Attentional control, self-regulation, and inhibitory control are not immutable. They can be improved even in children as young as 4–5 years, in regular classrooms, with regular teachers, without special equipment. First we will explore why inhibitory control is so critically important, especially during development. A child may know what he or she should do, and want to do, but still not be able to act accordingly because of insufficient inhibitory control. Adults may not appreciate how inordinately difficult inhibition is for young children because it is so much less taxing for us. The educational practices that improve attentional control and self-regulation not only lead to better academic outcomes, but they will also reduce the incidence and severity of mental health disorders where poor self-regulation is at the core (such as ADHD and addiction). Many issues are not simply education issues or health issues; they are both. Activities that often get squeezed out of school curricula, including the arts and physical exercise, are excellent for developing attentional control, self-regulation, and inhibitory control, and thus can be critical for success in school and in life. Improvement of critical skills need not be painful; indeed the evidence shows that children who spend more time in supervised play at school perform better on objective academic outcome measures than those who spend more time receiving direct academic instruction. Questions to be discussed are: what are traditional Tibetan Buddhist insights about training attentional control in young people? What are the main modalities for doing this? Is there any sense of a “developmentally appropriate” set of contemplative activities for children and adolescents in the traditions? 

• Dialogue 18
  14 sessions
• April 8, 2009
  Dharamsala, Himachal Pradesh, India
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