The strategy is working (Picture: Holistic Life Foundation)

Asking a stressed, angry or upset child to sit on the floor and meditate may not seem like the best idea.

But that’s the strategy being employed at Robert W. Coleman Elementary School in Baltimore, Maryland – and it’s safe to say that it’s working.

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Since the start of last year, the primary school has not suspended a single pupil, Upworthy reported.

And the school’s decision to focus on meditation as an alternative to detention might be the key to their successs.


How have they done it?

Instead of sending children to stand outside the classroom or giving them detention, they instead go to the ‘Mindful Moment Room’.

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It is filled with lamps, decorations and purple pillows, and misbehaving pupils are urged to meditate or breathe deeply, which helps to calm them down.



Created in partnership with local charity the Holistic Life Foundation, the room has been an unqualified success.

Kirk Philips, the school’s Holistic Me coordinator, said: ‘It’s amazing. You wouldn’t think that little kids would meditate in silence. And they do.’

The best example was at their Christmas party, where the children meditated before they were given presents.

Mr Philips said: ‘As a little kid, that’s got to be hard to sit down and meditate when you know you’re about to get a bag of gifts, and they did it! It was beautiful, we were all smiling at each other watching them.’

Maybe we’ll see this become a big thing here in Britain.

Foundations such as the Mindfulness in Schools Project and Mindful Schools are setting up similar programmes – so watch this space.