So you've had a baby...you look at this precious little thing and think it's the most perfect thing you've ever seen. It also thinks it's the most perfect thing in the world. It doesn't hesitate in letting you know it wants feeding, changing, more love, more attention and isn't afraid to ask for anything because it knows it's loved unconditionally.
Then before you know it you’re in the system, you never asked to be in a system and nor did your baby, but there you are. Your baby is weighed, measured, tested against an imaginary average line, it’s already been given a target and doesn’t even know it yet. The targets continue, weight gain, sleeping, eating, crawling, walking, potty training the list is endless and this is all before pre-school!
When your precious little being heads off optimistically to start his/her scholarly adventures in the world of mainstream education the targets and judgements continue, reading, writing, sitting still, eating lunch, conforming. Then comes the streaming, suddenly your child is aware if they are a ‘top table’ child, a ‘bottom table’ child or somewhere in between. They are being judged and they know it, still being held up against the ‘expected level’ marker. So do you reckon they still think they’re perfect just as they are anymore?
Then comes the joy of SATS, stressing the kids out over a bunch of tests to help the government decide which are the best schools and will in no way serve any purpose in your child’s future life, except to make them realise how stressful exams are. Then secondary school, more tests, more streaming, more judgement, then GCSEs, A’levels, until they are eventually allowed out into the big wide world with no sense of self that hasn’t been measured against some form of ‘expected academic level’. So what if you’re never going to make that ‘expected level’? What if it just isn’t in you? What is your internal dialogue going to be over those pivotal years where you are forming your self beliefs, I imagine it’s not going to be that positive. As Einstein said ‘Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid’. So if I were to give an analogy, I would say that there are a lot of fish being expected to take their tree climbing proficiency in our education system right now.
But everyone’s good at something right? Right, but what if those things aren’t given any recognition at school? Nicky Morgan the Education Secretary has decided to get rid of what she calls ‘Mickey Mouse Courses’ things like cake decorating etc. OK on the face of it many parents might agree that cake decorating doesn’t seem like a worthwhile qualification, but aside from the fact that it doesn’t seem to have done Mary Berry any harm, what if that one lesson was the only one you were any good at? What if was the only thing you went into school for? Now that’s been taken away from you, it was the one thing that you were actually praised for being good at, now you’re back to being the ‘bottom table’ kid again.
But the real point is this, even if you’re an academic kid and you get good grades, the pressure is still on because you will always be expected to do better. I was recently talking to a lady who was concerned about her granddaughter who suffers from anxiety, she questioned her as to why she was not happier about getting an A in her science test and she responded by saying ‘ because they’ll only expect me to do better next time’ she never felt her best was good enough. So even if you are academic, if you only define yourself by your academic achievements you will feel the stress and anxiety even more keenly when you take exams and you will feel an even greater sense of failure if you don’t get the grades you want.
So now you’re a kid defining yourself by your academic abilities or lack of them, let’s add to that the usual physical insecurities that come with adolescence, weight, looks, development pace, then we can put in the hormones, the friendship issues, bullying and to top it all off ‘social media’. Being defined by how many ‘friends’ you have or how many ‘likes’ you get, cyber bullying etc…no wonder the self-harm rates amongst children are at record levels.
So what can we do about this? Quite a lot fortunately, because this is where ‘mindfulness’ comes in and this is why the Government is taking such an interest in it at the moment. For those of you who aren’t aware the term ‘Mindfulness’ refers to being mindful of how our thoughts affect our emotions and bringing us into the present moment. If you like it’s a way of taking us off autopilot and making us aware of our thoughts so we can see how they are affecting us. Simple breathing techniques are used to bring about a sense of calm and children are then better placed to use the parts of the brain which help with reasoning and memory, this is also helpful in dealing with exam pressure and allowing kids to maximise their potential. Research shows that mindful breathing and awareness techniques improve happiness, focus, concentration, self-awareness, creativity and empathy. It also helps kids handle stress, anxiety, doubts and fear, leads to better conflict resolution and self-awareness (self-regulation). On top of that resilience training is just as important, enabling kids to develop a positive self-image/ belief system, not allowing them to define themselves by others expectations or opinions.
So as someone who teaches mindful and resilience techniques to kids of course I’m going to say that, I clearly have an agenda right? But actually my agenda is my own kids, their experiences combined with my own, that’s actually my motivation and why I’d like to see mindful and resilience coaching adopted in schools as a matter of course and one day I hope it will be, but until then it’s up to us, as parents, to bring these coping strategies to our kids and adopt them for ourselves. We may not be able to control what happens to our kids, but we can help them change how they react to those situations.
For more information on Stress Management And Resilience Training for children and teenagers please contact Shirley here
Then before you know it you’re in the system, you never asked to be in a system and nor did your baby, but there you are. Your baby is weighed, measured, tested against an imaginary average line, it’s already been given a target and doesn’t even know it yet. The targets continue, weight gain, sleeping, eating, crawling, walking, potty training the list is endless and this is all before pre-school!
When your precious little being heads off optimistically to start his/her scholarly adventures in the world of mainstream education the targets and judgements continue, reading, writing, sitting still, eating lunch, conforming. Then comes the streaming, suddenly your child is aware if they are a ‘top table’ child, a ‘bottom table’ child or somewhere in between. They are being judged and they know it, still being held up against the ‘expected level’ marker. So do you reckon they still think they’re perfect just as they are anymore?
Then comes the joy of SATS, stressing the kids out over a bunch of tests to help the government decide which are the best schools and will in no way serve any purpose in your child’s future life, except to make them realise how stressful exams are. Then secondary school, more tests, more streaming, more judgement, then GCSEs, A’levels, until they are eventually allowed out into the big wide world with no sense of self that hasn’t been measured against some form of ‘expected academic level’. So what if you’re never going to make that ‘expected level’? What if it just isn’t in you? What is your internal dialogue going to be over those pivotal years where you are forming your self beliefs, I imagine it’s not going to be that positive. As Einstein said ‘Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid’. So if I were to give an analogy, I would say that there are a lot of fish being expected to take their tree climbing proficiency in our education system right now.
But everyone’s good at something right? Right, but what if those things aren’t given any recognition at school? Nicky Morgan the Education Secretary has decided to get rid of what she calls ‘Mickey Mouse Courses’ things like cake decorating etc. OK on the face of it many parents might agree that cake decorating doesn’t seem like a worthwhile qualification, but aside from the fact that it doesn’t seem to have done Mary Berry any harm, what if that one lesson was the only one you were any good at? What if was the only thing you went into school for? Now that’s been taken away from you, it was the one thing that you were actually praised for being good at, now you’re back to being the ‘bottom table’ kid again.
But the real point is this, even if you’re an academic kid and you get good grades, the pressure is still on because you will always be expected to do better. I was recently talking to a lady who was concerned about her granddaughter who suffers from anxiety, she questioned her as to why she was not happier about getting an A in her science test and she responded by saying ‘ because they’ll only expect me to do better next time’ she never felt her best was good enough. So even if you are academic, if you only define yourself by your academic achievements you will feel the stress and anxiety even more keenly when you take exams and you will feel an even greater sense of failure if you don’t get the grades you want.
So now you’re a kid defining yourself by your academic abilities or lack of them, let’s add to that the usual physical insecurities that come with adolescence, weight, looks, development pace, then we can put in the hormones, the friendship issues, bullying and to top it all off ‘social media’. Being defined by how many ‘friends’ you have or how many ‘likes’ you get, cyber bullying etc…no wonder the self-harm rates amongst children are at record levels.
So what can we do about this? Quite a lot fortunately, because this is where ‘mindfulness’ comes in and this is why the Government is taking such an interest in it at the moment. For those of you who aren’t aware the term ‘Mindfulness’ refers to being mindful of how our thoughts affect our emotions and bringing us into the present moment. If you like it’s a way of taking us off autopilot and making us aware of our thoughts so we can see how they are affecting us. Simple breathing techniques are used to bring about a sense of calm and children are then better placed to use the parts of the brain which help with reasoning and memory, this is also helpful in dealing with exam pressure and allowing kids to maximise their potential. Research shows that mindful breathing and awareness techniques improve happiness, focus, concentration, self-awareness, creativity and empathy. It also helps kids handle stress, anxiety, doubts and fear, leads to better conflict resolution and self-awareness (self-regulation). On top of that resilience training is just as important, enabling kids to develop a positive self-image/ belief system, not allowing them to define themselves by others expectations or opinions.
So as someone who teaches mindful and resilience techniques to kids of course I’m going to say that, I clearly have an agenda right? But actually my agenda is my own kids, their experiences combined with my own, that’s actually my motivation and why I’d like to see mindful and resilience coaching adopted in schools as a matter of course and one day I hope it will be, but until then it’s up to us, as parents, to bring these coping strategies to our kids and adopt them for ourselves. We may not be able to control what happens to our kids, but we can help them change how they react to those situations.
For more information on Stress Management And Resilience Training for children and teenagers please contact Shirley here