Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. - Mindfulness Meditation and Children: An Interview With Susan Kaiser Greenland

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. offers a nice interview (at Huffington Post) with Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of the forthcoming The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate, and owner of the website Mindfulnesstogether.com, on mindfulness meditation and children.

If more parents could teach their kids these kinds of techniques, we would have less violence and more compassion in the world. Unfortunately, these practices are only likely to be picked up by already liberal families who middle class or higher.

Where we really need this kind of education is the inner cities, in poor rural areas, and anywhere else that compassion is in short supply.

Mindfulness Meditation and Children: An Interview With Susan Kaiser Greenland

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.

Psychologist in LA, Co-author: A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

Today I have the honor of interviewing Susan Kaiser Greenland, who had the courage to leave a well-paying law career to embrace a calling to teach mindfulness meditation to children as young as four years old. She is author of the upcoming book The Mindful Child: How to Help Your Kid Manage Stress and Become Happier, Kinder, and More Compassionate, developed the website Mindfulnesstogether.com and the Inner Kids program, designed to teach young kids vital skills toward a more peaceful and compassionate world.

Elisha: Susan, what an amazing path you've chosen. When I teach mindfulness to adults, I often hear, how come we didn't get this education when we were little, the world would be a much better place. What inspired you to leave the golden handcuffs and venture into this sorely needed area?

Susan: Thanks, Elisha. I'm not so sure I choose the path; often it feels more as if it chose me. I practiced meditation myself and saw how it helped me, so it was only natural to wonder if it could help my children too. But the inspiration to begin looking in earnest for ways to practice with my children (who were quite young at the time) came when I was on a week-long meditation retreat with Ken McLeod. I had studied with Ken for a few years before this retreat and was friends with many of his students.

Looking around the meditation hall one evening, I noticed that many of us were parents and was struck by the fact that none of us were talking about bringing mindfulness to our kids. Something happened during that retreat and I felt a shift - a desire to integrate mindfulness into my family life in a more direct way. It's not uncommon for me to leave a retreat thinking that I've had some major insight -- so after having one of these a-ha moments after meditation I wait a week or so before acting on it. If after a week I still feel that way I try to do something about it. A week after I got home from Ken's retreat that year -- now over a decade ago -- I knew this practicing mindfulness with kids was something I wanted to do (or maybe needed to do. Although I had no idea that it would eventually lead me away from my law practice -- which I also enjoyed.

Elisha: Can you give us a brief synopsis of some of the vital skills you teach these children?

Susan: The Inner Kids program has evolved over the years and now my primary objective is to teach kids a more mindful worldview. In classical training, that worldview comes through the development of three qualities simultaneously: awareness, wisdom, and values. My work is secular, yet informed by classical models, and those three qualities (awareness, wisdom and values) can be translated beautifully as attention, balance and compassion, what I like to think of as the New ABCs of learning. By learning these new ABCs, kids, teens, and their families can develop a more mindful worldview by:

• Approaching new experiences with curiosity and an open mind;
• Developing strong and stable attention;
• Seeing life experience clearly without an emotional charge;
• Developing compassionate action and relationships;
• Building communities with kindness and compassion;
• Working together to make a difference in the world;
• Expression gratitude; and
• Planting seeds of peace by nurturing common ground.

Elisha: While the instructions in mindfulness practice can be simple, the practice itself can be anything but easy at times. What happens when children throw tantrums or when they are bullied? How do you approach this practice during the difficult moments?

Susan: It's crucial that adults working with kids understand that this is a process-oriented practice (as opposed to a goal oriented practice) and the aim of the process is transformation. It is not at all uncommon for kids to have a hard time when they begin to look at their inner and outer experiences clearly without an emotional charge (or with less of one). Sometimes it's tough for kids, teens, and even adults to process what they see through introspection and it may be impossible for them to contextualize or understand their insights on their own. It's important to have patience with kids and simply see them clearly, and love them, for who they are -- even when they are not on their best behavior -- and trust that navigating this less than perfect behavior is a necessary part of the transformation that mindfulness and meditation can bring about.

Elisha: Can you share a practice that parents, caregivers, or teachers may be able to take into their lives with their kids?

Susan: I think helping kids find a physically comfortable posture from which to practice meditation is very important. Encouraging kids to lie down while practicing breath awareness is quite useful but also is an activity that I use called the Pendulum Swing (or tic-toc with younger children.) The aim of this activity is to help those who find it hard to be still (either sitting or lying down) to meditate in a group. Here's how it goes . . .

Go read the rest of the article to see a cool exercise you can do with (your) kids to teach them mindfulness meditation.

~ Adapted from a publication on Mindfulness and Psychotherapy at Psychcentral.com. Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is Co-author of A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook, and the Mindful Solutions CD Series dealing with stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, ADHD and Success at Work. Visit his blog, Mindfulness and Psychotherapy at Psychcentral.com. You may also find him at www.drsgoldstein.com.

Tags: meditation, children, books, Psychology, Elisha Goldstein Ph.D., Mindfulness Meditation and Children, Interview, Susan Kaiser Greenland, Huffington Post, mindfulness, happiness, compassion, empathy