“Those of us educated in eons past were taught a lot about chemistry and history, but nothing at all about the nature of our minds. Yet it is the human mind that’s responsible for both compassion but also great cruelty. Today however we are at the crest of an increasingly powerful wave to help children understand their minds and how to live to be helpful not harmful to themselves and others. Monica Jackman’s OpenMind Preschool and Kindergarten (OMPK) Program is a wonderful contribution to this effort. She indicates many ways in which we can help children understand themselves that could be integrated into the school program and be a source for regular practice and guidance. Her program makes a significant contribution to one of the greatest challenges of humanity: the moral and compassionate education of young minds. product brings efficiency to a new level of simplicity. I have never found a product that is so easy to use.”

Paul Gilbert

Author of Compassionate Mind and Living like Crazy; professor of clinical psychology at the University of Derby; visiting professor at the University of Queensland, Australia; and president of the Compassionate Mind Foundation

Using a developmentally appropriate and student-centered approach, this book offers practices for very young children that build their social-emotional learning (SEL) skills using mindfulness as the backdrop. There is also a meaty chapter detailing mindfulness practices for educators, recognizing that teaching these skills involves embodiment of a mindful way of being. This is a must-read for anyone working with young children!

Deborah Schussler, EdD

Professor of education at Pennsylvania State University, and faculty affiliate of Prevention Research Center and Rock Ethics Institute

An authentic and nuanced approach to mindfulness for young children, Jackman offers an in-depth, comprehensive program to improve children’s ability to engage and learn in the classroom. Different from other SEL programs, OMPK integrates creative, developmentally appropriate, and meaningful activities throughout the day, contextualized so that they ‘make sense’ to kids. Providing an abundant array of different activities for different situations and learners, Jackman makes implementing OMPK an easy lift for teachers. A truly terrific gift for our youngest learners and their teachers!

Karen Bluth, PhD

Assistant professor at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; author of The Self-Compassion Workbook for Teens and The Self-Compassionate Teen; and coauthor of Mindfulness and Self-Compassion for Teen ADHD

This book is a precious resource for early childhood educators who wish to teach students fundamental skills of attentional focus, self-regulation, and mindful awareness that underlie and support learning, social relationships, and well-being. The book offers innovative and evidence-based practices for cultivating virtuous habits of attention and awareness in young children, as well as excellent recommendations for how educators can create a compassionate classroom environment in which children more readily learn such skills. I highly recommend it.

Robert W. Roeser, PhD

Bennett Pierce Professor of Caring and Compassion at Pennsylvania State University

In these challenging times, Mindfulness for Preschool and Kindergarten provides a timely and unique program supporting mindful engagement of all learners essential for both teachers and young children. Grounded in theory and research, this book is a comprehensive and self-contained guide for the effective mindfulness training of teachers and children containing a detailed outline of practices and classroom activities. Teachers will find this evidence-based book remarkably practical for developing children’s mindfulness, self-regulation, executive function, and learning engagement.

Oleg N. Medvedev

Assistant professor of psychology at the University of Waikato in New Zealand, and coauthor of Mindfulness-Based Intervention Research and Handbook of Assessment in Mindfulness Research

This practical, detailed, and inspirational guide is a must-read for teachers bringing mindfulness into the preschool and kindergarten classroom. Multiple examples are provided throughout of how to address specific challenging behaviors in the classroom with the most appropriate mindfulness-based, age-appropriate exercise. The OpenMind Program holds a compassionate container for both the teacher and the child, and will be of great benefit to classrooms and their broader communities

Andrea Grabovac, MD

Clinical professor of psychiatry at the University of British Columbia, and codirector of the North American chapter of the Mindfulness-integrated Cognitive Behavioural Therapy Institute

If you’re an educator who wants to help your preschool students learn to cope more effectively with challenging emotions and be more focused in the classroom, this book will support you every step of the way. It provides a highly detailed and comprehensive guide to implementing the OpenMind Program, an empirically supported method to raise the social-emotional intelligence of young children.

Kristin Neff, PhD

Associate professor of educational psychology at the University of Texas at Austin

Mindfulness for Preschool and Kindergarten is a timely and authentic contribution to the burgeoning field of mindfulness-based programs for youth. Jackman has created a secular and developmentally appropriate mindfulness curricula to meet the social-emotional needs of today’s children. Early childhood educators interested in learning how to embody and teach mindfulness are encouraged to read this book.

Joshua C. Felver, PhD, ABPP

Assistant professor of psychology and director of clinical training at Syracuse University, and coauthor of Mindfulness in the Classroom

Mindfulness for Preschool and Kindergarten is a gift for children, parents, and teachers! This book offers realistic exercises that intertwine conceptual and contextual learning into unique, developmentally appropriate play-based activities useful for learning in preschool and kindergarten—and for children’s everyday life. The mindfulness exercises teach students to understand and communicate their emotions from a very early age.

B. Ann Bettencourt

Professor at the University of Missouri; associate editor of the journal, Mindfulness; and author of a variety of research articles on the topic of mindfulness

Mindfulness for Preschool and Kindergarten is a timely, accessible, practical, and research-grounded resource for educators looking for comprehensive and effective guidance on supporting young children to develop key social and emotional skills of self-regulation, connection, and prosociality. Research consistently shows that fostering such skills from an early age improves children’s lifelong prospects. The program presented in this book increases the likelihood of such long-term benefits by embedding age-appropriate practices into daily lives, expanding on the foundation of mindfulness through loving-kindness and gratitude practices, and a balanced approach to working with difficult emotions. The wide range of meaningfully combined practices in this book has the potential to encourage children in developing essential life skills and self-understanding from an early age.

Dusana Dorjee, PhD

Associate professor of psychology in education at the University of York

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