Emotional dysregulation is typical in today’s fast-paced, digitally connected world, where children are exposed to a barrage of stimuli from a young age. This manifests as difficulty in maintaining focus, managing emotions, behavior and relationships, thus, there is an immense need for developing social-emotional skills in a way suitable and efficient for children as early as possible.
Daily social-emotional education encompasses regular mindfulness practice, yoga, positive discipline, role-playing games, music and art therapy, bibliotherapy, sand, block, and sensory play therapies - all is integrated into the curriculum of Contextual Education. We holistically teach even the youngest children, twice a week children have breathing practices and yoga, using age-appropriate language, visual aids (e.g. unique deep breathing cards that have been presented at international conferences, right now we are developing cards with yoga poses), gamification (e.g. pretending to be a bear calming down before hibernation), guided activities (reflection of books, music, art therapies). Children also learn to recognize and articulate their feelings during the role-playing games and therapeutic activities.
Also we employ positive discipline throughout the day, teachers act as role-models. Parents are also regularly educated through webinars and various meetings.
This year we organized the first Early Childhood Education Summit’25 in Vilnius, so we introduced our social-emotional curriculum and methods to nearly 100 participants from seven countries.
We were the first in Lithuania to pilot a social-emotional curriculum in 3 of our preschools to select the most effective techniques and methods. Following teacher training and impact assessment, we launched the program full scale in all 11 of our preschools across the country, reaching more than 700 children. Beyond this, each year we organize conferences on social-emotional innovations, where 4700 educators have participated already. We also train other institutions and individuals (100 in 3 years), provide them with online webinars and implementation materials such as mindfulness cards for children. Finally, we actively share the practice beyond Lithuania – we conduct consultations and lectures to empower colleagues from Japan, Norway, India, Poland, US, India, etc.
This year, we enhanced our social-emotional learning program by integrating therapeutic play-based approaches, including sand play, bibliotherapy, block play, art, and sensory play therapies. These methods are already showing a positive impact—helping children identify, express, and understand their emotions while laying the groundwork for emotional regulation, empathy, and effective communication. Teachers report strengthened teacher-child relationships, reduced behavioral issues, increased self-confidence and resilience, enhanced cognitive development, and improved academic outcomes.
We also made a huge step in spreading the ideas of "Mindful Minutes in Early Childhood Education" by organizing the first Early Childhood Education Summit’25: Nurturing futures: Wellness for Children and Educators. Experts from Lithuania, Iceland, Belgium, Ukraine, United Kingdom, Finland and Estonia shared insights about Leadership for wellbeing, how learning communities inspire wellbeing, understanding children through self-awareness, practical tools for supporting neurodiverse learners, reflective games using sand and blocks, breathing and manfulness for children, and other.
The summit inspired nearly 100 participants from Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland, Ukraine, Sweden, and Germany to embrace innovative strategies that nurture emotionally resilient, lifelong learners.
Contact us! We will provide you with the science-based training course on social-emotional education: positive discipline, mindfulness, yoga for children, therapeutic play-based approaches etc. We will train your staff, provide you with tested practices and tools (e.g. meditation and yoga cards, stories, games). Finally, come and see the program in practice at our preschools or we can visit you and help you learn by doing.
