Mindfulness, Reflection and Executive Functions
You may have heard about mindfulness, or reflection, as a tool to help kids focus. But you may not fully understand exactly what mindfulness is or how it can help ...
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Mindfulness is a particular way of paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally. And it really translates to being fully absorbed in what you're doing. It's kind of the opposite of being on autopilot. You go off autopilot and you get mindful about whatever your situation is. One thing that we've learned from our research is that often, children need first to learn how to calm themselves down and pay attention before they're able really to benefit from the kinds of opportunities that we give them to practice their developing executive function skills. A key part of mindfulness, and reflection, and executive function is becoming self-aware of one's own experiences. And so quite often, we combine mindfulness training with reflection train...
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Mindfulness is a particular way of paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally. And it really translates to being fully absorbed in what you're doing. It's kind of the opposite of being on autopilot. You go off autopilot and you get mindful about whatever your situation is. One thing that we've learned from our research is that often, children need first to learn how to calm themselves down and pay attention before they're able really to benefit from the kinds of opportunities that we give them to practice their developing executive function skills. A key part of mindfulness, and reflection, and executive function is becoming self-aware of one's own experiences. And so quite often, we combine mindfulness training with reflection train...
