This Elementary School Is Teaching Kids Meditation, And The Results Are Amazing

We’ve all heard by now how meditation can help adults deal with stress, but it turns out the practice can actually have a profound effect on children as well.

One school in Baltimore put this to the test, replacing detention with a “Mindful Moment Room” where students have the chance to calm down and recenter before heading back to class. The results have been amazing: In the first year of the program, the school had zero suspensions.

Robert W. Coleman Elementary paired with the Holistic Life Foundation to create the Mindful Moment Room. In it, the students are taught deep breathing exercises as well as how to diffuse stress and anger. Outside of the elementary school, the Holistic Life Foundation provides high-quality yoga and mindfulness education to children and adults in underserved communities.

Plenty of studies show that mindfulness meditation can help ease psychological stresses like anxiety, depression and pain, and it seems to be working on the students. Some are using meditation before taking a test, and others are taking the practice home with them to help deal with conflict beyond the school.

Some of the kids ae are even sharing their learnings with their parents.

“We’ve had parents tell us, ‘I came home the other day stressed out, and my daughter said, Hey, Mom, you need to sit down. I need to teach you how to breathe,‘” one of the Holistic Life leaders told O, the Oprah Magazine.

This sounds like a program that all schools might want to consider!