That's wrong! Group exercises like that are just mind control, whether that's the alleged point, or not. And there are people with various mental health conditions, usually undiagnosed, who should never do them.
This mindfulness thing is just a hippy new age craze that it's wrong to foist on school children.
This is just going to cause serious trouble.
Jeez, out of Brexit, into flipped out!
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Kudos to England education officials. Now let's home US lawmakers and boards of education in NY and all other states jump on this bandwagon.
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Relaxation techniques and breathing exercises. Oh, brother.
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I have been practicing mindfulness for the past 4 years and will be in enrolling in a year long mindfulness program in the fall. If more people would engage in this wonderful practice the world might be a better place.
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When I was a child in public school we had Health Class that taught us what health is and the steps to take to be healthy. Mindfulness, which is learning to recognize how we feel and how to shift our feelings using awareness and meditation skills, is the mental health component that has been missing from health class. This is a very positive move for schools.
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A very good beginning and it will do the children a lot of good.
But I find the word Mindfulness very strange. What the children are being taught is Meditation, a practice perfected in India in the folds on Hinduism. So why not call it exactly that! It will open an avenue for the children to follow beyond this small beginning.
The agenda by this is to make them connect with their true self and not as defined by the artificial layer around them. And before anyone says that that you are trying to slip in a religion, please note that meditation and self discovery is in the realm of spirituality and beyond the boundaries of religion and dictates.
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@Arjun Mehta
I use "mindfulness" precisely to avoid any religious arisings in people's minds.
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The bottom line is that we can’t teach what we don’t yet know. And we still really don’t know exactly how to treat most mental illness. We’re in a strange moment right now, because we’ve become adept at diagnosing many of these disorders, but we still don’t have very precise tools to treat them. Because of this it’s critical that we apply whatever potential tools we can, particularly those that come with little to no harm (unlike pharmaceuticals).
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To criticize a program like this and talk about prevention is absurd. That's like saying: don't teach first aid, teach people not to hurt themselves. There will ALWAYS be stressors in life, and no amount of "prevention" will stop that. Teach kids to handle it when it comes.
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Just teach them to put their phones down! That's the problem as numerous studies have already determined.
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Are the kids playing outside enough? It’s a cure-all.
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Oh, this gives me hope! And I have not had any hope for a long time.
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While I applaud the effort to treat mental health issues in children, I'm troubled by how little focus there seems to be on WHY children need mental health treatment in the first place. It can't just be exam pressure: there's always been exam pressure. As a parent, I point the finger at two causes: less and less true freedom for kids (because god forbid they are unsupervised for even a moment) and more and more screen time, which means there is never a break from the bullying and social pressure and FOMO. There doesn't seem to be any real willpower to change those things.
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The climate crisis is making all the people who don't lie to themselves crazy. Denial on the part of the government only makes it worse. The people of the USA I think feel especially gaslighted. Is it still worth participating in the economy our are we past that now?
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@Mark Battey Climate change, while a serious problem, has nothing to do with rising rates of mental disorders in children. Stop it.
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Very good initiative by the British government, something every country should follow!
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