Abstract

Just as it’s important for you to have a healthy body, it’s also important to have a healthy mind. For a healthy body, you need to eat healthy food and do some exercise. But how do you keep your mind healthy? Perhaps exploring the meaning of things around us and thinking about how we should act in the world might help. That’s called philosophy! 

We wanted to know if doing philosophy with children had a positive impact on their mental health. We conducted a 5-week experiment – two elementary school classes took part in philosophy activities for children and we compared the results to another class which didn’t. We found out that philosophy increases kids’ sense of autonomy (the ability to choose things for yourself) and decreases their anxiety. It didn’t make them feel more capable or give them a greater sense of belonging, though.