Browsing by Author "Tuohilampi, Kaisa"

Today mindfulness is a popular method to develop awareness skills and well-being. Its effectiveness has been studied in adults, but there is still relatively little research data on how it works with children. Recent mindfulness studies have focused on examining mindfulness intervention with children. Mindfulness research has received surprisingly little critique in the past, and its applicability to all children has not been questioned, although in the future mindfulness may be part of children’s daily life at school. This study seeks to critically examine mindfulness interventions and to determine why mindfulness is needed to be incorporated into the school world. This research is a systematic review based on 10 international research articles from 2005-2020, where a mindfulness intervention was done for elementary school students. This research seeks to answer the questions: 1) why is a mindfulness intervention done in school?, 2) what kind of benefits are sought? and 3) what kind of results are obtained?. Using data driven analysis, I highlight the rationale for mindfulness research as to why mindfulness would benefit children and the outcomes of interventions. According to this research, mindfulness interventions are done in schools mostly because most children can be reached there, and schools have the responsibility to teach well-being skills to their students. Most interventions are hoping to have an impact on mental health and academic success. In addition, mindfulness interventions have yielded the most results that develop cognitive and emotional skills. This research shows that mindfulness research is still in its infancy. This topic requires further research to gain more knowledge about the suitability of mindfulness to children and whether the practice can achieve the desired results.