THE MINDFULNESS MOVEMENT™
Children Are the Most Important Thing in the World.
It's Time We Treated Them Like It.
We are raising a generation under more pressure than any before them — and sending them into that pressure without tools. The Mindfulness Movement™ exists to change that. One child at a time. Starting today.
THE REALITY WE CANNOT IGNORE
Children Today Are Carrying More Than We Know
In 2024, psychologist Jonathan Haidt published The Anxious Generation — a landmark examination of what has happened to young people's mental health in the past decade. His conclusion was stark: we have fundamentally restructured childhood in ways that undermine the very experiences children need to grow into confident, resilient, emotionally capable adults.
Screen-based connection has replaced embodied play. Social comparison happens at a scale no previous generation experienced. Children are spending more time anxious and less time in the kind of physical, connected engagement that builds a regulated nervous system.
But the mental health crisis in children didn't begin with smartphones — and it won't end when we take them away. It began long before that, when we stopped teaching children how to feel. The Mindfulness Movement™ was built on a simple belief: if we start earlier, teach differently, and make these tools genuinely accessible — we change what's possible. What we teach isn't a luxury. It's infrastructure.
The Stress Children Are Actually Carrying
Stress doesn't have to be catastrophic to shape a child. Consider what the average child navigates before reaching middle school:
💔
A parent's divorce
👶
A new sibling arriving
📦
A family move
📚
Academic pressure from kindergarten on
👴
A grandparent's illness or death
😔
Social exclusion and friendship loss
The ACE research is clear: it is not the presence of stress that determines a child's outcome. It is whether they have tools when stress arrives. Children who can name what they feel, breathe through it, and ground themselves navigate hard things differently. And the difference compounds over a lifetime.
1 in 5
children experience a mental health challenge
5,000+
classes taught across the Twin Cities
4
active Community Education district partnerships
K–8
programs spanning toddlers through middle school
The Evidence Is Clear. The Tools Work.
WHAT THE SCIENCE SAYS
SEL Improves Academic & Life Outcomes
CASEL research shows students in SEL programs demonstrate an average 11-percentile-point gain in academic achievement — alongside measurable improvements in social skills, behavior, and wellbeing.
Mindfulness Reduces Childhood Anxiety
Multiple randomized controlled trials demonstrate mindfulness-based programs for children significantly reduce self-reported anxiety, improve emotional regulation, and increase focus — with effects persisting months after the program ends.
The Body-Brain Connection Is Real
As Bessel van der Kolk documented in The Body Keeps the Score — the body holds stress and the body is where healing begins. Regulated breathing changes brain state. Movement shifts the nervous system. Physiological fact.
"The research is not that mindfulness is nice for children. It is that it works — and that we are failing the children who don't have access to it."
THIS ISN'T FOR STRUGGLING KIDS. IT'S FOR EVERY KID.
Children Don't Have to Be in Crisis to Need This
You do not have to be struggling to benefit from these tools. But you will almost certainly struggle without them. The families who find us are as varied as childhood itself.
The child who seems totally fine
These children are still navigating the same pressure as everyone else. They may simply be spending enormous energy staying "fine" — energy that has to come from somewhere.
The child who is visibly struggling
Big reactions, meltdowns, shutdown, anxiety — not character flaws. The predictable result of a nervous system under pressure without tools. And completely addressable.
The child in the middle
Most children are doing their best with what they have. These children deserve tools too. Not because something is wrong. Because tools make everything better.
Whatever brought you here, you're in the right place.
Every child deserves these tools. The Mindfulness Movement™ exists to make sure they get them.
OUR FOUNDER
Why Tara Built This
"When I was a child, I heard a story at school that asked: 'What kind of footprint do you want to leave in the world?' My parents were going through a painful divorce and I was heartbroken. I remember thinking — I do not want any other child to feel this way."
That question planted a seed. It took years to understand what it would grow into. Creativity and movement were always Tara's languages — she was a competitive dancer her entire life, and movement was how she processed the world. But performing came with constant pressure. When she found yoga, she found something completely different: a space to move without performing, where the movement was for her, not for anyone watching.
In college, studying Child Psychology, she worked across every intersection of children and movement: teaching children's martial arts, dance, working in a Pilates studio, and performing as part of the Action Pack entertainment team for the Minnesota Timberwolves. Always in rooms with children. Always watching how they moved and felt and struggled and lit up.
Chapter 1
The Hospital. The Crisis. The Moment Everything Shifted.
During the pandemic, Tara began working at Children's Minnesota — in a building surrounded by the National Guard, with boarded-up windows and citywide curfews. There were nights the hospital went into lockdown and staff couldn't leave. The world was holding its breath. But what she saw inside was harder than any of that.
Child after child arriving in acute mental health crisis — kids who had needed support for months, finally reaching a breaking point. She was grateful to be there. And she couldn't shake a growing feeling: we were meeting them too late. She asked herself the childhood question again: What footprint do you want to leave? The answer was clear: reach children before the crisis. Not after.
Chapter 2
School. Students. Community. The Education That Shaped Everything.
She stepped into a full-time role as a licensed classroom yoga and mindfulness educator — the only position she'd ever seen that brought together everything she believed in. The vast majority of her students were refugees. English language learners, nearly every one of them, navigating language barriers, cultural displacement, and experiences that didn't fit neatly into any standard curriculum.
Movement needed no translation. A child who couldn't yet express in English what they were feeling could breathe and move and ground. Could make something with their hands. Could sit in a circle where the safety was real — and feel genuinely included.
She designed original curriculum for all children — accessible across language barriers, culturally responsive, but also built for children carrying complex, layered experiences. Curriculum that had to work under extraordinary conditions. And it did!
Chapter 3
When the Classroom Went Silent — and Went Global
Then schools closed. Students logged in from home through frozen Zoom screens — some from small apartments, some from environments that weren't safe. And yet, the kids still showed up. Their joy never faded. Their resilience forced Tara to teach herself to create: translating physical, embodied mindfulness into digital resources any teacher, anywhere, could use.
Those resources found their way around the world. Teachers far beyond Minnesota began using her curriculum. Her work quietly became something larger than any one classroom.
Chapter 4
The Pivot. And What Became The Mindfulness Movement™.
When in-person teaching returned, she returned with everything she had. But teaching yoga for eight hours a day, pouring everything into students with profound and complex needs, eventually took a physical toll. Her health suffered. She made a decision that changed everything: if this work was going to be sustainable, it couldn't look like this.
She created a traveling yoga studio — bringing the work to many communities instead of giving everything to one classroom until there was nothing left. That pivot became The Mindfulness Movement™.
Today, Tara serves nearly every school in the Mounds View and White Bear Lake districts. She brings Yoga Storytimes to children at Gillette Children's Hospital. She recorded a guided meditation for the Cafesjian Art Trust for the Chihuly Ceiling Exhibit. She leads Mindful Mornings at Churchill Street Restaurant. And she coaches kids yoga educators around the world.
The work that began in a child's heartbreak over her parents' divorce, deepened in a hospital during a global pandemic, and grew in a classroom of refugee children who taught her what resilience actually looks like — is now reaching families and educators on every continent.
Featured in Voyage Minnesota Magazine
voyageminnesota.com → Meet Tara Willits of The Mindfulness Movement →
CURRICULUM & GLOBAL IMPACT
Built From Scratch. Trusted Around the World.
Every program, every project, every reflection worksheet, every breathing buddy and sensory bottle and affirmation poem at The Mindfulness Movement™ was designed by Tara Willits from the ground up. Not licensed content. Not a franchise model. Original curriculum built through years of real-world teaching — in hospital settings, refugee classrooms, community programs, and thousands of individual sessions. That depth shows. And other educators noticed.
Educators in Every U.S. State & Internationally
Tara's digital curriculum — lesson plans, yoga sequences, SEL activities, mindfulness tools — is downloaded and used by educators worldwide. Teachers who have never met Tara use her curriculum to support children every day.
Developed for the Hardest Conditions
TMM curriculum was built for children with complex trauma, English language learners, students in crisis, and children navigating a global pandemic. Curriculum designed for those conditions works everywhere else.
Coaches Kids Yoga Teachers Globally
Through coaching and digital programs, Tara supports kids yoga educators around the world — helping them serve their students better and build sustainable teaching businesses. The community reaches educators on every continent.
"The overwhelmed teacher who starts our call in doubt and ends it with a spark in their eyes and a dream that finally feels within reach — that is what success means to me."
— Tara Willits
Every childools. The Mindfulness Movement™ exists to make sure they get them.
WHAT FIRSTHAND EXPERIENCE TAUGHT US
There is a difference between believing something and having watched it be true — in a hospital room during a pandemic, in a classroom of refugee children navigating unimaginable circumstances, in a Zoom session when kids showed up with their whole hearts through a frozen screen.
The conviction behind The Mindfulness Movement™ runs deeper than research. It runs through personal experience, across thousands of individual moments with individual children, in settings ranging from highly resourced to profoundly under-resourced.
The Research Says It Works. We've Seen It Work.
What that experience confirmed — in every setting, with every kind of child:
✔ Children's capacity for resilience is extraordinary — when given tools to access it
✔ Movement reaches children that language cannot — especially ELL and refugee students
✔ Safety comes before learning — a dysregulated nervous system cannot receive information, but movement can regulate it first
✔ These tools work across every demographic — refugee children, medical settings, children in crisis
✔ The earlier the better — but it is never too late!
Tara Willits — Full Credentials
✔ Child Psychology degree
✔ Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) certified
✔ Group Fitness Instruction certified
✔ Children's Minnesota Child Life Department
✔ 5,000+ classes · Twin Cities north metro
✔ 4 active Community Education partnerships
✔ Curriculum in all 50 states + internationally
✔ Minnesota Timberwolves · Gillette Children's Hospital · Cafesjian Art Trust
✔ Featured: Voyage Minnesota Magazine
✔ Formerly licensed classroom educator · ELL/refugee school
THE EDUCATOR BEHIND EVERY PROGRAM
Tara Willits — Founder & Educator
Every program at The Mindfulness Movement™ is designed, built, and — in most cases — personally led by Tara Willits. This isn't a franchise with rotating instructors. It's one educator, one consistent curriculum, one commitment to quality in every room she teaches in.
Child Psychology Degree
Formal academic foundation in child development, behavior, emotional regulation, and the psychological needs of children across developmental stages. This shapes every program decision.
Therapeutic Crisis Intervention (TCI) Certified
Clinical certification covering de-escalation, trauma-informed care, and crisis prevention — skills that most yoga instructors never receive and that Tara applies in every classroom she enters.
Group Fitness Instruction Certified
Professional certification ensuring sessions are designed with physical safety, developmental appropriateness, and pedagogical rigor.
Children's Minnesota Child Life Department
Prior professional experience working directly with children and families navigating serious medical experiences. This work shaped Tara's understanding of what children need when they're overwhelmed — and informs every calm, trauma-informed classroom she creates.
5,000+ Classes Taught
Across the Twin Cities north metro — in school gyms, community centers, libraries, birthday parties, after-school programs, summer camps, and community events.
Four Active Community Education Partnerships
Mounds View CE · White Bear Lake Area Schools · Roseville CE (ISD 623) · Centennial CE
OUR PROGRAMS
Mindfulness in Every Setting
Programs spanning the full spectrum of childhood — from toddlers to teens, from one-day camps to year-round weekly studios.
Mindful Movement Kids™ Studio Series
Year-round weekly classes at New Brighton CC. Monthly collectible badges. Ages Pre-K–5th grade.
School & Community Ed Programs
After-school yoga clubs through Community Education in Mounds View, White Bear Lake, Roseville & Centennial.
Make & Take: Calming Creations™
After-school sessions where children build real calming tools through creativity and SEL curriculum.
Mindful Movement Collective™
Middle school yoga & mindfulness — Grades 5–8. A judgment-free space. Launching August 2026.
Pose & Play™ Non-School Day Camps
Themed half-day camps on non-school days. MindfulCraft, Pumpkin Spice, Glow-Ga, Snow-Ga & more.
Kids Yoga Birthday Parties
Premium themed yoga birthday experiences. Custom sticker sheets, DIY crafts, full experience.