Children’s experiences of learning mindfulness to help learn attentional skills: A study using interpretive phenomenolo

1. Children’s experiences of learning mindfulness to help learn attentional skills: A study using interpretive phenomenological analysis Bernadette Carelse Educational Psychologist

2. 1. Context of the study • Origins of the research project • Educational psychology involves supporting children with SEN, including attentional difficulties • Mindfulness - an area of personal and professional interest • Rationale for the study • Attentional skills are related to academic attainment • Mindfulness training can help with attentional difficulties • Original and distinctive contribution • Developing mindfulness-based intervention for supporting those with attentional difficulties in a primary school • Exploring children’s experiences of mindfulness

3. 2. Background literature Research with adults: • Mindfulness can help develop cognitive skills , including attentional skills can be developed through practicing mindfulness (adults and adolescents) Research on mindfulness with children: • is an emerging area of research • Indicates improved well-being– mindfulness was taught as an additional subject area, e.g. within PSHCE • Has been used in health settings for reducing anxiety, improving behaviour (not in schools) • Children’s views are important – methodological issues

4. 3. Methodology The research question: What are these children’s experiences of learning mindfulness? Method • A 10-session small group intervention at School Action for pupils in Year 5 with mild attentional difficulties was designed. It was run in a mainstream primary school twice a week for 5 weeks - 50 minute sessions. • It was based on ideas from mindfulness programmes including • Adults and adolescents to address attentional skills (MAPs for ADHD) • Adolescents in secondary school settings (MISP) • Breathing Space in Schools – designed by Srivati (London Buddhist Centre) • The process included data-collection - Interviews before and after participation in the group. During the sessions, the children were invited to draw or write about their experiences. • Analysis – used Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

5. 4.1. Background to the participants • Adam – struggled to maintain attention. Overwhelmed at times by “sad feelings” • Barbara – easily distracted, chatty • Calvin – daydreams and struggles to focus in class • Dudley – finds to very difficult to concentrate in class, unmotivated. • Eric – unfocused and disengages often in class • Fiona – lacks self-confidence and struggles to focus on her work Fiona: It felt weird because “I shut my eyes” (Session 1, F1:68)

6. 4.2. Initial views on mindfulness • “Good” or “fine” (all) • “Calm” (Eric) • “Relaxing” (Adam) • “I feel like better than I normally feel.” (Adam) • “I thought it was good because I’ve got more energy.” (Barbara) • My head was spinning around and around the room, just going slowly, in a peaceful kind of way.” (Calvin). • “Weird funny” (Fiona) Barbara: “My legs felt that something ..was tickling me” (B1:81). “I thought it was good because I’ve got more energy.” (B1: 85)

7. 4.3. The children’s immediate experiences of mindfulness Adam: “I noticed sounds” (A1:121) “I feel like my muscles are relaxed and my body is relaxed .” (A1: 123). Dudley: The initial mindfulness practice was described as “nice and quiet.” (D1:118). During it, he had been aware of many different things “all at the same time” (D1: 122).

8. 4.4.1. Drawing physical experiences (Left) Calvin: describes his first session, saying “I just felt like I was spinning round and round. It was cool towards the end.” (C2: 76) (Right) Calvin: describes body scan in 2nd session, saying “I kind of felt I was spinning around.” (D2: 92) (Above) Calvin: (I’m in the middle)..Loads of things were going around. Stars and swirls and stuff.” (C2:102)

9. 4.4.1. Drawing physical experiences Calvin: Session 8, describes he experiences of a sitting mindfulness practice “I could feel the air and I could hear the bell, the bell outside or something.” Calvin: Session 5, describing his breath “It was the like the sea, like it was always moving around.” (C2:116)

10. 4.4.2. Memories Calvin: “I kept thinking about my bike and how it got nicked... I kept on thinking about ghosts and stuff... I was kind of annoyed about my bike getting nicked.” (Session 9; C2:180, 182 and 184) Fiona: “I was thinking of the seaside” and the sun “going down”. “It makes me want to swim as well.” She could not remember where it was (Session 5, F2: 130, 135 , 140 and 146).

11. 4.4.3. Imaginary places Eric: Describes the first session, “I’m meditating... I’m feeling cool.. No hotness, just like it’s smooth.” (E2: 132, 136, 138) Eric: Describes session 5, “The beach! .. It felt good and I built a sand castle.” Eric: Describes session 6: “This is football.. That’s my coach.. And that’s me... Goal!” (E2: 210, 214, 216, 220)

12. 4.4.3. Imaginary places Eric: At the last interview, drew an imaginary world “cookie-land”, saying “I’m in my happy place” (D2: 306) where “everything is made out of biscuit, even the dog.” (E2: 314) and “When I’m upset, I just go into my happy place” (E2: 346). He struggles to return to the present from here, needing prompting at times. Eric: Session 8 was depicted with the caption “I was thinking about me being an animal.” He described his picture, “That’s me being a bird, having a worm in my mouth... I was focused on like the air. That’s like my breathing (E2: 240 and 252)

13. 4.4.4. Mental processes Dudley: described this picture of things that distract his attention, saying “This one’s Basketball and this one’s football and I’m sitting down thinking of those sports. And someone is singing, who I don’t know. And I wrote in the corner “football, basketball and singing ”.” (Session 8, D2: 270) Dudley: described his picture, saying “The green is me. The blue is the relax. And the brown is comfortableness. Hmm.. I’ve never done that before.” (Session 5, D2: 208)

14. 4.4.4. Mental processes Barbara: Describes her way of maintaining her attention on her breath, “I just felt like singing and so I just thought of humming at bit and then in my thought I was counting to ten “ ( Session 8, B2: 351) Calvin: it was on like your thoughts or your concentration. So a candle is burning. It flickers and stuff. And then after a while it goes out. (Session 6, C2: 144)

15. 4.4.5. Present moment drawings Barbara: Describes her drawing from session 9, “Well I was thinking about seeing loads of rainbows, because I’ve never seen one, except.. except at in Year 5, because we saw a rainbow when we was in the park. “ (B2: 371) “I just got it in my head. I just thought of seeing those loads of rainbows in one go.” (B2: 373) Barbara: “I was just thinking about triangles, going in my head. And I didn’t have anything , but then, when I started draw.. thinking I just kept looking at triangles. Everything’s triangles. So I thought I should draw the triangles . So I just thought I should draw triangles.

16. Children’s views on teaching mindfulness • Mindfulness is about developing ways to concentrate, being in the present. • The mindfulness course was fun, especially body scan. • The practices were initially difficult but got easier. • Mindfulness helped them to: • Concentrate better in class, ignoring distractions, focus on the teacher instead of talking to friends and work quicker • Help their friends to be calmer and more focused too. • Speak to parents more calmly and be patient with siblings. • Practicing at home: body scan, sitting mindfulness

17. 6. Implications • There is increasing interest in the use of mindfulness approaches in school settings • Using mindfulness-approaches as a school-based intervention - it has some potential. • Use of metaphor to enable children to develop understanding and control of attentional processes. • Use of children’s drawings to help them to communicate abstract experiences. • Supporting children to develop skills to manage difficult (sad or angry) feelings.

18. 7. Further thoughts and conclusions • Training to teach mindfulness in schools • Adapting materials for teaching mindfulness to help children learn attentional skills. • Involving school staff and parents • Personal practice of trainers • Working with other educational psychologists • bernadette.carelse@learningtrust.co.uk