Resistant Kids

Resistant Kids

Traits of Resistant Kids

  • Liked being clean or looking good
  • Wanted to hurt others when others hurt them or during unpleasant events or emotions
  • Were sensation seeking
    • Liked playing games on the computer
    • Especially action video games
  • Said mindfulness as boring
    • But still experienced benefits from it
  • Were often not attentive during instruction
  • Were not conscientious students
  • Sometimes bullied other students
  • Expressed more feelings of anger toward the teacher and school
  • Have difficulty regulating negative emotions (depression, anger, anxiety)
  • The teacher often expressed anger with the Resistant Kids:
    • “Today was an extremely stressful day due to it being the last day of testing. Also, Santino, Sebastian, Victoria, and Emilio were off task and showing extreme boredom. They were not following directions and unwilling to close eyes or look downward.”
    • “Sebastian, Victoria, and Emilio did not receive treats due to their negative behaviors.”

Teaching Strategies for Resistant Kids

  • Use the Big Five Inventory for Children to identify, understand, and treat students who are consistently resistant and disruptive during classroom mindfulness practice
  • Incorporate mindfulness movement to help students who have trouble sitting still
  • Discuss how mindfulness is used by athletes to help them improve their performance
  • Find ways to gamify classroom and mindfulness routines: Chore Wars is an example of how “boring” tasks can be turned into a game with avatars, experience points, and virtual treasure to motive students to complete difficult tasks or change negative behavior
  • Since these students are not internally motivated, have them set goals for mindfulness practice and use external motivation (physical rewards) to motivate them until they discover for themselves the benefits of mindfulness
  • Minimize sitting practice; use more mindful eating, walking, and movement

Emilio (all names are pseudonyms to protect confidentiality)

  • Was often off-task and had trouble being still
  • Was happy and “goofy” in 2nd grade, but this changed to depression in the next grade
  • Liked to “draw the music” when listening to Vivaldi
  • Liked mindful movement and yoga
  • Often put his head down on the desk during the day
  • Wrote “I want to kill me” or “I will kill myself” in his notebook
  • Loved earning game time on the computer
  • Frequently talked about action video games
  • “I hate mindful class”
  • “Mindfulness is calm, a little boring, and a little fun when I am there”
  • When do you practice mindfulness? “When I don’t have nothing to do.”
  • Liked mindful eating.
  • Scored low on the CAMM at the beginning of the intervention but had the highest positive change on the CAMM after the intervention
  • “Mindful is to calm down.”
  • Did not express anger or anxiety; low score on Spence Children’s Anxiety Scale (SCAS); “I am not angry.”
  • “I am a bad student. I would call my self a dumass.”
  • How can you help yourself get out of a bad mood? “I can’t do anything. I just let them pass.”
  • Will you practice mindfulness? “No, because it is boring and it sucks.”

Victoria

  • Said her mom “forced” her to breathe with her at home
  • At the end, mom wrote a note that said: “We have both enjoyed this every morning on our way to school & work. Thank you.”
  • Several indications that she liked mindfulness (although she didn’t display this in class): “I like to be mindful because I like to be calm instead of angry. I don’t like to have angry thoughts, because I will get a bad mood and it will be a bad day. I want to have a lot of good days.”
  • “You can mindfully breathe and calm down if you had a bad day and feel like punching someone. Sometimes I feel like pushing someone in the street.”
  • “I always get in trouble. I just want to be a good kid.”

Santino

  • Mindfulness is “about when your teacher is having trouble with you.”
  • “What makes me happy is no school and playing sports and video games, no teachers.”
  • Loved video games: “I noticed when I play video games, it is exciting. I wish I was playing video games right now.”
  • Got very angry when he got in trouble for something he didn’t do. “I thought I should not be yelled at for no reason.”
  • Often mentioned anger: “I get grouchy when I wake up. I breathe when I get mad… I also get mad when I get caught with something that I didn’t do like someone said I beat a kid up and I got in trouble. That really got me mad. What I did is breathe.”
  • High anxiety on the SCAS and these subscales as well (above average):
    • Social phobia
    • Obsessive compulsive
    • Panic/agoraphobia
    • Fear of physical injury
  • At the end, he demonstrated that he knew mindfulness can help with negative emotions. “Mindfulness is important because when you are hyper it will calm you down. Also it can help you when you’re are sad. You need to breathe when you are mad. [It can] help you on a test calm down.”

Geraldine

  • My mother “forced me to do this” (mindfulness class)
  • Received “gifted” education services
  • Was class leader
  • Talked about video games frequently
  • About mindful eating: “I liked it and didn’t like it at the same time because we had to wait to eat it. I like it because we got to eat Takis and we are not supposed to eat them at this school.”
  • “I want to get out of this mindful class stuff. I do not like anything but mindful eating, and barely that.”
  • Was often restless in class.
  • Expressed anger: “I don’t like subs [substitute teachers] for school. They don’t like me so I don’t like them. They’re jerks and they think they’re better than everyone.”
  • Reported this as an unpleasant event: “My shoes got dirty. My stomach feels funny. I’m sad. I want to punch someone.”
  • Wrote another unpleasant event was mindfulness class: “I hate this. I feel weird in my head. I feel like punching someone.”
  • High anxiety on the SCAS and these subscales as well (above average):
    • Fear of physical injury
    • Obsessive compulsive
  • Responded positively to a class about how mindfulness might help him play well in sports: “It can help me concentrate.” How can you be a mindfulness warrior? “I can practice mindful all the time.”
  • How can you help yourself get out of a bad mood? “I can get out of that mood by playing my game. I can also walk away. Also I can breathe.”
  • For his self-portrait at the end of the intervention (Draw yourself practicing mindfulness), he is lying down, hands behind his head, smiling. Mindfulness is “breathing very slow and paying attention to your breath. And really calming down. It’s also giving peace.”