small groups of students. The halls have been eerily quiet, you smile at students but they can't see your mouth, and want to hug or high-five but all you can give is a solid elbow bump.

How do we help our students feel more at ease? How do we help ourselves feel more at ease?

Answer: Mindfulness and Well-Being!

This year I want to take time to do weekly posts on mindfulness and well-being. 

During our back to school PD I introduced everyone to some new ideas that I would love to incorporate into our mindful journey. One is the acronym WOOP

WOOP

WOOP is based in concept of Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions (MCII) to help achieve goals we set for ourselves. WOOP was coined by Gabriele Oettingen,PhD. 

WOOP stands for:

W: Think about your Wish

O: The best Outcome

O: Potential Obstacles

P: Your If/Then Plan

Dr. Oettingen in talk with Dr. Laurie Santos a professor at Yale, explains how to walk yourself and students through the WOOP process.

WOOP is not a long and complicated process. It only takes about 5-10 minutes a day. 

It is best to have a quiet and calm atmosphere, with limited to no interruptions. This isn't a time to be talking to and engaging with others. It is a time to reflect and explore for your own benefit. 

WOOP is just for you.

To start with, think about what is your most important wish. Dr. Oettingen suggests that you consider a time frame, asking when you want your wish, or how long will it take to obtain your wish. This will help you focus your wish to something that is readily obtainable. 

After thinking about the time frame you would like to accomplish your goal write out your goal, or Wish. "What do I want most?"- write down 3-4 words.

Our students may have a daily goal to be more focused, to complete a full assignment, to stay positive, to say only nice things, to be mindful, or to make a new friend.

Next we come to the first O. Dr. Oettingen notes that the order of the Os is very important when conducting metal contrasting. You need to have the positives set in your mind before you begin to explain the challenges to the goal accomplishment. 

Our first O is, Outcome. What might be the best outcome if the wish is fulfilled. 

This is a time for our students to explain the benefits of the goal or wish they set that day. Lets say they set the goal of making a new friend. A positive outcome might be that they will reduce loneliness, have someone to talk to at lunch and recess, find social support, and maybe even find someone who can support them academically. 

Ask the students to imagine the very best outcome and write out 3-4 words..

After they have explored the very best outcome the next step is to conduct the contrasting aspect of goal setting; exploring obstacles. 

When setting a goal it is import to prepare for any potential obstacles. Knowing what may stand in the way helps to overcome the obstacles. 

Asking the questions:

What stops me? What is it IN ME that stands in the way?

This is a time to dig deep and not make excesses. Ask: What is it that REALLY stands in the way? The inner obstacles.

This is a time to imagine the obstacles, experience them. Then write out 3-4 words to describe. 

The words might be; (our example of friend making) shyness, fear of rejections, might not say the right words, have no common interests, or different backgrounds.

The last step is The Plan.

What can you do to overcome the obstacles? Your If/Then Plan. Simple short statements.

If I feel too shy to talk to a new friends, then I will practice deep breathing and remind myself that it will be a lonely year if I do not try.

If I think we are too different and do not have similar backgrounds, then I will remind myself that it could be fun to explore a new culture or ethnicity.

Dr. Oettingen states that it is critical to follow the steps correctly and to make sure to complete the obstacle step. The obstacle step teaches you what you consider barriers. This then allows you to plan out how to overcome the obstacles. This creates the connections between obstacles and the future; between obstacles and behaviors to overcome them.

In 2013 Dr. Angela Duckworth spent time with 5th grade students focusing on Mental Contrasting (WOOP). Dr. Duckworth had the the students spend 5 minutes every morning writing out their WOOP in a journal. This process was found to help students in several ways. They had better school attendance, fewer negative behavior reports, and better grades.

I will be working on posters with the WOOP acronym. My hope is that you take time to start this process with your students and continue daily. I encourage you to take some time and WOOP for yourself. Dr. Oettingen has an app that may help you, WOOP. 

Below are the graphs from Dr. Duckworth's study. MCII is Mental Contrasting with Implementation Intentions or WOOP process.