Mindfulness in the Classroom

Social competencies are a critical component of early childhood education. The ability to self-regulate, share, and demonstrate compassion are intricately linked skills that rarely receive explicit instruction in formal education. Recent research, however, has demonstrated that these core social competencies are predictive of classroom success and academic performance. To explore the potential benefits of mindfulness on learning, pro-social behavior, and self-regulation, developmental scientists from the Center for Investigating Healthy Minds implemented a 12-week mindfulness program in 6 pre-K classrooms in Madison, Wisconsin.

In this study, 68 preschool children were randomly assigned by classroom to the mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum condition or the control condition. Baseline measures were taken to understand the children’s teacher-rated social competencies, pro-social behavior as measured by sticker sharing, and self-regulation skills prior to the training. Children in the mindfulness condition received a 20-30 minute mindfulness class twice a week, lead by trained mindfulness instructors. Children in the control condition did not receive any mindfulness exercises. At the end of the 12-week period, researchers collected the social competencies, pro-social behavior and self-regulation measures again.

While over the 3 month period, children in both conditions made gains in social competencies and sharing behaviors, statistical analyses indicate that children in the mindfulness condition had larger gains than children in the control condition. Hyperactive children, who scored the lowest on self-regulation and social competencies benefited the most from the mindfulness training, significantly improving their abilities to focus and share.

These improvements continued 3 months post-intervention. Report card grades at the end of the year demonstrated that children in the mindfulness condition had significant improvements in learning, social-emotional development and health compared to control children.

This study demonstrates the possible benefits of implementing mindfulness-based curriculums in early childhood settings. Children who receive mindfulness training develop better self-regulatory skills, social competencies, and demonstrate great pro-social behaviors like sharing compared to children without mindfulness training, fostering a positive classroom environment for all.