The author of a new book on meditation for children has told The Tablet that when he has visited schools to teach children how to meditate, the effects have been remarkable, even with hyperactive youngsters.
Irish educationalist Noel Keating launched “Meditation with Children: A Resource for Teachers and Parents” last week at London’s Meditation Centre, with a Benedictine monk, Fr Laurence Freeman, Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation.
Since retiring from a full-time role in education in 2012, Keating has devoted himself to studying the practice of meditation and his book is the result of a PhD thesis on the subject. Arguing that children are “very deeply spiritual”, he attempts to find an expression for the impact of meditation on them: “Meditation can act as a bridge to children’s spirituality in a very secular world.”
The author says Christian meditation builds on the current popularity of secular “mindfulness” but goes far beyond it because children who meditate tap into their inbuilt capacity to develop a spiritual life: “We can build on the spread of mindfulness and can use its popularity to point to its deeper spiritual fruits.” In the foreword to the book, Fr Freeman writes: “Over many years now, the successful mindfulness movement has opened a door in education – and many other social institutions – towards a deeper and richer understanding of the spiritual dimension of the human and of all forms of human activity.” But he adds that “mindfulness itself, avoiding any spiritual language or interpretation, did not go through the door it opened.”
Mindfulness, according to Keating, involves paying attention to whatever comes into one’s awareness; Christian meditation concentrates on a word or mantra. He accepts that when he arrives at schools to try this out, he can detect a certain scepticism among teachers. But, he argues, by learning to meditate, even the most hyperactive children can become calmer and shed aggression. In Ireland, 155 schools pursue the practice.
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