Free online mindfulness lessons for kids and their parents.
You will know Goldie Hawn as the star of Private Benjamin and numerous other Hollywood comedy hits, but she's also a star in education and psychology circles. The Goldie Hawn Foundation, with its MindUP programme, has been teaching mindfulness in schools for nearly two decades, and they’ve achieved successful outcomes in students who often experience anxiety, stress, anger, or depression.
With lockdown keeping many students at home - and parents endeavouring to cope with their own stress within this new reality - MindUP has unveiled a new free service that families can access 24/7.
Partnering with Insight Timer, the world’s largest free meditation app, MindUP is now offering 5 minute exercises, based on its accredited curriculum, that teach daily gratitude and “brain breaks” proven to improve focus, resiliency, optimism and empathy.
The audio exercises, which are also on the platform’s website, are designed to help children regulate emotions and increase overall wellbeing through positive psychology, mindful awareness, and social-emotional learning - available in English, Spanish, French and Portuguese.
Accredited by the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning, MindUP’s exercises on Insight Timer teach children focus, empathy, and relationship-building - which are based firmly in neuroscience that has measured how to manage stress and regulate emotions, with optimism, resilience, and compassion.
This is even moe important than usual, as the World Health Organization has recently reported that more children are struggling with concentration and nervousness amid lifestyle changes during the pandemic.
“During this time of uncertainty, children are affected negatively emotionally and are facing symptoms of stress and anxiety,” says Hawn, the 74-year-old founder of MindUP. “Our program helps address these issues by creating mental fitness and emotional stability.”
The Foundation already has some MindUP lesson videos on their own website.
“We are proud to add MindUP’s learning resources to our free library to support parents and educators as they face new challenges teaching children with technology,” said Christopher Plowman, CEO of Insight Timer, which has become the most used meditation app in the US, with global audience of 17 million people.