MindUp(tm): a warning of the dangers
- selreview
- Nov 20, 2018
- 9 min read
Updated: Dec 1, 2018
You will be aware that several “Mindfulness” activities take place in our children’s school day. It appeared this would be a fun and perhaps calming experience for the children.
However, this is far from the full extent of the “mindfulness” program and you should find out the full picture. The MindUp(TM) Program has been purchased and implemented by school and has been put in place for all ages. Some children have experienced adverse effects due to the program so we need to take a closer look at the age appropriateness of it and whether is meets standards of safety.
The program was conceived and developed by the actress Goldie Hawn. Goldie Hawn has re-invented herself as a self-professed expert on educational psychology. The program is marketed and sold by the American based Goldie Hawn Foundation and their UK division under the trademarked product name MindUp (https://mindup.org). The MindUp Program is implemented within a large number of schools and aggressively and effectively marketed using Goldie Hawn’s celebrity (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f3NfyyPTorE). Goldie Hawn states she has developed this program based on her own life experiences of Buddhism and psychotherapy. The program has met with widespread praise from many teachers and schools who purchased the product and popularity is growing fast. There are promotional events organised by affiliated companies taking place regularly.
Within “Mindfulness”, the MindUp program focuses on the Child’s “self-regulation” of their emotions. As we researched the meaning of “self-regulation” and psychological intervention by the teaching staff under the MindUp program our concern grew. For clarity, it is not relaxation activities that give rise to our concerns but instead the psychological treatment of the children’s emotional experiences and especially the serious lack of professional assessment of this program on young children.
Do we really believe a junior infant could "develop an understanding of the brain science linking emotions, thoughts and behaviours, they apply this knowledge and understanding to managing their own emotions and behaviour"? A junior infant child may parrot the words "amygdala" and "pre-frontal cortex", but to suggest they can, and indeed must, understand and self-assess their own emotional distress with knowledge of the mental processes at work is misguided and misapplied. I think parents actually know that a young child attempting this self examination during heightened "negative emotions" is very likely to become confused and frightened. Indeed we have to question whether this self examination of their mental state is appropriate at all. As discussed below, can anyone really know how this will play out in the mind of any young child?
What standards are in place for programs promoting mental health in primary schools?
Guidelines for Mental Health Promotion, Well-Being in Primary Schools (Publish by Dept. of Education and Skills and Dept. of Mental Health, 2015)
https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Education-Reports/Well-Being-in-Primary-Schools-Guidelines-for-Mental-Health-Promotion.pdf
These guildelines state, inter alia, (see Appendix 3B, page 45) that schools should ensure:
the intervention programme and programme outcomes have been independently evaluated and the benefits substantiated by research
programme content is appropriate for the age, gender and cultural background of young people
parents/guardians and the support team have access to relevant information about the programme and are informed of its implementation
We will address the first two points immediately below but age appropriateness is the real potentially harmful concern.
Is MindUp "research based" or substantiated by independent research?
There is limited research on the MindUp program in particular but a study was paid for by the Goldie Hawn foundation and can be found in their marketing material. This study is very favourable toward the program as we might expect (https://mindup.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Schonert-Reichl-et-al.-MindUp-RCT_DP-2015.pdf) A point to note in this study is the children are nine and ten, older than junior infants. The study is largely based on interviewing the children (asking do you feel kinder now? If the child responds 'yes', it is then "self-reported pro-social behaviour"). The study is not independent as MindUp paid for it. This study really should be seen as biased in light of the poor scientific approach: it is not blinded (those teachers were aware it was promoting MindUp), group selection is not properly randomised or controlled etc). This so called research is actually little more than marketing material for MindUp.
Much of the existing research on the wider area of “mindfulness” in general in schools has been criticised for lack of proper scientific design and has been characterised as shoddy science by both psychologists and other mental health professionals and academics (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29016274). This article "Mind the Hype", published in 2018, is part of an emerging response to the rapid adoption of mindfulness programs in general but does include school mindfulness programs.
This article is a useful summary of these views: https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-athletes-way/201710/is-mindfulness-being-mindlessly-overhyped-experts-say-yes ).
It includes statements from co-authors on their concerns over long-term adverse effects.
In a statement, co-author Willoughby Britton, an assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior at Brown University and co-director of The Britton Lab, said: "We are sometimes overselling the benefits of mindfulness to pretty much any person who has any condition, without much caution, nuance or condition-specific modifications, instructor training criteria, and basic science around mechanism of action. The possibility of unsafe or adverse effects has been largely ignored".
Is MindUp age appropriate for junior infants?
The following are excerpts are taken from a book chapter written by educational psychologists (including the previously mentioned academic Schonert-Reichl whose work is cited as the “scientific evidence base” by MindUp itself, so must be accepted by those who would promote the program - as it comes from the horse's mouth ). Quotes below are taken from “A Mindfulness-Based Social and Emotional Learning Curriculum for School-Aged Children: The MindUP Program”
“It is still unknown when it is developmentally appropriate, prudent, and effective to introduce young people to mindfulness practices in schools.”
“the research is preliminary, and methodological limitations temper conclusions and generalizations to greater populations (Greenberg & Harris, 2012 ). Moreover, much of the research has focused on reducing symptoms related to ill-being, such as rumination, depression, anxiety, and “problem” behaviors. Studies that look at MBIs (Mindfulness based interventions) as potential for increasing mental well-being in young people are few in number.”
Despite these reservations, the chapter is generally supportive of the MindUp program. However their conclusions are based on the previous study which has questionable scientific methods applied to older children. Further, the scant research on the MindUp program referenced was funded by MindUp so cannot be considered independent.
Selecting a Well-Being (Social and Emotional Learning Program)
We are missing the opportunity to put in place a safe social and emotional learning program which does deliver benefits. The MindUp program ignores the benefits of sport, music, drama, art and creativity and a raft of other opportunities.
The MindUp program's focus and content has been categorised by Havard Graduate School of Education as:
"In fact, MindUP has the greatest focus on attention control of all 25 programs. MindUP provides a low emphasis on interpersonal skills relative to other programs , particularly pro-social behaviour and conflict resolution".
https://www.wallacefoundation.org/knowledge-center/Documents/Navigating-Social-and-Emotional-Learning-from-the-Inside-Out.pdf
This report does not seek to substantiate any claims made by any of the 25 programs reviewed but quantifies what percentage of the content targets each learning area. So we see the MindUp program neglects many important life skills and instead focuses on "attention control". Please do not mistake a focus on "attention control" with the idea that children's attention actually improves. This attention control is the vague "mindfulness" and "mindful awareness" which pervades the program instead of real life skills and it is very far from established that mindfulness delivers anything at all.
How self-regulation is implemented under MindUp
The school staff are "trained" by MindUp to conduct a psychological intervention and cause the young child to analyse/self-assess their own mental processes involved in emotional responses and experiences. This is to be done at the very time s/he is feeling the emotions and also practised at other times. This "strategy" is forced upon the child at the very time they are upset - even if it may be just tiredness or a more serious cause of distress.
So the MindUp program would have the teacher tell the upset crying emotional young child to “Take a break to self-assess: do your responses reveal the dominance of your amygdala (reaction) or your PFC (reflection)? If your amygdala is being activated, what is triggering its response? What would you like to change about your style of reaction?“. (Quoted from The MindUp Curriculum for young children, http://www.hwdsb.on.ca/dundana/files/2016/09/mind_up_k-2.pdf).
To us, this is unsettling. The child of four or five simply does not understand the information on emotional processes which the teacher has supplied, and forcing introspection at that point is futile at best. To a child of four or five, it may not be wise for a teacher to talk of a "barking dog" (the amygdala) in their brain who can control their mind. The program for young children is a flawed product - how can it possibly be developmentally appropriate for four and five year old children to analyse their own thoughts in this way? It will result in greater confusion and distress for the child and may be frightening. As parents and educators, we will nurture our children’s emotional well-being and not open the door to clumsy corporate intervention in their psyche.
We think the prudent step now would be to cease the MindUp program for children in junior infants pending a review of the suitability to the program to children of this age group.
"Mindfulness"
Our concern is with how the MindUp program in particular wants to re-program our children's emotional processes within this mindfulness movement. But we need to examine a few terms to cut through the jargon. I am not a psychologist, you will not doubt want to do you own research.
“Mindfulness” has some level of acceptance in several areas of psychology as beneficial and justified when treating diagnosed problems such as addiction, anxiety disorders and depression. A whole school of children are not suffering from some "condition" which needs treatment. The term is really so vague that it can be re-interpreted at will and thereby sold as a cure-all by some less ethical vendors (reminiscent of the "snake oil salesmen"). In offering a definition MindUp speaks of "being present in the moment". The concept draws openly from Buddhism and it is debatable to what extent it can be seen as secularised.
“Self-regulation” is essentially self-control. All people develop their own diverse and personal strategies to calm themselves when dealing with “negative” emotions such as sadness, anger and anxiety and the mechanism of coping with distress an integral part of who we are as people. We learn these strategies over time from infancy to old age. Many mental health practitioners apply this concept in therapy . It is far more complex than the MindUp product's over simplified claims.
There is another term used in the program, “mindful awareness”, which sounds benign, but actually refers to negative thought patterns which are to be removed from the child’s mind by the program to prevent them interfering with optimal performance of their executive functions. Some terms in the MindUp program are loosely borrowed from psychotherapy, some are more Buddhist in origin, and the meanings are varied and lack any accepted definition.
Unintended consequences and risks of harm
The overall goal of the program is to permanently alter how your child processes emotions - it is intended to have a lifelong effect. The program does not recognise the possibility of adverse effects or unintended consequences in interfering with their natural development of their emotional experiences. It only takes one child to experience adverse effects for harm to be done.
Adults may choose self-regulation strategies, the young children do not realise the single one-size-fits-all strategy is being forced upon them. Only optimism and happiness are accepted as not needing intervention. The staff have training sessions provided as part of the MindUp product. An affiliated local organisation called Mindsets (http://mindsets.ie/) provides this training. They are the “only certified Mindup(TM) facilitators in Ireland”.
Should junior infants be forced to learn and apply techniques which may cause them to disassociate from their negative emotions? A child, who is eager to please the teacher, may learn the lesson that quickly shutting down her real feelings gets approval. These are questions worth asking because can we know how this will really play out in a child’s mind?
To my knowledge, MindUp does not accept any risks are possible at all - so no risk assessment is necessary?
The MindUp program/product is a “canned solution” which takes no account of individuality and the wide diversity in the regulation of emotions. It is not concerned with individuality but rather with standardising and conditioning the emotional response processes of the child to fit within the MindUp belief system. According to the MindUp literature, “universal participation” is compulsory. MindUp “homework” can be given: The children’s families are expected to welcome the MindUp program into their parenting at home. It is a requirement of the program that it is integrated in the entire school ethos. We are worried the program is clumsy pseudo-science intruding into the core of our children’s emotional experience of life and it has already caused harm.
As stated above, the prudent step now would be to cease the MindUp program for children in junior infants pending a review of the suitability to the program to children of this age group.
Comments