The naughty step might not be the best way to help kids control their anger.
Parents, teachers and carers have struggled to find a way to deal with troublesome children; there are even entire opposing schools of thought on what works and what doesn’t.
But the Holistic Life Foundation seems to have found a solution that’s as easy as breathing.
The idea is the brainchild of three men who saw their hometown turn from a neighbourhood – a place to raise children – into a dangerous, unstable ‘war zone’.
The Holisitic Life Foundation approached the Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland and began running meditation classes for ‘troubled’ kids.
Principle Carlillian Thompson started noticing a difference in their children’s behaviour after the first three months.
The school now has a Mindful Moment Room which is filled with soothing lamps and soft areas in which the children can meditate.
Teaching kids to simply breath deeply until they can control their frustrations and express them through non-violent means has proved to be incredibly effective, and the school has not suspended a single pupil since the start of last academic year.
Quiet rooms are a relatively common thing, with more and more popping up in Universities across the UK. There are also mindfulness projects that work with younger children, such as Mindfulness in Schools Project.
Brb, just going to go and meditate under my desk and regress back to my schooldays.
A former emo kid who talks too much about 8Chan meme culture, the Kardashian Klan, and how her smartphone is probably killing her. Francesca is a Cardiff University Journalism Masters grad who has done words for BBC, ELLE, The Debrief, DAZED, an art magazine you’ve never heard of and a feminist zine which never went to print.