NurturingInnerCalminChildren

1 Nurturing Inner Calm in ChildrenLinda LantieriAs adults, we often feel the pressures of today sfast-paced world and think back longingly to atime when our daily lives were a lot less stress-ful. Today one-third of Americans report that theyare living with extreme stress and almost half feelthat the stress in their lives has increased over thepast five years (American Psychological Association2007). Unfortunately, today s children are not im-mune to the stress of everyday life, either. Our soci-ety has changed in many ways that increase pressureon children and compromise their poll conducted by the national Kids Poll sur-veyed 875 children, ages nine through thirteen,about what caused them stress and what copingstrategies they used the most to deal with the stressin their lives.

2 The top three sources of stress that theyreported were grades, school, and homework (36%);family (32%); and friends, peers, gossip, and teasing(21%). The top three coping strategies were to play ordo something active (52%), to listen to music (44%,;and to watch TV or play a video game (42%). Of theten coping strategies that were chosen the most, notone involved going within and being able to calmoneself (Lyness 2005).While we, as adults, must work to reduce thesources of excessive childhood stress, it also wouldbe helpful to provide children with a wider range ofskills for coping with it. Fortunately, many teachersin New York City are doing just that. They are teach-ing young people practical contemplative practicesfor managing the stress that comes their few months ago I witnessed this firsthand in afirst grade classroom in a public school in East Har-lem.)

3 This particular classroom had lots of Special Ed-ucation students who were very hyperactive. Theirteacher, Tom Roepke, was getting them ready to lis-ten to a specific CD something they were veryused to doing. The students quieted down and be-came still and the CD started. The man s voice toldLinda Lantieri is Director of The Inner Resil-ience Program in New York City. She is thecoauthor ofWaging Peace in Our Schools(Beacon Press, 1996), and author ofBuildingEmotional Intelligence: Techniques toCultivate Inner Strength in Children(Sounds True, 2008).A noted peace educatordescribes activities that helpchildren find serenity andbetter cope with the stressesand difficulties of to listen to some sounds. The voice remindedthem not to name out loud the sound they heard, butjust say to themselves what they thought the soundwas.

4 As they listened to the instructions, they beganto listen with their whole bodies; for example, whenthey heard the sound of a bird, they moved theirarms like a bird. They managed to not speak andstayed calm and focused for a full six minutes. Thevoice on the CD was that of Daniel Goleman, authorofEmotional Intelligence(1995). The words, however,were mine from my newly published bookBuildingEmotional Intelligence: Techniques to Cultivate InnerStrength in Children(Lantieri 2008) which accompa-nies the CD that was being used. Tom is one of manyteachers who are part of The Inner Resilience Pro-gram, a nonprofit organization which I founded soonafter the tragic events of September 11, 2001.

5 Sincethen, we have been training teachers who, in turn,are teaching thousands of students how tostrengthen the neural pathways that help childrenpay attention and manage fact, a growing body of research suggests thathelping children develop good social and emotionalskills early in life makes a big difference in theirlong-term health and well-being. In his ground-breaking book,Working with Emotional Intelligence(1998), Goleman identified EQ emotional intelli-gence as being as important as IQ in terms of chil-dren s healthy development and future life writes (1998, 19):Given how much emphasis schools and admis-sions tests put on it, IQ alone explains surpris-ingly little of achievement in work or life.

6 WhenIQ test scores are correlated with how well peo-ple perform in their careers, the highest estimateof how much difference IQ accounts for is about25 percent (Hunter & Schmidt 1984; Schmidt &Hunter 1981). A careful analysis, though, sug-gests a more accurate figure may be no higherthan 10 percent, and perhaps as low as 4 percent(Sternberg 1996).Goleman s work has helped us understand theimportance of emotional intelligence as a basic re-quirement for the effective use of one s IQ; that is,one s cognitive skills and knowledge. He made theconnection between our feelings and our thinkingmore explicit by pointing out how the brain s emo-tional and executive areas are interconnected physi-ologically, especially as these areas relate to teachingand science tells us that a child s brain goesthrough major growth that does not end until themid-twenties.

7 Neuroplasticity, as scientists call it,means that the sculpting of the brain s circuitry dur-ing this period of growth depends to a great degreeon a child s daily experiences. Environmental influ-ences on brain development are particularly power-ful in shaping a child s social and emotional neuralcircuits. Young people who learn how to calm downwhen they are upset, for instance, seem to developgreater strength in the brain s circuits for managingdistress (Goleman 2008).In New York City classrooms and elsewhere,teachers are beginning to equip young people withthe skills to more effectively be both aware of andregulate their emotions. And we are finding out thatthe regular practice of these skills strengthens thebrain circuits that underlie emotional the busy, sometimes frenzied nature of ourlives, reflective moments are often missing.

8 Themore children can begin to experience quiet and still-ness, the more they can feel an inner balance andsenseofpurposewhichcanoffsettheoverst imulation that is so abundant in most of ourlives. The benefits of such a regular practice can in-clude (Lantieri 2008, 10): Increased self-awareness and self-under-standing Greater ability to relax the body and releasephysical tension Improved concentration The ability to deal with stressful situationsmore effectively by creating a more relaxedway of responding to stressors Greater control over one s thoughts, with lessdomination by unwelcome thoughts Greater opportunity for deeper communica-tion and understanding between adults andchildren, because thoughts and feelings arebeing shared on a regular basis2 ENCOUNTER.

9 Education for Meaning and Social JusticeWe, as the adults in children s lives, can t keep tell-ing our children countless times to calm down or pay attention without providing them with somepractical guidelines for how to do so. By offeringchildren systematic lessons in contemplative tech-niques, we can help them cultivate their budding ca-pacities and facilitate the development of their neu-ral pathways. Through our work and current re-search, we are finding out that teaching these prac-tices to students is increasing not only their socialand emotional skills, but their resilience: the capacityto not only cope, but thrive in the face of Guidelines for OurselvesThe following are some guiding principles forhow we can begin to create the fertile ground uponwhich we can cultivate children s inner lives in with OurselvesBefore we begin to teach young people to calmdown and relax, we have to set aside at least a coupleof weeks to regularly engage in a contemplativepractice ourselves.

10 Daniel Goleman s audio book,The Art of Meditation(2001) is an excellent resourcefor beginners and more experienced practitionersalike. It provides four different reflective exercises tochoose Children as Co-LearnersWhen young people have the opportunity to con-struct their own knowledge, they need a guide tohelp them, not an all-knowing authority. The bestguides are genuine learners themselves. When wehelp children nurturetheirinner lives, at the sametime we expandour owninner pathways of is a reciprocal relationship. Our role, then, is sim-ply to be willing to learn alongside young people andto help create a fertile ground for that young people may be the ones teachingand leading us inward, if we allow that to Time for the Learning to UnfoldLearning to be more mindful and appreciative ofsilence is not likely to unfold in a straight line for ei-ther children or ourselves.