12 Pillars - Mind, Body & Soul

Various researches and studies have proven that mindfulness and gratitude in the early years educational settings can greatly reduce children's sense of stress and and lengthen their attention spans. Having learnt skills to be mindful and grateful will support children to navigate challenges through their lives and learn from their actions in many ways. Gratitude teaches us how to notice the blessings that we have and create a balance from life's difficulties. Mindfulness helps us to handle tough times with grace, acceptance and surrender. Combined these practices nurture what Buddhists call the "Higher Self" within ourselves.
Mindfulness and gratitude can improve children's overall quality of life by helping them attain-better moods, improved sleep, increased self esteem, lowered stress levels, enhanced empathy, lower levels of aggression and an improved zest for life. Learning these skills also improves a child's attention, focus and cognitive development, resilience, emotional regulation and helps them reduce their stress and anxiety in ways that will guide and support them for their entire life. Growing evidence also suggests that teaching mindfulness to children can help with their all round learning, decision making, emotional intelligence, self confidence and connectedness to

Having mindfulness and gratitude embedded into our educational program supports children to develop the skills to calm their bodies and their minds and create a relaxed, positive environment that will benefit behaviour, communication and emotional regulation.
It can also help children learn patience, persistence and to explore feelings such as love and gratitude. Mindfulness training helps to calm the mind and body and assists in being present in the moment. This supports children to be in control of their own bodies.

There are no right or wrong ways to practice mindfulness and gratitude with the children. In fact there are many, many incredible and fun ways to embed these practices in our every day programs. The more we pay attention to utilising mindfulness and gratitude throughout each day the more embedded it becomes in each child's and educators behaviours and actions.