Does Meditation Help Children’s Mental Health?

Check out this answer from Consensus:

The collective evidence suggests that meditation can be a beneficial tool for improving various aspects of children’s mental health, including reducing anxiety, depression, and aggression, enhancing attention and academic performance, and improving emotional regulation and resilience. While more rigorous research is needed, especially for specific conditions like ADHD, the current findings support the integration of meditation practices into children’s routines to promote mental well-being.

Meditation has been increasingly explored as a potential tool to improve mental health in children. This synthesis examines the evidence from various studies to determine whether meditation can positively impact children’s mental health.

Key Insights

• Reduction in Anxiety, Depression, and Aggression:
  • Meditation programs have been shown to significantly reduce symptoms of anxiety, depression, and aggression in children7 5 6.
• Improvement in Attention and Academic Performance:
  • Mindfulness meditation has been found to improve attention, concentration, and academic performance in children3 4.
• Enhancement of Emotional Regulation and Resilience:
  • Meditation enhances emotional regulation, resilience, and emotional intelligence, which are crucial for mental well-being4 5 6.
• Decrease in Self-Harm and Suicidal Ideation:
  • Mindfulness training has been associated with a lower likelihood of developing suicidal ideation or thoughts of self-harm2 5.
• Reduction in Stress and Psychological Distress:
  • Meditation practices have been effective in reducing stress and psychological distress among children1 5 6.
• Improvement in Social Competence and Quality of Life:
  • Meditation has been linked to improvements in social competence, quality of life, and child-parent relationships5 6.
• Positive Effects on Children with ADHD:
  • Although the evidence is not definitive due to methodological limitations, some studies suggest that meditation may benefit children with ADHD8.

Does meditation help children’s mental health?

Michael Posner has answered Likely

An expert from University of Oregon in Neuropsychology

There is evidence that older children can benefit from meditation training.

However, the exact ages and the conditions for which this occurs is not known.

Does meditation help children’s mental health?

Alessio Matiz has answered Likely

An expert from University of Udine in Psychology, Religion, Electronics

Although significant methodological limitations of many studies, current evidence suggests that programs based on the practice of mindfulness meditation lead by qualified instructors may be effective in improving the mental health of children and adolescents. Positive effects on children can be observed both when mindfulness meditation is practiced by the children themselves, and when it is practiced by their parents or their teachers.

Does meditation help children’s mental health?

Yi-Yuan Tang has answered Likely

An expert from Texas Tech University in Cognitive Science, Neurobiology, Mindfulness

Yes,  some data showed this.