Mindfulness
Incorporating mindfulness into our settings has no end of encouraging benefits to all at Little Gem's. The Children love Max the bear, playing calming games, laying looking at the sky...time to just breathe and maybe chat. Having a mindful attitude towards our care for the children, encourages individual responses to each child's want and needs. Most importantly, to have integrity in what we do and successfully share mindfulness with young children, we firstly need to practice it ourselves. Then the children in our care naturally begin to mirror this way of being themselves.
It is this sharing of mindful awareness during our practical play activities which provides the nurturing environment in which a mindfulness-based curriculum can be most effective. Together all staff at Little Gem's attend a six week mindfulness course every six months, this is fantastic way to bring the team together in a calm relaxed atmosphere. Here is a letter from Jamie our Certified Mindfulness Instructor explaining what he does and why....
'Hello,
My name is Jamie Byham. I have been working with and teaching mindfulness for several years with both adults and children. I have trained and implemented mindfulness in schools and services with success.
Mindfulness is without doubt one of the best tools for young people and adults to improve their emotional and mental wellbeing.
There have been many studies about the benefits of mindfulness ranging from increasing concentration, reducing anxiety, to even improving one’s own immune system.
However, the world is full of people who initially take up mindfulness, dedicate themselves to it, and see positive effects of it in their lives and in others, only to decrease the amount they practice as the weeks and months go by before eventually giving up all together.
So why does this occur? Pick up any mindfulness book and they are full of strategies to calm our minds, with excellent information on some mind patterns we all share such as our negative bias. So what’s the problem? When we learn that we can spend a lot of our days in autopilot mode, we can sometimes be quite surprised. We go about our day with such efficiency that we are unaware of what is happening in our unconscious.
When we begin mindfulness initially, we are so pleased to find that we can get a sense of peace on demand. A break from the constant chattering of the mind. What we are also doing though is sending a message to our unconscious saying now is ALSO the time where I now feel I’m ready to deal with some of my long-held beliefs and how I feel about myself.
What is often always the case is we really feel and see ourselves negatively. To add to this we all have low self-esteem, at least about some issues. Mindfulness can bring these uncomfortable things up and if we are not ready for them, then we can quickly put the lid back on it and put mindfulness in that box of things we know we should use but begin to never do. Therefore, it is crucial that when you are teaching and learning mindfulness, that you also learn how to help your self-esteem and self-worth.
The mindfulness that I offer is geared towards learning the fundamentals but also features aspects from CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy), DBT (Dialectical Behaviour Therapy) and MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy). I also draw upon my experience working within other traditional based thought.
Little Gem’s childminding has completed an initial six-week program with myself now having an excellent foundational knowledge on mindfulness. They are now able to teach it and practice with children much more effectively than before. Not only do they have a good grasp on mindfulness techniques but a deeper knowledge of the mind patterns we all share. For young people and children to get the most out of mindfulness, it requires adults to have developed a healthy attitude to their own selves and a continued practice. By completing this course all the team are excellently placed to be able to cater even more than they originally do for their children’s emotional wellbeing that are in their care.'
Jamie Byham
Jamie.Byham@simplyheremindfulness.com
Certified Mindfulness instructor
BPS CBT Level 1 accredited
BPS CBT trained specialising in children and adolescents
Mental Health First Aid Instructor