Mindfulness supports emotional resilience in children during the COVID-19 pandemic.

An important aspect of mental health in children is emotional resilience: the capacity to adapt to, and recover from, stressors and emotional challenges. Variation in trait mindfulness, one's disposition to attend to experiences with an open and nonjudgmental attitude, may be an important individual difference in children that supports emotional resilience. In this study, we investigated whether trait mindfulness was related to emotional resilience in response to stressful changes in education and home-life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We conducted a correlational study examining self-report data from July 2020 to February 2021, from 163 eight-to ten-year-old children living in the US. Higher trait mindfulness scores correlated with less stress, anxiety, depression, and negative affect in children, and lower ratings of COVID-19 impact on their lives. Mindfulness moderated the relationship between COVID-19 child impact and negative affect. Children scoring high on mindfulness showed no correlation between rated COVID-19 impact and negative affect, whereas those who scored low on mindfulness showed a positive correlation between child COVID-19 impact and negative affect. Higher levels of trait mindfulness may have helped children to better cope with a wide range of COVID-19 stressors. Future studies should investigate the mechanisms by which trait mindfulness supports emotional resilience in children.

At-home use of app-based mindfulness for children: A randomized active-controlled trial.

Objectives: School-based mindfulness interventions in children have shown benefits to child well-being. Here, we investigated the effectiveness of a remote, app-based mindfulness intervention for promoting well-being in children. Methods: We conducted a randomized controlled trial (RCT) with two control groups to examine the effects of an 8-week mindfulness intervention in U.S. children ages 8-10. We compared pre-post effects between a mindfulness intervention using the Inner Explorer app, and two audiobook control interventions. The 279 children who participated in the interventions were assessed on self-report measures of anxiety and depression symptoms, perceived stress and trait mindfulness and we also collected parental reports. Results: Over 80% of children completed the intervention in each condition. There was evidence for reduced self-perceived stress in children and reduced negative affect in children by parental reports using the mindfulness app, but no significant reduction for anxiety or depression symptoms. In general, between-group effect sizes were small (ds < 0.45). Regular use, defined as at least 30 days of mindfulness practice within the study period, was associated with reduced child negative affect by parental reports, as well as reduced parental stress and child self-perceived stress. Conclusions: These findings suggest that home use of a mindfulness app in young children can have a positive impact on children's emotional well-being if the app is used regularly, specifically for at least 30 days in the 8-week study period. Strategies aimed at promoting regular use of the mindfulness app at home could lead to even better outcomes for children. Preregistration: Preregistered on OSF at https://osf.io/23vax.

Mindfulness supports emotional resilience in children during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

An important aspect of mental health in children is emotional resilience, the capacity to adapt to, and recover from, stressors and emotional challenges. Variation in trait mindfulness, one’s disposition to attend to experiences with an open and nonjudgmental attitude, may be an important individual difference in children that supports emotional resilience. In this study, we investigated whether trait mindfulness was related to emotional resilience in response to stressful changes in education and home-life during the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. We conducted a correlational study examining self-report data from July 2020 to February 2021, from 163 eight-to-ten-year-old children living in the US. Higher trait mindfulness scores correlated with less stress, anxiety, depression, and negative affect in children, and lower ratings of COVID-19 impact on their lives. Mindfulness moderated the relationship between COVID-19 child impact and negative affect. Children scoring high on mindfulness showed no correlation between rated COVID-19 impact and negative affect, whereas those who scored low on mindfulness showed a positive correlation between child COVID-19 impact and negative affect. Higher levels of trait mindfulness may have helped children to better cope with a wide range of COVID-19 stressors. Future studies should investigate the mechanisms by which trait mindfulness supports emotional resilience in children.

Implementing Remote Developmental Research: A Case Study of a Randomized Controlled Trial Language Intervention During COVID-19.

Intervention studies with developmental samples are difficult to implement, in particular when targeting demographically diverse communities. Online studies have the potential to examine the efficacy of highly scalable interventions aimed at enhancing development, and to address some of the barriers faced by underrepresented communities for participating in developmental research. During the COVID-19 pandemic, we executed a fully remote randomized controlled trial (RCT) language intervention with third and fourth grade students (N = 255; age range 8.19-10.72 years, mean = 9.41, SD = 0.52) from diverse backgrounds across the United States. Using this as a case study, we discuss both challenges and solutions to conducting an intensive online intervention through the various phases of the study, including recruitment, data collection, and fidelity of intervention implementation. We provide comprehensive suggestions and takeaways, and conclude by summarizing some important tradeoffs for researchers interested in carrying out such studies.

Acute social isolation evokes midbrain craving responses similar to hunger.

When people are forced to be isolated from each other, do they crave social interactions? To address this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure neural responses evoked by food and social cues after participants (n = 40) experienced 10 h of mandated fasting or total social isolation. After isolation, people felt lonely and craved social interaction. Midbrain regions showed selective activation to food cues after fasting and to social cues after isolation; these responses were correlated with self-reported craving. By contrast, striatal and cortical regions differentiated between craving food and craving social interaction. Across deprivation sessions, we found that deprivation narrows and focuses the brain's motivational responses to the deprived target. Our results support the intuitive idea that acute isolation causes social craving, similar to the way fasting causes hunger.