Reported by Allison Walker
ORLANDO -- Actress Goldie Hawn spoke out about education over the weekend at the Orange County Convention Center.
Appearing at the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development's annual conference Sunday, the actress spoke on her Hawn Foundation, which she said seeks to help advance the way kids learn through a program called "mindful awareness."
In working with a team of neurologists, Hawn said kids in the United States rank among the least happy compared to kids in other countries.
According to UCLA researchers, one in five children -- more kids than ever before -- are being diagnosed with a mental health disorder.
So, to make them happier and improve their behavior, Hawn said kids have to become aware of their own mind.
"We do acts of kindness. We wrap all our curriculum around it," Hawn said.
"When the brain is in a state of stress -- and stress comes from boredom, stress comes from frustration, because it's too hard; boredom because it's too easy -- the information does not even get to the thinking brain," said Dr. Judy Willis, a neuroscientist at the ASCD conference.
So who needs de-stressing more?
A child developmental psychologist at Fern Creek Elementary School in Orlando said kids in poverty, like 25 percent of the school's students, need it more.
Fern Creek said it went from a "D" school to an "A-B" school because of a similar classroom management method called Conscious Discipline, in which teachers focus on building a child's behavioral and social skills, instead of harsh discipline or punishment.
"Homeless kids, kids who live in poverty and foster care kids already have instability in their life," said Dr. Becky Bailey, who developed the method. "They live with uncertainty. They live in a state of anxiety."
Hawn's foundation, however, said rich kids are in greater need of destressing.
"The children most at risk in the United States are children of affluence," Hawn said. "Our children of affluence are the children of the lost and forgotten generation, and that was a study done by someone at Columbia University ... so they're left at home. They have a lot, they don't have much resilience. They do a lot of drugs."
Both the Hawn Foundation and Dr. Bailey are trying to get more educators to practice their methods in schools.
If you are curious about destressing your child and "mindful awareness," check out these Web sites:
Comment on this story.