Читать книгу Families & Change - Группа авторов - Страница 55

This case begins with an 8-year-old female, Tonya, attending after-school programming in her neighborhood. Tonya lives with her dad and three older siblings. Her dad works multiple jobs, is not around much, and her siblings or a neighbor watch her at home when he is not there. She typically gets along well with other youth at the after-school program although she had been having some problems in the 3 weeks prior to the mindfulness facilitator’s arrival. The after-school program serves mostly African American youth between the ages of 5 and 12 who participate in after-school programming at a local club. Over 90% of youth participating in this after-school setting are on free and reduced lunch, live in high-poverty neighborhoods, and go to poor-performing schools. Tonya and 20 other students participated in the Mindful Schools curriculum once or twice a week in addition to their regular after-school activities. Each visit takes about 15 minutes and includes a theme, brief developmentally appropriate formal practice, educational component, brief experiential activity and suggestions for between meeting “practice” or attention to the theme. Youth in this setting showed significant decreases in anxiety pre- and post-mindful schools program start and completion. The program leader checks in with participants occasionally to ask if they “used their mindfulness” and if so, how. Tonya reported a specific story about how she used her mindfulness when her sibling was yelling at her. She typically would hit him leading to an afternoon of yelling, crying, and not being able to get her homework done. After being in the program for a few weeks, Tonya detailed a new option she had not tried yet at home. She decided to do mindful breathing on the bus to the after-school program and when she got home from the after-school program. She shared a specific detailed story about how she used mindfulness at home; when her brother started yelling, she left, went to her room, took some breaths, and then just colored. She noticed that her tummy did not hurt later that day, too. By the end of the program, Tonya’s teacher reported that she was doing something similar at the after-school program and had asked the after-school program director to take mindful breaths with her when she arrived off the bus.

In this case, Tonya’s life is saturated with chronic stress (e.g., poverty, lack of parent engagement), but there are also moments of acute stress due to normative interactions between siblings (X). However, these chronic and acute stressors can combine to produce somatic responses that manifest as the source of her stomach aches. Thus, the mindful program provided her with a breathing exercise (B) that she can implement when she experiences stress. This also changes her perception of stress (C) because she gains agency over coping strategies that produce outcomes that do not end with the aforementioned somatic response (X).