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A guest post by Certified Yoga Calm Instructor Jeff Albin -
Read Part 1 here
The sounds of Foghat’s “Slow Ride” echoing through the claustrophobic halls at the detention center would be the first clue that this is not your mother’s yoga class.
There are no gleaming bamboo floors or airy windows. No statues of Eastern deities grace the yoga space. The yoga mats are squeezed into random spaces between the folded up tables of the lunch room. Our weekday yoga space also sits adjacent to the main entry for staff. Keys jangle and radios blare the routines of the system. (Perfect – for practicing detachment from distractions.) Here behind the razor wire, the best we can do is some lavender mist, a yoga mat and the teacher’s quirky music mixes piped through secondhand computer speakers.
But it rocks.
We’ve just finished our pulse count and our slow descent into another day behind the wire. It is 7:30 in the morning, and I’ve just led our adolescent boys through a gentle wakeup routine. Their circadian rhythms don’t kick their brains into full functioning for another hour or so. I joke with them that the first part of the class is not much more difficult than just lying in bed. Before we begin, they want to know their points from the day before. As much as I dislike level systems and all the bad psychology they represent, I give in and let them know their scores.
The needs of the system having been met, we launch into a short and energetic yoga flow. With Iggy Pop now blasting through the speakers, the boys agonize their way through chair pose. From there, we launch into an energetic sun salutation sequence. I challenge, push and praise them. When one attempts something he’d had difficulty with a week or so before, I get they boys to clap and praise him.
It’s a short, raucous blast of yoga. We start slow, pound through 15 or 20 minutes of vigorous sun salutation sequences and warrior poses, and end up with a mini mental vacation of 5 minutes or less.
The relaxation time, unfortunately, coincides with the entry staff who start their shifts at 8 a.m. The door clicks open, keys jangle and radios chatter. Life in the system is full of distractions. Some days, the meds are late, and a detention officer will dispense them in the middle of my class. Other days, the voice of “Control” will blare over the intercom: “MR ALBIN, DO YOU HAVE YOUR RADIO ON? I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO GET AHOLD OF YOU FOR FIVE MINUTES!”
“I’m sorry I couldn’t hear you. The music’s too loud. Do you need something?”
The very maternal voice strikes some deep Freudian childhood chord within me, and my first thought is, “How did my mother get in there?” I know I am in trouble again, but it is a familiar place. It also echoes back to my time teaching in the school system, when at least once a week, a teacher in the next classroom over would open the door and ask us to “please keep it down.” I’ve been asked to “keep it down” just about my entire life, and I don’t see why things should be any different here.
“Control” is the hub of the system. Inside are all the video monitors, radios, phones, computers and other electronic hubris of the corrections system. Control is Big Brother (and Sister) with a digital face. The person running Control has an incredibly complex task of monitoring and logging all movements within the system.
If, as McLuhan pointed out, the medium is the message, then Control is the message at this facility. Most of the boys have ended up in the system because they lack internal controls over stealing, using drugs or other human weaknesses. When they end up in detention, the entire message is about control. They adhere to strict rules or they have no privileges at all.
Two philosophies collide at detention. One camp holds that since the youth have little if any impulse control, a strictly regimented routine will give them the internal discipline they need. Another camp takes more time but focuses on teaching the youth internal controls. It’s an old debate about which approach works best. I see the two systems intersecting, yin-yang fashion. Rather than buttressing the western polarity/duality mindset by arguing about which system is superior, I see that, with time, they can complement each other.
On our mats, with my funky blend of relaxation and “butt rock” yoga, I try to let these young men learn and practice internal control. The staff who want to focus on the “yessirs” and “excusemesirs” do their tasks; I do mine. After our brief relaxation, the boys line up with their identical purple mats. Some have video court; some will go to school; some will go with me to the garden. The gears of the machine grind on, but we stopped them for half an hour.
That ought to count for something.
Jeff Albin, CDP, is a Certified Yoga Calm Instructor and has worked as an Intervention and Prevention Specialist for ESD 112 in rural Washington schools. His rich and varied background includes over 10 years running a high ropes course, owning and operating his own sea kayaking business, co-leading the first joint USSR/USA kayak expedition in the former Soviet Union and extensive wilderness and survival skills experience. Jeff claims to have forgotten more activities than most people will ever learn! Perhaps that’s why he wrote Changing the Message: A Handbook for Experiential Education.
Joseph, a five year old boy diagnosed with ADHD, was making good progress in yoga class at school. He was coming to friendship group once a week, and his mom and dad were working with me [Lynea] on parenting skills.
For Joseph, change came slowly but consistently. He had learned how to catch himself when excited and ask for help. His breathing practice was more rhythmic and controlled. His parents were learning how to help him regulate his emotions.
Then he was put on medication for ADHD. The results were quick and impressive. He was instantly calmer and more capable of focusing in class. Parenting and teaching him were both a lot easier. But it also seemed like he’d lost some of his fire and passion.
Soon after, Joseph stopped attending yoga and friendship group. His mom and dad stopped coming for parenting classes.
Deciding whether to medicate a child is a big decision. It can give a child the chance to experience life with less anxiety and social conflict. Sometimes, medication is absolutely necessary. But often, there’s an unfortunate side effect: parents drop the skills-training and other support they were providing their child. And their child gets the message loud and clear: When you’re struggling, use medicine. No need to keep practicing your friendship skills or learning tools for attention and how to self-regulate. Put all your faith in the pills.
Yet, as L. Alan Sroufe, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Minnesota’s Institute of Child Development, noted in a recent op-ed in the New York Times, ADHD drugs offer a short-term solution at best.
Attention-deficit drugs increase concentration in the short term, which is why they work so well for college students cramming for exams. But when given to children over long periods of time, they neither improve school achievement nor reduce behavior problems. The drugs can also have serious side effects, including stunting growth.
* * *
To date, no study has found any long-term benefit of attention-deficit medication on academic performance, peer relationships or behavior problems, the very things we would most want to improve.
But in 2009, findings were published from a well-controlled study that had been going on for more than a decade, and the results were very clear. The study randomly assigned almost 600 children with attention problems to four treatment conditions. Some received medication alone, some cognitive-behavior therapy alone, some medication plus therapy, and some were in a community-care control group that received no systematic treatment. At first this study suggested that medication, or medication plus therapy, produced the best results. However, after three years, these effects had faded, and by eight years there was no evidence that medication produced any academic or behavioral benefits.
Indeed, all of the treatment successes faded over time, although the study is continuing. Clearly, these children need a broader base of support than was offered in this medication study, support that begins earlier and lasts longer.
The skills and strategies we teach in Yoga Calm, of course, aim to provide just this kind of support. Over time, the desired effect of drugs like Ritalin, Adderall and Strattera fade, while undesired effects – i.e., side effects – remain. But when we provide opportunities for kids to develop self-awareness, focus and social skills; when we safely address underlying issues of stress and trauma; when we instill and support healthy habits, we provide them with a body of skills, knowledge and experience they can draw on for the rest of their lives.
And we see this especially with children who have weaknesses in attention and impulse control – like Joseph.
Concurring with this need for a broader treatment approach, ADHD specialist Dr. Edward Hallowell, writes in Ritalin Redux, his response to Sroufe’s article, that what’s most important is
a loving, safe, and richly connected childhood. The long-term study that Dr. Sroufe cited in his opinion piece does indeed show that over time, medication becomes a less important force in a child’s improvement and that human connections become ever more powerful. It is good and heartening to know that human connection — love — works wonders over time. Love is our most powerful and under-prescribed “ medication.” It’s free and infinite in supply, and doctors most definitely ought to prescribe it more!
This doesn’t mean that, as Dr. Sroufe say[s], Ritalin has “gone wrong.” We may go wrong in how we use it, when we over-prescribe it, or when we use it as a substitute for love, guidance, and the human connection.
Indeed, continuing on the current path of biasing treatment approaches toward pills while ignoring proven and complementary behavioral interventions carries some serious risks, says Sroufe:
First, there will never be a single solution for all children with learning and behavior problems. While some smaller number may benefit from short-term drug treatment, large-scale, long-term treatment for millions of children is not the answer.
Second, the large-scale medication of children feeds into a societal view that all of life’s problems can be solved with a pill and gives millions of children the impression that there is something inherently defective in them.
Finally, the illusion that children’s behavior problems can be cured with drugs prevents us as a society from seeking the more complex solutions that will be necessary. Drugs get everyone — politicians, scientists, teachers and parents — off the hook. Everyone except the children, that is.
Consider Joseph, 10 years after first being given medication. He’s now 15. His relationship with his parents is tense. He wants more freedom. They want him to focus on school and get a part time job. As he’s grown, doctors increased his dosage. Since his latest growth spurt, he’s noticed that he feels anxious and is having a hard time paying attention in class. After an argument with his girlfriend, a friend offers him some drugs to help him mellow out.
What have we, as a culture, taught Joseph to do?
Image by jlynn11235, via Flickr
Recently, Good Morning America ran a segment on how – and why – more doctors are recommending yoga for young patients. One situation in which yoga is increasingly recommended is for children diagnosed with ADHD, as it is well recognized that yoga-based activities of all kinds can be extremely effective in helping kids learn how to focus and self-regulate.
We see this efficacy regularly in our work with children – Lynea’s at the school where she is a counselor, and our work together in conducting children’s classes at a clinic. And because so many other teachers, counselors, occupational therapists and other adults who work with children are regularly faced with the special challenges of working with kids diagnosed with ADD/ADHD, we found it beneficial to create special Yoga Calm trainings focused on ways of meeting those challenges. (Parents, of course, find these workshops invaluable, as well!)
We teach the ADHD workshops with Jeffrey Sosne, PhD, a clinical Psychologist and Director of The Children’s Program. Widely recognized as one of Portland, Oregon’s leading authorities on ADHD, Jeff is the author of two practical guides for parents and school personnel: The ADHD Notebook and The Anger Notebook. Together, we cover Dr. Sosne’s strategies and games for working with ADHD and show how Yoga Calm activities – both the physical yoga and the social/emotional games – can be used to help nurture self-control and focus in kids for whom such things have been difficult.
Here are five of the tips we teach for doing so:
Practice Making Eye Contact
Eye contact helps children show that they are interested and paying attention. A lack of eye contact leads to “divided attention,” which makes it harder to focus and follow directions.
To practice “shifting” attention, introduce activities in which the children must switch between two (or more) adults giving signals or eye contact for directions (e.g., Steal the Bacon). Also, parents can get closer to their children when they are talking or giving directions, and stop speaking if their kids aren’t maintaining eye contact. If necessary, parents can schedule time to practice eye contact by having their child watch them as they move about the room while reading a story to their youngster. As the child improves, he or she can practice while learning to look away from distractions strategically placed in the room.
Model and Instill a Can-Do Attitude
In workshops, we use different games (e.g., Jenga) and positive self talk (e.g., “I am in control,” “I can do it,” “I can be responsible.”) to illustrate how a positive attitude improves performance and how helpful it is to decide what you can do instead of what can’t be done.
At home, parents can encourage their children to decide what they can do to help before dinner or what they can clean up before going to a movie. We will not respect tasks that are accomplished with a negative attitude, and we value accomplishment of reasonable goals that have been set by the child more than tasks that we have defined and the children have reluctantly completed. Positive self-talk should also be encouraged, leading children to focus on their strengths and accomplishments, nurturing a sense of self-mastery.
Practice Listening and Giving Feedback
There are lots of games you can play with children that require them to listen and to give feedback in a calm, clear manner. For instance, in workshops, we may play Hot and Cold, in which players give each other feedback about finding a hidden object. To find the object, of course, the child who is searching for it must listen, evaluate and respond to the feedback given, while those giving the feedback must do so clearly.
You can build opportunities for reflection into any game or activity, and, of course, give compliments after activities done well. In group situations, Yoga Calm’s Compliment Game can be an especially fun and effective way of learning how to give and receive praise. And it provides another opportunity to reinforce the importance of eye contact!
Practice Stillness
There are many activities in life that require staying in control and not going too fast. To teach this, you can have children participate in several activities that create a bit of excitement and then challenge the kids to stay calm and go slowly to be successful.
The Yoga Calm Mat Tag activity can provide just such a challenge. When any of the children get too excited or out of control, simply ask them to sit down. Once they have shown they can calm down, they may re-join the activity. During any activity, if a high level of chaos or excitement is reached, just stop until everyone is calm, or remind the children to say something to themselves like, “Go slow, easy, easy,” to help them think about staying calm.
Encourage Setting Goals and Making Plans
A goal is something we want to work toward, while a plan is the strategy used to get to the goal. For this concept, we will do some activities several times to work on adding parts to a plan to lead to a more accomplished goal. For example, we may ask students to do a number of increasingly difficult tasks involving tapping a balloon in the air: using just one finger, using only the feet, behind the back and so on. Because the tasks become more difficult, we stop after a child cannot complete the challenge and come up with plans that could help make reaching that goal easier. The children realize that sometimes they needed several points in their plan to be able to reach their goal.
Parents can work with their children at home on the idea of setting a goal and coming up with a plan to reach it. We suggest making a chart with a diagram of a sun with many rays coming off it. Inside the sun, write the goal; in the rays, parts of the plan that will be followed in reaching that goal.
To learn more about helping children with ADHD:
- Buy and watch Dr. Sosne’s ADHD DVD
- Attend a Yoga Calm ADHD workshop (next scheduled for Portland, OR; Feb. 6-7, 2010)
- Find an ADHD class at The Children’s Program
In our work with children, we are often reminded of just how important it is to learn the skill of self-regulation – especially for children with impulse control weaknesses. As Peter Levine powerfully illustrated at a recent workshop we attended, impulse control is a key child development stage, and impulse disorders go hand-in-hand with ADHD, PTSD, substance use, bipolar spectrum disorders and other issues. Most importantly, he showed how development of the ability to self-regulate requires us to work through the body.
Of course, learning through our bodies is how children initially learn and is a powerful tool for all of us.
At its heart, yoga is about self-regulation. In fact, some of the oldest writings on yoga state that it “is the cessation of the vibrations of the mind.” One way that the yogis did this was through calming the nervous system through breath awareness and breathing techniques. Just taking slow deep breaths has a profound affect on the nervous system, can give us a sense of control and can help with focusing – something we describe in detail in Chapter 4 of Yoga Calm for Children .
In over 35 years of yoga practice, we have found that the Hoberman Sphere is one of the most effective tools for teaching relaxed, diaphragmatic breathing. Watching the sphere’s three-dimensional action combined with “belly breathing” calms, centers and relaxes children and adults alike.
Here is a story from Cameron Denney, a school counselor who used this technique the day after attending an introductory Yoga Calm workshop:
“I used the Hoberman sphere with a third grade class this week. One boy – who has a really tough time with impulsivity/talking out and being quite oppositional – came into class in a bad frame of mind, angry at the boys who chose to sit next to him in the classroom. They were exchanging irritated remarks, and the boy kept saying to me, “Make them move!” I told them all to wait and then started the class by introducing breathing with the sphere. This particular boy was fascinated with the ball (well, truth be told, they all were) and asked if he had a good day, could he play with it?….After the breathing, none of the boys had any problems at all with each other for the whole period. I asked the boy to lead an activity, and he did a great job and looked happier than I’d ever seen him. At the end of the class, he came up to take a turn handling the sphere, and, of course, everyone else did, too, but we had extra time that day, so all was well.”
Another story from Andrea Burke, a school librarian:
“The week after I taught calming breathing in third grade (one lesson), a girl came back to share she had used the calming breathing before her piano recital and it had really helped her. I also keep a Hoberman sphere available to kids in the library. Every class has been taught how it is an aid in regulating breathing and calming oneself. It is used spontaneously everyday by someone.”
Have you used the Hoberman sphere in teaching self-regulation? Use the Comments section to let us know how it worked for you and your students. (The link to comments is above, just below the post’s title, at the end of the list of tags.)
Stories used by permission
Recently, Jim and I were struggling with our weekly Children’s Program class. We had a few children who were having trouble getting themselves under control, and they, in turn, would throw the whole class off – a not uncommon experience for any classroom teacher! While each situation is different, a few questions arose for us with this particular group of 7 to 12 year olds. First, what could these children reasonably control and how would we measure it? Second, was the novelty of the class wearing off and the students getting a bit bored with the routine?
It was time to provide a little incentive to help them motivate.
So the following week, I made a slip of paper with each child’s name printed carefully in calligraphy. I told them at the beginning of the class that today they were going to work for a reward, and then I showed them a basket of “prizes” I had brought in. I said that we don’t give out rewards easily, so they were going to have to work on some specific behaviors during the class – things like demonstrating a good attitude and using the Positive Self Talk on our Ground Rules poster, practicing ignoring when others are acting out, and following directions. I then showed them a sheet of heart stickers and told them that the stickers represented their strength and ability, and that there would be several opportunities to win a sticker, which we’d place on their slip of paper. “If you earn six heart stickers by the end of class,” I said, “you get to choose a prize from the basket.” The students were hooked.
Now, I have heard both teachers and parents express concern about using rewards to motivate children. But let’s face it: rewards work. People need motivators in life, whether it’s receiving recognition or getting a raise, or simply the reward of feeling good about oneself. It’s their overuse that can be particularly detrimental. Overuse reinforces the idea that you have to be rewarded for everything you do. But used intermittently, rewards can help children develop intrinsic motivation. For while some children have families that have taught them good habits or have personalities that naturally respond to the inherent rewards in things like reading, math and social interactions, others are not so fortunate. Then the use of intermittent rewards can be highly effective in practicing positive behavior and developing good habits.
We wanted to vary the reasons we gave the heart stickers so that we were rewarding several different kinds of behavior. So we asked them to hold poses longer, to work together to support one another, to wait, to go back to their mats when requested and to practice the Mat 20 flow without complaining. They also practiced ignoring skills with Animals in the Forest, with Jim doing everything he could do to get them to laugh and not one of them laughed! Even as he did his best elephant impersonation and funniest dance, they held their composure and supported each other. I was impressed! By the end of class, all students had earned their “prize,” and they felt good about the work they had done.
Resources: The Motivation Breakthrough by Rick Lavoie
