By: Alexis Harris
Highlights:
- With the start of the school year, many educators and adults supporting young people are preparing to support development this year in many ways.
- The Compassionate Schools Project (CSP) Flourish curriculum has resources that may be helpful this year as you set up your classroom or home environment, and practice mindfulness.
- Creating a Pause Place is a strategy for helping children develop self-management, and mindfulness practice may help educators.
As we continue into the fall and this school year, we are all thinking about the ways we can support our children and youth to be successful this year. Whether you are an educator, parent, or other youth-facing professional, you may be thinking about the ways you can support growth and development across all your interactions with young people!
Over the last decade, I was the project director of the Compassionate Schools Project (or CSP). Our CSP team supports teachers to help students learn skills for focus, resilience, empathy, connection, and contribution as a basis for personal well-being and academic success. Through work with over 30 elementary schools, our team has developed the Flourish curriculum which integrates lessons, daily practices, and other resources for schools to support the flourishing of students and a compassionate school culture.
I would like to share some mindfulness and de-escalation resources that may be helpful in your classroom (or home environment), as well as mindfulness practice for adults.
Developing a Pause Place
Self-management is an important skill for children to learn so they are aware that emotions can affect their behaviors, especially as they develop an understanding of the concept of best self. This is true both in and outside the classroom setting.
This is designed to be a space where young people can use mindful awareness practices to help calm and settle their minds. The pause place is different from a time-out because young people (with adult support) choose to proactively take a pause when they need a moment to reset or de-escalate.
It is important that adults provide scaffolding to help young people identify the moments that they might benefit from taking a pause and model effective techniques that young people can use in those moments. For younger children, this may be:
- A special mat or area they can visit,
- Tools like a glitter jar (where they shake it and wait for the glitter to settle to the bottom of the jar, giving them time to calm and settle),
- Visuals for a calming breath practice (such as those found in Flourish K-1 Practice Guide), or
- Video leading them through that they have already practiced with an adult.
For older kids, this may be taking a brief pause wherever they are to practice breathing exercises (like Take-5 or Star Breathing) or practicing self-compassion.
Our curriculum resources include many tips, tools, and strategies that may be helpful. The curriculum was recently included in Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning’s (CASEL) Guide to Evidence-Based Programs and is available for free to educators.
See these example lessons related to implementing a Pause Place:
- Ages 5-7 or grades K-1 resources: Lesson 5 pages 176–186 (PDF)
- Ages 7-9 or grades 2-3 resources: Lesson 5 pages 165–175 (PDF)
Mindfulness Practices
We know that mindfulness practices are important for educators and all youth-serving professionals to decrease stress, reduce implicit biases or discriminatory behavior, and increase emotional regulation. Even short practices can have a meaningful impact! Whether you have 2 or 15-minutes, there are resources available that can help:
- 2-minute Gratitude Practice (video)
- 3-minute Grounding Practice (video)
- 6-minute Breath Awareness Practice (video)
Visit our website or contact us for more resources for students and educators!
It is an exciting time to be supporting young people develop and grow, and I’m confident some of these tips and resources may be helpful to you this coming school year!
If you have any comments or questions about this post, please email [email protected]. Please visit the Youth-Nex Homepage for up to date information about the work happening at the center.
