Susan Kaiser Greenland JD, developed the InnerKids mindful awareness program for children and families and co-founded the InnerKids Foundation. She teaches mindful awareness to children and families, as well as educators, parents, therapists and health care professionals. Susan is a member of the clinical team of the Pediatric Pain Clinic at UCLA’s Mattel’s Children’s Hospital, and Co-Investigator on a multi-year, multi-site research study at UCLA’s Semel Institute on the impact of mindfulness in education. In 2006, Susan was named a “Champion of Children” by First 5 LA. She speaks at universities, medical centers and professional programs around the world and consults with various organizations on teaching mindful awareness in an age-appropriate and secular manner. Susan’s upcoming book “The Mindful Child” will be published by Free Press in 2009. Susan lives in Los Angeles with her husband (and Huffington Post Blogger) Seth Greenland and their two children.

To learn more about practicing mindful awareness with children join the InnerKids online community at www.innerkids.ning.com.

Blog Entries by Susan Kaiser Greenland

Focus on This Play, This Moment: Advice from a Japanese Baseball Team

6 Comments | Posted April 22, 2009 | 06:01 PM (EST)


This morning, while surfing the Internet, I followed a tweet to a Japanese baseball team's new logo.

2009-04-18-tigers_zen.jpg

The slogan Focus on this play, this moment!! has been met with sniggers from baseball fans that, besides being put off by the double exclamation...

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How Passover Night Is Not So Different From All Other Nights

Posted April 8, 2009 | 12:41 PM (EST)


Family holidays are a big deal for me, especially the food. Eating ham on Easter, plum pudding on Christmas and Eskimo pies on the Fourth of July is the stuff of my childhood memories. When I got married I began to celebrate Jewish holidays too, and now my enthusiasm for...

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Finding Emotional Stability in a Time of Economic Instability

Posted April 5, 2009 | 04:32 PM (EST)


Have you ever had a funny feeling that something's not right, but you can't figure out what it is? Maybe it's a tight feeling in your chest, or a sinking feeling in your stomach. These gut feelings, or intuitions, tend to be a fairly reliable indication that there is something...

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I Confess! I Tweet!

Posted March 27, 2009 | 02:10 PM (EST)


Why would anyone who teaches mindful awareness to kids and families tweet? Isn't Twitter the height of mindlessness embodied in an endless stream of random and reactive virtual chatter known as tweets? By churning up mental noise, rather than quieting it down, isn't Twitter the opposite of mindfulness?

Just...

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Michelle Obama's Spotlight On Awareness

Posted March 22, 2009 | 10:36 AM (EST)


Okay, so how cool is it that the Obamas are tearing up 1,100 square feet of the White House lawn to plant a kitchen garden? I can't wait to see the pictures of Michelle, Barack, and their kids tending the White House garden splashed on the front pages of newspapers...

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Why I'm Especially Proud to be from Michigan Today

Posted October 3, 2008 | 06:38 PM (EST)


I like a good cliché. If I had a quarter for every time someone in my family rolled his or her eyes when I used a cliché I'd be a rich woman. Oops, there I go again. (Is "there I go again" another cliché?) So when Sarah Palin talks about...

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Obama's Call to Arms on Education Reform

Posted May 30, 2008 | 01:49 PM (EST)


Obama made one of his now trademark speeches on Wednesday, throwing down the gauntlet on high-stakes testing with: "Accountability does not need to come at the expense of a well-rounded education."

In stark contrast to McCain's continued embrace of No Child Left Behind, and the nightmarish wave of...

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The DC Madam: She Took the Fall for Everyone

Posted May 1, 2008 | 04:25 PM (EST)


You may be surprised that a middle-aged mom is writing a post advocating the legalization of prostitution. Here's why. A short while ago, news got out that the DC Madam killed herself while visiting her mother in Florida: a death that was really unnecessary.

For those who haven't followed...

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The Middle Way of Barack Obama and the Dalai Lama

7 Comments | Posted March 20, 2008 | 06:26 PM (EST)


We've heard a great deal this week about the Dalai Lama's 'middle way' political solution to the violence in his homeland. This political 'middle way' calls for Tibetan autonomy within China. But there is another middle way that has dominated the headlines this week. Separated by 40 years and...

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Modern Feminism

Posted March 12, 2008 | 12:55 PM (EST)


Clinton advisor Geraldine Ferraro, the first and only woman to have been a major party VP candidate in a presidential election, views herself as a victim of racism. Yesterday she said, "Racism works in two different directions. I really think they're attacking me because I'm white." Hillary Clinton, a Senator...

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Walking the Walk of Feminism

Posted March 6, 2008 | 12:08 PM (EST)


While not a celebrity, when it comes to feminist credentials I take a back seat to no one. As a teenager in the 1970s, I was on a road crew and drove a truck for the public works department in the village of Paw Paw, Michigan. We took black electricians'...

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A Self-Taught Philosopher

Posted January 18, 2007 | 02:46 PM (EST)


My husband and I are staying at a beautiful beach resort where I will be speaking to a group of educators and parents this morning. I generally wake up early to read and write. But this morning, I am sitting in a tiny hotel bathroom with the door shut tight...

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Be the Change

Posted January 16, 2007 | 08:11 AM (EST)


I was sitting at the dinner table and told my family I would be busy tonight writing a piece on National Mentoring Month. My daughter said, "Cool, did you know last month was National Watermelon Eating Month?" My husband joined in, "Why don't you write about mentoring a watermelon eater?"...

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To Whom Much is Given Much is Expected

Posted December 25, 2006 | 12:26 PM (EST)


A friend recently voiced the concern that those who advocate teaching mindfulness to children are creating a market for something that does not yet exist. Despite good intentions, the implication was that we are jumping the gun. Why? because there is research on mindfulness with adults and teens but no...

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New Beginnings

Posted October 28, 2006 | 06:20 PM (EST)


I have always believed in new beginnings. Growing up in a small Midwestern town I once heard a visiting minister describe each day as an opportunity for a resurrection. His statement caused quite a stir in our church but it made a lot of sense to me. In college, I...

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Every Breath You Take

Posted April 28, 2006 | 08:33 PM (EST)


You can learn a lot about relationships by paying attention to other people's breathing. Breath awareness is a time-tested way of training attention, and most agree that tuning into their own breath is useful. But it is less well known that you might glean valuable information about others by paying...

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Are We Turning Our Kids Into Speed Freaks?

Posted January 29, 2006 | 08:13 PM (EST)


This week, the FDA issued a statement that some cases of death and dangerous side effects have been reported "in association with therapeutic doses" of ADHD drugs. "The few controlled clinical studies of longer term drug treatment of ADHD provided little information on cardiovascular risks," the FDA...

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