Meditation with Children
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About
Over 30 years’ experience of teaching meditation in schools in 29 countries has taught the WCCM that ‘children are born contemplative’. They take up meditation with great openness and enthusiasm and, they like to meditate. It is becoming clearer that teaching meditation to children as a discipline is contributing significantly to their well-being and wholeness. Teaching meditation as a discipline cultivates continuous learning as meditation itself is an inexhaustible learning process.
Research shows the benefits meditation in schools provides. You can download the latest research by Dr Anne Graham below. This includes improving attention, cognition, and cognitive function along with reducing stress, anxiety, and depression. Schools, teachers, and parents – and children themselves – testify to the fruits that you can feel but cannot measure. They include deepening self-awareness, awakening the heart, nourishing the spirit, and inspiring more authentic living.
Although parents and grandparents can, of course, teach children to meditate in the family circle, there seems to be an advantage and a fuller uptake when it is also practiced supportively in the classroom.
Ideally, children are introduced to meditation at the elementary level and given the opportunity to develop a daily practice during their school years. Support for the school leadership and the teachers is essential. The greatest benefits accrue to the children when attention has been given to the teachers who themselves work in stressful conditions. Learning to meditate can help reduce their stress and lead to the experience of its  benefits and fruits. The booklet Meditation: A Gift for Life contains guidelines for supporting schools (available July 2022).Â
The question today is therefore not ‘why should we teach meditation in schools?’ but ‘why on earth don’t we?’ The challenge is, in fact, not to teach the children but to show them how to do it and help them develop it as a life-skill by supporting regular practice.
In helping children develop meditation as part of their life we are not only helping to transmit faith, but we are giving them a life-skill for coping with the challenges and dysfunctions of the modern world.
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News
The Peace of Childhood: Introducing Meditation to Children
Join us online or in person from 1-3 August for this Meditatio Seminar with Laurence Freeman OSB and Noel Keating. A program for educators and counselors, campus ministers and pastoral staff, church staff and youth ministers, parents and grandparents – all who care for the mental and spiritual health of children today… Please click on the picture for more information and the full programme.
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Leaflet
Meditation in Schools flyer
Our latest flyer is available in English, Portuguese and Spanish. Use it to send to schools and parishes that are interested in meditating with children. Download it here or email meditatio@wccm.org for your free copies.
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Videos
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Research
There is now a substantial evidence base reporting the benefits and complexities of meditation programs in schools. Much of this evidence has been collated in a comprehensive scoping review undertaken by Anne Graham at the Centre for Children and Young People at Southern Cross University, Australia, on behalf of the WCCM. The full evidence review is available along with an infographic summary capturing some key findings for schools.Â
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Talks
Introducing Meditation in Primary and Secondary secondary schools
The World Community for Christian Meditation is presenting a series of videos on Meditation with Young People in Primary and Secondary schools in collaboration with The Catholic Children’s Society (UK).
Christian meditation in primary schools in Scotland
In this film teachers in two primary schools in Scotland share their experience and answer some practical questions.
Laurence Freeman in Singapore: Meditation for a More Humane World
Laurence Freeman’s recent talk in Singapore at the Singapore Management University about Meditation for a More Humane World has just
Lessons We Have Learnt: Cathy Day and Ernie Christie on Meditation in Schools
Dr Cathy Day and Ernie Christie give a brief resume of a number of practical lessons, based on their experience of implementing Christian meditation in 31 schools in Townsville, Australia. These include a kit of resources, formation for teachers, meditation as an inclusive form of prayer, senior student retreats, the “leading teacher” program, fostering relations with the local parishes, creating a systematic, collaborative, graduated and continuous approach, measuring the results and rekindling the sense of the sacred. They also answer a number of questions from the audience.
A Word from the Teachers from Scotland
In this film teachers in two primary schools in Scotland share their experience and answer some practical questions
Christian meditation in primary schools in Scotland
In this film teachers in two primary schools in Scotland share their experience and answer some practical questions.
Meditation with Children is highlighted by Trinity TV in Trinidad
The Trinity TV (Trinidad) in partnership with WCCM showed recently a special episode on Meditation with Children:
Meditation with Children in Alfajayucan, Mexico
Fr. Laurence visited Alfajayucan in rural Mexico and meditated with hundreds of children. The Mexican community produced the video below
Meditation with Children in Ontario, Canada
Christian Meditation helps us to pray by using silence. Among other schools, it has been embraced at St. Mary’s Catholic
Meditation for Children in Schools: USA and Canada Tour
Meditation and Children : From Townsville to the World Dr Cathy Day and Ernie Christie, (of the Office of Catholic
Meditation in Schools Asian Tour
Indonesia, Philippines and Singapore each held a Meditatio Forum on Meditation in Schools led by Dr Cathy Day and Ernie
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Get the App
We have a brilliant app for youngsters to time their meditation sessions. Children can listen to the instructions and opening song in Spanish, English or Italian and choose how long they want to meditate for. Click on the image to download the app now.
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Resources for Purchase
Meditation: A Gift for Life. Guidelines for Schools
These guidelines have been developed following consultation with meditators across several countries where the practice has been successfully introduced in schools. Our intent is to provide the foundations for a consistent approach to introduce meditation in schools that is faithful to the essential teachings of the WCCM. Although these guidelines are intended for schools, they can be adapted for parishes. Meditation: A Gift for Life is available in English, Portuguese and Spanish in print and as an e-book. Click on the image to purchase your copy now.
