Pop a raisin into your mouth, close your eyes and focus on its tantalising flavours – it may help you cope with anxiety and stress.
This simple step is one of the exercises used in mindfulness, a tool to help people learn how to get in touch with their emotions and focus on the here and now. And it is a skill that would benefit children in a considerable way, en-abling them to cope with not only school situations but those they encounter as adults.
This is one of the reasons that mindfulness is being added to the curriculum in 370 schools in the United Kingdom, helping students to learn “relaxation techniques, breathing exercises and other methods to help them regulate their emotions”.
A recent survey commissioned by the British National Health Service found that one in eight children in England between the ages of five and 19 suffered from at least one mental disorder at the time of their assessment in 2017.
To help them regulate emotions
Would it help in Maltese schools? Yanica Richards Chircop, a manager and family therapist at the Richmond Foundation, which supports those with mental health issues, certainly thinks so.
“I often use it with our clients here and have found it to be a very effective tool,” she said.
Mindfulness is all about awareness of one’s own feelings – something that is increasingly under threat in our ‘always on’ digital life.
But it also has a whole other scope when seen in the context of children who find it hard to cope with their anger or fear, which may result in disruptive behaviour or depression.
Research also shows that drop-out rates are lower in schools where mindfulness has been adopted and performances are better. There is also evidence that creativity is boosted over the longer term.
Ms Richards Chircop believes that interventions can be simple. For example, mindful eating would be a simple way of getting children to learn how to zone out when they need to.
“A lot of people think that mindfulness is about meditation but that is actually just one of the many tools,” she remarked, adding that even mindful walking could be positive.
The possibilities range from introducing mindfulness into the curriculum in its own right, just as PE and PSD are, or offering short breaks for exercises between classes and during break.
A big bonus is that the concept of helping students with non-academic issues has the support of the Malta Union of Teachers.
Union president Marco Bonnici told Times of Malta that, while it would not comment on specific programmes, the MUT had already suggested that the Ministry for Education and Employment should find ways to address issues such as substance abuse, bullying and also mental health problems of students.