Finish Strong

We are at the end of  the last full week of school. We are in the homestretch and can see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

All we need to do now is finish strong. I found a great article on how to finish the year strong. It is a short but good read. 5 Tips for Finishing the School Year Strong

Four of the five tips are classroom and student focused.

5. Understand the needs of your students. -Remind them why routines are helpful. And make sure to address and understand mental and physical exhaustion.

4. Celebrate student growth. -Showcase their work. List their wins. Utilize year-end mapping.

3. Create a plan of continued growth. -Summer reading lists. Summer review and growth plans.

2. Cover the most important subjects. -Consider the most important information to prepare for next fall.

And as you take time to help students prepare for the close of the school year and help them finish strong, don't forget about you.

1. Prioritize health and wellness! - Recognize when you need your quiet/alone time. Find restful activities to recharge. And I'll add: Practice Mindfulness.

Taking time to take care of you will help you finish the year strong. 

When you are living this...

                                                                You need this...

If you have made it to the end of this blog come see me Friday and work on some mindful self-care. 😁

Mindfulness to Improve Students and Ourselves

This graphic is a simple way to understand the benefits of teaching and practicing mindfulness. Would you rather react or respond?

When you take a minute to look at the definitions you see that a Reaction is a action or feeling expressed and a Response is an answer.

Mindfulness helps us step back from an action and helps us answer.

A student who is always has an action related to a stimuli needs our help with finding the answer instead.

Mindfulness with older students can be a challenge, but it's not impossible, and it's needed.

With each passing year our technology increases and in-person communication skill decreases. Children are not playing games together in-person, but rather online. Online they call each other names and simply shut the device off when they are frustrated. In-person they would have to face the other person while saying mean words and learn to resolve conflict.

As educators we need to think about the interpersonal skills lost and how it affects education. Are you seeing a rise in behaviors such as; students responding with a "no", students touching each other, students leaving class, etc?

If we think about our student's days we can guess that after school they spend time on a screen, on social media, and they stay up late. Some of them may have parents who work late, others like the oldest two in my house simply go to their room and only come out at meal time. Our students are not interacting with others in-person.  Our students are causing, creating, and joining conflict online and not resolving it. And it all spills into school.

What if we had a way to teach them to quiet their minds, calm their bodies, and focus their energy? What if we had a way to teach self-reflection, self-compassion, and conflict-resolution? 

We do.

Mindfulness.

Research after research after research continues to show us that mindfulness improves school attendance, improves grades, improves mental health, IMPROVES STUDENTS!

If you need help with teaching students mindfulness use Inner Explorer. Last week several third graders, Mrs. Ali, and myself had the opportunity to meet one of the creators of the program who also voices several of the mindful practices. Our students were interviewed about mindfulness. The Inner Explorer team that came to the school also included a former NHA employee. The team was impressed with our third grade and hearing about our kindergarten team and how they all utilize mindfulness daily.

If you still need help after implementing Inner Explorer, reach out to me. I have resources for ALL ages in my office. That means even middle school resources. 

Take a minute to really look at this next graphic and think about your students.

The website mentalup.co shared this graph and then the information listed below:

Mindfulness for teenagers:

• Promotes happiness
• Reduces stress
• Helps overcome anxiety
• Helps deal with ADHD
• Enhances learning ability
• Raises body awareness
• Grows patience
• Encourages considerate actions
• Helps defeat depression
• Builds tolerance
• Sharpens memory
• Increases focus and attention
• Builds social intelligence
• Helps evaluate and control behavior
• Helps manage emotions
• Supports mental health

Please take time to think about the positive impact of mindfulness and how to help your students finish the year strong.

Rainbow Mindfulness

 This week's weather is perfect for A Rainbow Walk Mindfulness.

Rainbow Walk Mindfulness combines many mindful activities into one. 

A rainbow walk encourages us to get up and get moving. We take a calm, quiet, and focused walk outside. Taking a few minutes to enjoy the natural world and all it can give us. As we slowly walked with measured steps we take time to seek out the spectrum of colors in the rainbow. What can you find in nature that is ROYGBIV? As you move from one color to the other take in deep breaths and slowly breath out.

A rainbow walk can also combine the mindfulness of listening. What sounds do you hear and can you find the source and the color of the source? Is it a red-breasted Robin? Do you hear the hoot of a brown barn owl? Maybe you hear the soft meow of a calico kitten.

A rainbow walk can also combine the mindfulness of scent. What does the yellow flower smell like? Does the white blossom have a scent? Can you smell the fresh cut green grass?

A rainbow walk can be used with the mindfulness of touch. Is the tinny green leaf soft? Is the brown tree bark rough? 

We have the mindfulness of sight to which we have also added sound, touch, and smell. 

As the weather continues to warm and fruits and vegetables grow you can also add the mindfulness of taste. 

A rainbow walk is a great mindfulness for each of us to take on our own. If you want to do a class rainbow walk you can come back together and talk about the different colors each student found. This is a great connection moment for students. Circle up and build community as you explore what each student found in nature.

A rainbow walk is a great mindfulness for journaling. You can take time to write about your experiences. 

Mindfulness such as this help calm and cultivate focus. Students learn to have a specific task to focus on and accomplish. Find colors in nature. Connect your senses. Take deep breaths. Be present. 

Imagine the benefits your students and class as whole could experience. Imagine what you could gain.

Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

 Happy Teacher Appreciation Week!

To help you have a great week here is a short mindfulness to play for your students. It is a Teacher Appreciation mindful mediation. 

End your week with a 5 minute mindfulness break.

Teens, Screens, and The Mindful Way Out

Mindfulness is beneficial for each and every one of us, but too often it is under utilized with our older  students.

Teens spend an average of 9, non-school related, hours on a screen each day. Looking at a typical school day for one of our students this means being on a screen as soon as they wake up and being on a screen long past when they should be sleeping.

Teens (and pre-teens) are experiencing fewer hours of sleep and increasing more and more hours of time on a screen.

Studies out of Yale, Harvard, and MIT are starting to provide insight regarding teens and the use of screens. 

As the amount of time on screens increase teens are experiencing an increase in fractured attention level, lack of impulse control, and  heightened levels of depression and anxiety. 

The studies have also found the teens most often are utilizing screens out of boredom, loneliness, and to avoid unpleasant feelings. 

Teens today are losing the ability to navigate nuanced and complex interpersonal human interactions. 

Our students do not know how to handle and resolve conflict. We need to teach them theses skills and encourage time away from screens.

One great way to help our students is to introduce them to mindfulness and include it in their daily lives. 

Some schools across the US have started to address the concern related to screens through various mindfulness exercises. 

One such practices focuses on teach students three fundamental skills.

1. Watching thoughts

2. Being present with others and the natural world.

3. Self-compassion

In the first part, watching thoughts, students are asked the questions "Am I using a screen to connect with someone?" or "Am I disconnecting and distracting from feelings?" 

To help students answer these questions students they practice a body scan and phone scan. The students are asked to turn off their phones and place them upside down on the floor at their feet. The students conduct a mindful body scan with deep breathing. They are then asked to pick up their phones and turn them on. The students are encouraged to notice where their fingers go on the phone. What app do they open first? Are they checking calls or text to view a missed connection? Are they exploring TikToc or YouTube and disconnecting?" 

This practice can then move to exploring ways to utilize ground technology use in values, self-compassion (this is often a big challenge for young girls), and empathy for others. 

The second step, being present with others and in the natural world.

This mindfulness practices asks teachers to take students outside. Have students pair up. Ask them to spend time together deep breathing, listening to and looking at nature, and exploring emotions. Have students ask each others about feelings. Have students practice reading faces and body language. Youth need to learn the skills of interpersonal connection and communication. Teach I-statements to utilize during this practice.

The final step, self-compassion is key to helping our students with taking a deep look at screen time and self-value. 

Posting the perfect picture. Sending people pictures. Reading comments from others. Posting comments to others. This connects the first step when we talked about values being practice with screens. Mindfulness practices that focus on self-compassion can help.

Helping our students spend non-screen time practicing mindfulness is beneficial for social skills, emotional skills, and for learning.

 The publication Mind, Brain, and Education presented a study of 5-8 grade students at a charter school and how mindfulness helped them. The study reported that students who had a regular mindfulness practice also had higher GPA, greater achievement on standardized tests, better attendance, and fewer suspensions. 

We're Going on a Bear Hunt for Radical Acceptance

 Last week's blog inspired Ms. Richardson to share the concept of Radical Acceptance. Radical Acceptance is exactly what Rumi was talking about in his poem, The Guest House. But Rumi isn't the only place we can find help for understanding this idea. 

Thank you Tricia, I loved taking a deep dive into Radical Acceptance. I hope I do it justice in this blog. 

According to BetterHelp.com, a website dedicated to finding therapist online and providing mental health information; Radical Acceptance was developed by Marsha Linehan.

In an article on better help it states: Radical acceptance, as its name suggests, means exactly that: accepting everything about yourself, your current situation, and your life without question, blame, or pushback. Far from condoning or embracing what you are and what you are going through, radical acceptance advocates simply accepting yourself and your circumstances in order to better move through and past them.

Better Help also goes on to share that radical acceptance is used to help us accept our feelings related to situations which are beyond our control. The ultimate goal is to have a progression of growth rather than a stagnation of rumination. 

Much like Mindfulness you can trace Radical Acceptance as a concept back to early Buddhist practices. The idea is living a connected life. Connecting to the present moment. Connecting to our feelings. Connecting to others. Connecting. The more we form and build connections the more we are able to accept emotions as they come. We connect to others and form bonds, this create the opportunity for love and loss. We cannot accept one without accepting the potential for the other.

Last week we looked at Rumi's poem The Guest House. In his poem he told us:

The dark thought, the shame, the malice, meet them at the door laughing, and invite them in.

This week we look at Radical Acceptance and are encouraged to greet all emotions with kindness. 

In an article on PsychCentral.com we can explore more about what Radical Acceptance is and is not.

This article helps us to understand that RA is about accepting difficult situations as a reality and accepting our emotions surrounding them. This can lead us from pain into peace.

The quote below from the PsychCentral article really hit home for me as to why this practice can be such a beneficial add-on to my own mindfulness practice;

"Your merciless inner critic might also criticize your competence as a parent, employee, or spouse. And your feelings of suffering beget more suffering."

If I start to practice more RA I will surely be able to better handle bedtime with a three-year-old. That has, by far, become the most stressful time of day for me. And thus become a source of criticizing competence as a parent. If you have ever chased a naked three-year-old around the house, you know.

RA can gives us an accepting mindset in the midst of the madness that is life.

RA could be extremely useful during testing season. Accept however you feel related to testing. No guilt. No shame. Accept it as it is. This is a great mindfulness practice; take a deep breath in, and think about the testing and your feelings, and then breath it out, accept the feelings and let go.

RA helps us create a conscious effort to acknowledge and honor difficult situations and emotions. This is not ignoring, avoiding, or wishing away. It is honoring that you have been through/are going through a difficult situation/emotion and you accept the reality of the situation. This will strength your emotional resolve and help you move through your emotions.

As I was reading up on radical acceptance a statement stood out to me. Move Through Your Emotions.

If you have ever taught elementary school or have a child this may bring to mind the first part of the title of this blog. It did for me. I looked up the lyrics to the song, We're Going on a Bear Hunt. Hear me out on this one, this song can help teach kids about accepting emotions....just change a lyric or two.

In the song we are told we come upon tall grass and the song says:

We can't go over it, We can't go under it, We can't go around it. We have to go through it.

Now let's change that to an emotion we often try to avoid.

On our emotion hunt we come up to sadness and say:

We can't  go over it, We can't go under it, We can't go around it. We have to go through it.

The bear hunt song also states that on the hunt, I am not afraid. 

We can teach our students (and ourselves) to not be afraid of the emotions. Use mindfulness and radical acceptance (which connect and over lap the more you learn about both) to not be afraid of emotions but rather greet them with kindness and honor them and go through them.

We can find wisdom all around us, we just have to sit for a mindful minute and find it.

Remember, radical acceptance is not about approving of trauma or pain, but rather an acceptance of the feelings you have surrounding the trauma or pain. RA helps you to validate your feelings. Marsha Linehan shares that we must accept reality rather than fight against it. 

https://psychcentral.com/blog/what-it-really-means-to-practice-radical-acceptance#myths

https://www.betterhelp.com/advice/therapy/what-is-radical-acceptance-and-how-can-it-help-me/

Simply Begin Again

In a blog post on psychologytoday.com, professor Timothy Pychyl, PhD quoted Joseph Goldstein's advice for mindfulness. This advice was three words, "Simply begin again." 

The idea Mr. Goldstein was trying to convey is very simply that we don't need to be harsh on ourselves if we have a mind that wonders. We do not need to be frustrated if we forget a day of mindfulness. All we simply need to do is, simply begin again. 

I love this idea. Without judgement, without malice, just simply begin again.

After reading the Pychyl article I explored Goldstein more and found another great quote for us to ponder.

"The breath is always with us, it's not that we have to go searching for it or find something that's not there. If we are alive, we're breathing."-Joseph Goldstein. 

Mindfulness is a simple activity that requires nothing more than to be alive. We only need to set aside time to, simply begin again.

This week I want to present the idea of how we can begin again when emotions take us off course. Goldstein tells us that the breath is always with us and we do not have to search. When an emotions arises you do not have to seek out a solution for it, rather breathe through it. And if you are distracted, simply begin again.

I was exploring various Inner Explorers this week and came across one in the age group for 5th-7th grade. Practice 157. This practice focused on an old poem by Rumi. This 13th century wisdom applies well to the mindfulness practice of accepting emotions. The poem, The Guest House can really start you thinking about how you greet your emotions. 

In mindfulness we ask you to accept your emotions as they are and not judge them. Now the question is, how did you first greet that emotion?

   

And after each emotion, simply begin again.