Child Care and Early Education Research Connections

Skip to main content

Promoting prosocial behavior and self-regulatory skills in preschool children through a mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum

Description:
Self-regulatory abilities are robust predictors of important outcomes across the life span, yet they are rarely taught explicitly in school. Using a randomized controlled design, the present study investigated the effects of a 12-week mindfulness-based Kindness Curriculum (KC) delivered in a public school setting on executive function, self-regulation, and prosocial behavior in a sample of 68 preschool children. The KC intervention group showed greater improvements in social competence and earned higher report card grades in domains of learning, health, and social-emotional development, whereas the control group exhibited more selfish behavior over time. Interpretation of effect sizes overall indicate small to medium effects favoring the KC group on measures of cognitive flexibility and delay of gratification. Baseline functioning was found to moderate treatment effects with KC children initially lower in social competence and executive functioning demonstrating larger gains in social competence relative to the control group. These findings, observed over a relatively short intervention period, support the promise of this program for promoting self-regulation and prosocial behavior in young children. They also support the need for future investigation of program implementation across diverse settings. (author abstract)
Resource Type:
Reports & Papers
Country:
United States

Related resources include summaries, versions, measures (instruments), or other resources in which the current document plays a part. Research products funded by the Office of Planning, Research, and Evaluation are related to their project records.

- You May Also Like

These resources share similarities with the current selection.

Teacher activity orienting predicts preschoolers' academic and self-regulatory skills

Reports & Papers

Self-regulatory growth effects for young children participating in a combined social and emotional learning and mindfulness-based intervention

Reports & Papers

Effects of preschool curriculum programs on school readiness: Report from the Preschool Curriculum Evaluation Research initiative

Reports & Papers
Release: 'v1.58.0' | Built: 2024-04-08 08:44:34 EDT