A friend posted the following on Facebook yesterday afternoon……
It really made me stop and think and it drove a few points home that have crossed my mind over the past few days. There's a lot being discussed and written about gun control as a result of the Connecticut tragedy. It's the same story as with drug trafficing. We are trying to treat the symptoms, rather than the cause.
I know that there are many people out there who cannot even bear to hear the gunman's name, but yet everyone wants to know "why". I can't help but feel that this young man was a victim of fear, anxiety and loss of control from a young age, as so many of our children are today. If yoga and meditation were a part of every public school curriculum from kindergarten, I think a good percentage of children would be saved from this fate and/or miserable childhoods and teen years simply because we gave them a way to care for themselves. As an educator, my one premise of really teaching a child something lies in what they do DAILY in that classroom for a few minutes. Gradually those skills practiced for just a few minutes a day will become a part of that child.
We go to great lengths to teach and practice academics with our children, but when it comes to dealing with personal and social issues we leave them out there spinning to figure it out for themselves. The students that are lucky enough to come from a stable home environment are taught, by pure chance, how to deal with life. As a teacher, I always worried about those little ones that weren't that lucky. We need some equalization here.
How about if we could gently show all children how to calm themselves down, think things through, gain a sense of self, feel in control, etc? If a child was taught to manage their thoughts, fears, and anxieties from a young age – so it is a part of them to an automatic level – how much of the trouble we see in today's teens would be eliminated? My guess is a lot.
And not just for a few children lucky enough to be in a stable home or be taken to a weekly children's yoga class – but instill it in the daily public school curriculum to make a real difference in the lives of ALL young people – affecting a whole generation. Yoga and meditation in a written curriculum, K-12, daily, for every child, in every school. Think about what the effect that would have on the next generation. That's what made me say, "Profound" when I saw my friend's post yesterday.
I never knew what a profound effect daily yoga could have on the mind and dealing with life's issues until it was my turn to be in a hurricane, spinning, with no skills to grab onto because I had never experienced anxiety, depression and loss before. When my turn came, I was slammed from out of left field. If only I had the skills I needed taught to me, I would've had a place to ground myself. I was very lucky my daughter literally put me in the car and drove me to Bikram yoga and said, "Mom, you need to do this." It was a crash course for something I should have known how to do all my life. After only two years I am a totally different person. The moving meditation has profoundly changed how I deal with life situations and anxiety. Having experienced the profound difference first hand, I can't imagine what it would do to the health of our country to introduce it gently to all of our young children, everyday of their school lives. Children's yoga is fun and I'm sure there are those who remember me doing it with my kindergarten class during fitness month each spring.
Many might say we don't have time for this during the school day because we have to spend our time on academics so we can raise our test scores. What good is academic brilliance if our children don't know how to integrate it into a healthy, well-adjusted life? All the gunman in the various shootings, including this one, were brilliant students. Bright students all over our country, from all walks of life, are caught up in substance abuse. There is some point, we as a nation, are missing.
Check out the following links:
And so, as another day goes by, we need to stop putting band-aids on symptoms and start addressing the causes for the effects we're seeing in our children and in our country today, and….I have written.
PS –
"Less than 4% of all violence is related to any mental illness at all." Dr. Phil just said this on TV. Could 96% of all violence be prevented by simply giving our children coping and survival skills?
If EVERY child could have this…..
See related aritcle below for a Mom's view:
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