Secular Mindfulness · Online
Children's mindfulness teacher training developed by Susan Kaiser Greenland (author of The Mindful Child and Mindful Games). Based on the secular ABCs of attention, balance, and compassion methodology. Trains educators, therapists, and parents to teach mindfulness to children and teens.
Inner Kids is the children's mindfulness teacher training developed by Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of The Mindful Child and Mindful Games and one of the early architects of secular mindfulness for children in the United States. Greenland began teaching mindfulness to children in Los Angeles public schools in 2001 alongside her husband Seth Greenland, well before children's mindfulness was a widely recognized field. The Inner Kids Foundation continues to train educators, therapists, parents, and youth workers in her methodology. The approach is built around what Greenland calls the ABCs of attention, balance, and compassion. The framing is explicitly secular: no religious vocabulary, no chanting, no mantra. The methodology centers on play. Mindful Games, the second of Greenland's books and the curriculum's core text, is built around sixty short games that introduce children to attention, breathing awareness, body sensation, kind regard for self and others, and present-moment focus. The games are organized by developmental stage from preschool through teen years, and they assume that children's mindfulness has to look different from adult mindfulness to be honest about how children actually engage attention. Training is delivered online in modular cohort programs. Participants come from teaching, school counseling, child therapy, occupational therapy, paediatric medicine, and parenting. Some are mindfulness teachers expanding into pediatric work; others are educators wanting to bring mindful attention into classrooms without confessional content. The training does not certify clinical practice; it provides a methodology and a teaching framework. Fees range roughly from USD 500 for foundational modules to USD 1,500 for the full pathway, with sliding-scale options. The Inner Kids credential is recognized in school and clinical settings as a leading children's mindfulness training and Greenland's books are widely used outside the formal training as well. Greenland herself is also an active visiting teacher at UCLA's Mindful Awareness Research Center and has long-running ties with the secular mindfulness ecosystem in California.
Coursework moves through several modules. The first establishes the ABCs framework, with attention as the foundation, balance as emotional regulation, and compassion as kind regard for self and others. Subsequent modules cover developmental sequencing of mindful games from preschool through middle school, with attention to how attention, language, and emotion regulation actually develop in children. Specific modules address breathing awareness games, sensory awareness games, kindness practices for self and others, and the teaching skills required to lead a class of moving children rather than a still adult cohort. The training also covers practical context: how to introduce mindfulness to skeptical parents and administrators, how to teach in classrooms without religious framing, how to adapt for special-needs children, and how to work with trauma-affected children carefully. Greenland's books Mindful Games and The Mindful Child anchor the reading, alongside selected research on contemplative pediatrics.
Training runs as online cohort modules with live video sessions, recorded teaching, structured practice between sessions, and small-group peer learning. Most modules can be completed in several weeks; the full pathway extends over months as participants build teaching practice with real children alongside the study. Greenland teaches the live sessions herself in many cohorts, with senior Inner Kids facilitators co-leading. There's no formal exam; participants demonstrate their teaching through video review and through ongoing practice within their own classrooms or clinical settings. The approach assumes that competence comes from doing the practice with children, not only from study.
Graduates earn the Inner Kids Trained Facilitator credential and are equipped to teach mindfulness to children using the ABCs framework and the Mindful Games methodology. The credential is widely recognized in school and clinical settings as a leading children's mindfulness training. It does not authorize clinical therapy; clinicians work within their existing license and use Inner Kids as a methodology, not a therapy modality. Graduates teach in elementary and middle schools, lead family workshops, integrate the methodology into private practice, and sometimes train other teachers in their own region.
There are no formal academic prerequisites. The training assumes a personal mindfulness practice, regular contact with children either professionally or as a parent, and an interest in teaching children rather than adapting adult practice. Most participants come from a teaching, clinical, or parenting context. Some prior secular mindfulness exposure helps but is not required.
Inner Kids sits alongside Mindful Schools, the.b curriculum from the Mindfulness in Schools Project (UK), and the Mind Up curriculum from the Goldie Hawn Foundation as the leading secular children's mindfulness pathways. Mindful Schools is more classroom-curriculum-focused and serves teachers wanting a delivery package;.b is grounded in UK schools and the Bangor and Oxford academic mindfulness research lineage; Mind Up emphasizes neuroscience-informed social-emotional learning. Inner Kids is distinct in its game-based methodology, its developmental sequencing, and its grounding in Greenland's specific teaching voice. For practitioners drawn to play as the medium of attention training, Inner Kids is the natural home.
| Location | Online |
| Country | United States |
| Tradition | Secular Mindfulness |
| Format | Online |
| Duration | Multi-week modules |
| Estimated cost | USD 500-1,500 |
| Accreditation | Inner Kids Trained Facilitator |