MINDFULNESS FOR STUDENTS, TEACHERS AND PARENTS OF PUBLIC SCHOOLS (COMMUNITY BASED APPLICATION)

Developing healthy habits of mind through managing emotions and being able to recognize, accept and let go thoughts that put the person in a ruminating mode is something very important to stay healthy and experience well being. Mindfulness can provide a base for that. Besides, developing a healthy mind through the practice of Mindfulness improves the ability to develop empathy and compassion too. A state of well-being is the optimal condition for doing well in school: a pupil experiencing a state of well-being is more responsive to learning; a pupil who can feel empathy for his companions can be valuable in creating good dynamics in class. That's why promoting techniques such as Mindfulness at school can be useful to improve the results of children at school, as well as preparing them for the future challenges of life. However, it seems to us that treating children with Mindfullness is not enough, and we think that to make a really effective intervention parents and teachers should be taken into account too. Namely, the thesis we want to develop in the present paper is that an intervention on school age children is much more effective if their families are introduced into the Mindfulness philosophy as well and their teachers too, in what we define a community based approach.