by Maggie Downs posted in Life

My son was about 2 years old when I received his first ?ouch report? from school. The report said there had been an incident with my child and another boy. The two ended up with scrapes, ragged and raw, across their faces.
Immediately I wondered if my son was a bully. And if he was, what then"
I?ve taught him the alphabet and colors and to wash his hands before every meal. But is it possible to teach things like kindness and compassion" Can I help cultivate these skills in my child" And how important are these traits anyway"

At the Center for Healthy Minds at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, researchers have been looking at similar questions through a scientific lens.
While there have been multiple other programs to teach mindfulness to children, few are backed by rigorous scientific studies. So the UW-Madison team ? graduate research assistant Simon Goldberg; outreach specialist Laura Pinger; and CHM founder Richard Davidson, the UW-Madison William James and Vilas Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry ? decided to find out for themselves. The team developed a special curriculum to help children ages 4 to 6 learn how to be mindful of their own emotions, pay attention to others, and feel gratitude. They called these the ABCs ? that is, attention, breath and body, and caring practice. Check out the full results in the journal, Developmental Psychology.
The researchers found that actively cultivating kindness and com...