Stress Reduction Is Kids’ Stuff : Education: An acupressurist teaches relaxation techniques to help young Calabasas students handle various pressures, but not without some objections.

In body, they’re at school, laid out like dominoes on the floor of the classroom at Lupin Hill School in Calabasas. But in their minds, the second-graders are miles--even worlds--away, scampering with the animals in a lush forest and then mentally outfitting a magic cabin with whatever amenities their 7-year-old brains can conjure up.

With recorded nature sounds in the background, acupressurist Betty Mehling urges her students to turn on the “television set in your head” and imagine activities that are fun or restful. This exercise ends each of the half-hour “relaxation” lessons that Mehling has taught to thousands of children at Lupin Hill over the years.

“People don’t realize that children have stress,” whether from divorce or parental pressure to succeed or other situations, says Mehling, 46. “I’m teaching kids of the ‘90s how to cope.”

Most parents of Lupin Hill students endorse the regimen of deep breathing, muscle relaxation and visualization that Mehling promotes in six weekly half-hour sessions for students at the school, which runs from kindergarten through the fifth grade.

They say the sessions have enhanced their youngsters’ abilities to face such hurdles as academic tests, athletic events or visits to the doctor. Rather than letting fear or anger control their actions, children schooled in relaxation techniques are able to take deep breaths and think positive thoughts.

But at least one Lupin Hill parent describes Mehling’s program as a blend of New Age hocus-pocus and Far Eastern mysticism that collides with conservative Christianity--a criticism that has surfaced in regard to similar programs throughout the country. And some child psychologists also debunk the training.

“I’m sure she’s very sincere and believes in what she’s doing,” says James R. Buckley, an environmental lawyer whose two stepchildren are sent to the school library during Mehling’s relaxation sessions. “But she is impacting the mental and spiritual development of my children in a way I disapprove of.”

Fundamentalist Christian groups elsewhere contend that programs similar to Mehling’s cross over into religion.

Education officials in Michigan, for example, were accused of “putting children in altered states of consciousness” with deep-breathing relaxation techniques. The exercises were pulled when they became the subject of a political debate, says Bob Harris, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Education.

California’s health education framework includes the goal of teaching students how to manage stress and their emotions. But the methods are up to each school or district.

Several parents and students attest to the effectiveness of Mehling’s lessons.

“At first we were skeptical,” parent Jon Blank admits. “But we thought we’d give it a shot, and it’s worked out really well.

“It’s really helped him in terms of focusing and in terms of his concentration,” he says of his son Evan, 8. “He’s able to put other thoughts out of his mind at the moment and focus on what he has to do--for example, in his piano playing and in his karate.”

Evan says he takes deep breaths and imagines himself “looking mean” as he gets ready for his many karate tournaments. At night, before going to bed, he also uses muscle-relaxation techniques and visualization of a faraway land--”like Egypt or the desert”--to relax.

“Years ago, he used to be a very erratic sleeper,” his father says. “Now he falls asleep in 10 minutes.”

A vivacious, curly haired woman who dons a Betty Boop sweat shirt whenever she goes to Lupin Hill, Mehling began offering the classes 12 years ago when her son was in the first grade at the school. She has written a book about acupressure and produced a cassette aimed at teaching visualization techniques to children.

Mehling admits that some of what she teaches at Lupin Hill is derived from Asian folk medicine and her training as an acupressurist. She teaches children to press “power centers” on various parts of their bodies to “release trapped energy” or to relieve symptoms of certain illnesses, such as nasal congestion.

She adds that visualization and guided mental imagery--often inimical to conservative Christians’ beliefs--are commonly used by professional athletes.

“It’s just playing out positive images in your mind,” Mehling says. “It’s real visual for a kid when I say, ‘If I were Magic Johnson and I were facing the hoop, and people were screaming and time was running out, I could toss the ball and watch it hit the rim and go out, or I could see in the TV set in my mind that it goes in.’ ”

Child psychologists and other experts agree that children nowadays experience more stress than they did even a decade ago. With the rising incidence of divorce and increased pressures to experiment with gang involvement, drugs or sex, children--especially those in an urban setting--encounter more problems than ever before.

Even in Calabasas, an affluent, mostly white suburban enclave largely untouched by inner-city turmoil, the social milieu has changed, some say. Last year, a UCLA survey found that high school juniors in the Las Virgenes Unified School District, which serves Calabasas, reported using hallucinogenic drugs, alcohol and cigarettes more frequently than their peers statewide.

Teachers at Lupin Hill also say the home life of their pupils has changed.

“Lupin Hill is a school with a number of families who are no longer together,” says second-grade teacher Tracey Wymond, adding that the change has been especially rapid over the past few years. “Well over 50% of the students in my class are not with the original two parents. Because of that, they have emotional pressures that you and I never had to deal with.

“A lot of the stress that 7- and 8-year-olds have is from a feeling of powerlessness. By giving themselves a way to relax their bodies and take away stress, it gives them a feeling of having some control over their lives.”

But the issue of control ignites some of the criticism.

To Buckley, what Mehling teaches is the dangerous idea that her students can master themselves and the world around them without God’s help. He withdrew his youngsters from the relaxation course two years ago after watching a presentation by Mehling to the campus parent-teacher group.

“I was genuinely concerned and disturbed by the things she was showing that she did--it caught me by surprise,” Buckley says. “The course that Betty teaches, while not knocking her goals . . . elevates man and his own mind in place of God.

“If you take some of these exercises in isolation, I don’t have a problem with it, like breathing exercises--you’re becoming aware of your own body. But when she crosses over into meditation techniques and guided imagery, and ‘energy-balancing’ and acupressure, I’m skeptical both spiritually and scientifically.”

He accuses Mehling of incorporating thinly veiled facets of Far Eastern religious practices into her lessons. But Mehling denies that her class is religion in disguise.

“I happen to feel I’m an extremely spiritual person, but I don’t put it in my work with children,” she says. “My class is purely without spiritual philosophy.”

Only four families so far have pulled their children from the relaxation classes, although it is unclear if all were motivated by religious objections, school officials said.

Byron Egeland, a child psychology professor at the Institute of Child Development in Minneapolis, has different reservations about child relaxation classes. Although the concept of learning to relax is valid, he says, children need to learn how to deal actively with their problems, rather than to escape to imaginary places.

“Relaxation might be fine because people don’t function very well when they’re anxious,” he says. “But a better strategy would be to help them develop coping mechanisms to deal with the stresses they experience. . . . It’s important that kids learn to cope with their problems through some active approach. I don’t think children ought to be taught to deal with their problems with a passive withdrawal.”

But Mehling emphasizes that her techniques are a means rather than an end.

“What it does is clear the mind,” she says of her methods. “The possibility of being able to problem-solve comes directly out of the imagination.”

For her, the best evidence that her methods work is the testimony of many of her present and former students.

Several say they breathe deeply to relax before spelling tests or athletic events or even when relating to unruly siblings. Some say they even try to get their parents to use the techniques to deal with problems ranging from traffic stress to the loss of a job. One woman, whose son has leukemia, says Mehling’s efforts have enabled him to face often painful medical treatment calmly.

“Studies have shown that children who learn coping skills early become adults who cope well,” Mehling says. “Who doesn’t want that for their kids?”