How do children change when they do meditation? A lot of children have a difficult time due to stress that adults do not even realize they are experiencing. Through this meditation, the stress that has built up was discarded and the children showed major improvements in their drawings.
Through these children’s drawings, there was a research study performed analyzing their changes. Let’s take a look at Professor Mookyung Sohn’s research on art therapy and coloring therapy.
When you look at the drawings below, you can see the children’s mindsets.
Drawing- 4th grade elementary school female. Left: before meditating, right: after meditating.
Before attending Meditation Youth Camp
There is such a large amount of self-expectation. It shows that the child has a hard time controlling their own energy. The picture demonstrates it.After attending Meditation Youth Camp
Thoughts about home (parents) became warmer and softer. They seem to be thinking more positively about their self and becoming more emotionally stable.
Silla University Art therapy full-time professor Mookyung Sohn during the winter break of 2011, picked 14 children who attended the 25th Ma-Eum Su-Ryun Teenager Camp. The children were in elementary and middle school and their drawings were analyzed before and afterwards to look at how their minds had changed after doing meditation.
Professor Mookyung Sohn conducted the study using the method of the HTP (House-Tree-Person) test. The HTP test looks at the house, tree, and person in the drawing to determine the relationship and interactions between family, psychological environment at home, interpersonal skills, willpower, ability to adapt, personality and intelligence, and behavioral patterns; it is a test that can diagnose one’s psychological state in a relatively wide range of fields.
One can know the psychological state of a child by how the child draws the house, in what way the tree is drawn, and how the child portrays the person.
Even those children who do not communicate their minds show their deepest minds through symbols illustrated in the drawings.
Drawing: 4th Grade Elementary school male.
Left: Before meditation, in the drawing he wrote “The child is dancing. The tree on the wall is laughing, the tree is laughing, and the house is also laughing”. Right: After meditation.
Before attending Meditation Youth Camp
He is having a hard time controlling his emotions and is slower than others who are the same age as him. It shows that this child is wanting to be loved and tends to depend on someone else. He cannot control his energy level and has a lack of will power.After attending Meditation Youth Camp
Depending on others has disappeared and he has the strength to be independent. He has regained some of his own will power and can see the positivity in the world.
Drawing: 6th Grade Middle School male
Left: Before meditation Right: After meditation
Before attending Meditation Youth Camp
Although the physical environment of the house looks relatively fine, there is also a sign of introverted qualities the child holds with a lot of thoughts and frustration. Smooth, yet anxiety when dealing with others. Like a flower pot, the child can feel controlled within the frame of the parents.
After attending Meditation Youth Camp
The frustrating minds have disappeared, and he can honestly portray his feelings openly. Depending on his parents has diminished and friendships have gotten deeper. Being more confident about living in the world. He seems to have found emotional stability.
After finishing the analysis, Professor Mookyung Sohn gave the following evaluation.
“Usually art therapy takes 4-5 months before seeing positive results. Thus, diagnosing and treatment is not possible in a short amount of time. But through this meditation method, in about 20 days, the children who practiced this meditation showed positive changes with outstanding changes in at least 3 categories which is very inspiring”.
Also in 2012, at the Academic Society for Human Completion Spring Conference, Professor Mookyung Sohn displayed the analyzed content with the title “Through drawings, analysis of the effects of teenagers doing Ma-Eum Su-Ryun Meditation” and Professor Sohn came to the conclusion below.
“This meditation has a positive psychological effect on children. If one does this meditation steadily, then you can expect a huge improvement”.
In fact, during the same time period, Dukju Lee Professor’s team at KAIST University analyzed before and after effects of this meditation on the brain waves of children who attended the “Meditation Youth Camp”.
Just like how you can feel the changes in the drawings above, brain waves also showed huge changes as well.
Picture: Before and after meditation effects on brain waves.
Just by glancing at it, you can see the complicated and stressed busy mind changing to a comfortable and stable mind.
Go to details of the research (Academic Society for Human Completion)
The best gift for our children who are struggling with various types of stress would be educating them on how to “discard their thoughts”.
Source:http://meditationusa.org
Source: www.meditationlife.org
