Our fast paced society and jam packed lives have made it increasingly more convenient to quiet our kids with electronic devices. These mind-numbing devices, when used excessively, can diminish our children’s ability for mindfulness. Mindfulness has been quite the buzz word over the last few years, but does it really benefit kids?
What is mindfulness? Mindfulness can be a practice that allows one to be in the present moment. This is typically done by accepting our feelings, emotions, and thoughts, through allowing ourselves to fully experience these senses. Typically mindfulness practices are optimized in a calm state of being through meditation or deep breathing exercises.
Why Mindfulness for Kids?
In the hustle and bustle of our lives, we are seeing all kinds of attention based behavioral challenges with our kids. Narcissistic tendencies are becoming more prevalent within our children. Utilizing mindfulness can help our kids have more appreciation for life and help them to stay in the present moment. Just helping them to slow down a little bit can help in a big way. Here are some of the benefits of mindfulness for kids:
Stress Relief
Our kids face all kinds of stressors in their lives and can struggle with identifying ways to cope. In my experiences through adolescent social work, I’ve seen the growing increase in childhood trauma and the need to help kids build positive coping strategies for a myriad of things that cause stress. It doesn’t even take a major traumatic experience or mental health disorder for stress to occur in our kids’ lives. It’s just inevitable that we will face stress at some point. Helping kids learn mindfulness skills can be another positive tool to help them through these difficult times.
Increase Creativity
Creative thoughts tend to flow more freely when our minds are calm. When kids are able to be aware and in the present it will help them to easily access their creative brain functioning. Spending hours on mind-numbing devices kills the creative brain, diminishing the ability to develop talents, passions, or new ideas.
Improve Focus
This is probably one of the biggest outcome goals for practicing mindfulness for kids. Helping kids to slow down their thoughts can help improve their attention span. As kids are able to have more clarity of mind it can ease their ability to learn.
Emotional Regulation
Tantrums tend to occur as kids get amped up. They lose their sense of ability to self-regulate during those emotional floods which lead to unwanted behavioral expressions. Helping them practice mindfulness strategies can bring more peace into their lives or awareness of their emotional experiences.
Connecting with Others
As a child’s ability to develop and express gratitude improves through mindfulness, they’ll be more likely to be someone that is kind to others. Being friendly to other children will allow them to develop more meaningful relationships.
How to Teach Mindfulness
It’s one thing to learn and practice mindfulness for ourselves, but teaching it to children is a whole other challenge. If you’re thinking you aren’t the Dali Lama, don’t worry, with a little practice you can teach your kids some mindfulness strategies in no time. Just keep in mind that they’re still kids so it’s going to be more about celebrating those little victories then expecting immediate perfection. Have fun with it, be patient, and enjoy the process with your kids. Here are a few teaching strategies to help on your journey:
Use Music
Music is something that is easily relatable for kids. Soothing music can be a good guide for kids to concentrate on while helping them with attention exercises. Do different activities like redirecting them to focus on the music for a short duration of time or going from short durations of loud to quiet.
Speak their Language
Kids need simple instructions and words they’re going to understand. If you say things like “impulse control” or “manifesting emotions” it’s probably going in one ear and out the other. Ask them things like “how they are feeling inside right now” or “what they see around them” to help them understand awareness.
Observe Surroundings
When you go on drives, bike rides or walks put the electronic devices away and help your children be in the present by observation. Ask them to point out various objects of their surroundings or listen to the different sounds. You can make games out of it like I spy.
Do it Together
A great way to teach kids is by modeling the behavior. Lead your child in a meditation or breathing activity and encourage them to do it together with you. Doing this consistently for a few minutes each day can help bring great results.
Encourage the Five Senses
Having your children look, listen, touch, feel, hear, and taste with more purpose will help them be more mindful. Doing things like helping them to slow down when eating and really taste their food or helping them to really feel a warm embrace or pet an animal can work wonders on being more present.
Develop an Attitude of Gratitude
Helping your kids recognize what they have is a huge component of mindfulness. Some strategies to help kids recognize the blessings in their lives can be doing activities like prayer, journaling, or simply stating what they appreciate in their daily lives while at the dinner table.
Educational Programs
There are so many great books, posts, and resources to help parents teach mindfulness. One program to check it out called 7 minute mindfulness is a wonderful program to get you started with meditation in a simple delivery. If you’re looking at learning Zen practices to enhance your sense of happiness and relieve stress, check this step-by-step program out.
Mindfulness Activities
Now that we have learned more about what mindfulness is, how it can help our kids, and how we can teach it, it’s time to look at what they can do. Here are a few mindfulness activities for your kids to enjoy:
Listening Game: Spin a top, ring a ball, use a gong, or anything that makes a vibrating sound for a period of time. Ask the children to listen as long as they can and raise their hand when they can no longer hear the sound. Have them continue to listen for a duration of a minute and discuss any additional sounds they may have heard.
I Spy Game: Go for a walk or it can be played in a room. Have the kids identify something new and help others to identify it by giving clues. For example, describe an object by stating, “I spy something that is round or green.” Kids will continue to work to identify the same object.
Mystery Touch: Put a few different objects in a box like things that are rigid, smooth, fuzzy, etc. Without allowing the kids to see, have them reach into the box and feel different objects. Afterwards, have them describe what they feel.
Five Senses Game: Have your child go outside and either lay in the grass or go on a walk. Have them identify their five senses. What do they see, hear, touch, smell, and taste while being outside.
Jenga: This is a game that consists of balancing a stack of blocks. Individuals try to remove various blocks without causing the entire structure to fall. This game is often used many ways in therapy by writing statements on the blocks that the individual removes. You can write different mindfulness phrases for the child to practice like “breath 3 deep breaths or how does it feel to laugh.” As the child removes a block they answer the question or complete the mindfulness task.
Game of Song: One child makes a sound it can be humming, buzzing, or whatever crazy sound they want to make. The rest of the group joins in and replicates the sound until the sound dies out. This gets the kids to engage in replicating a sound and staying present with it.
Coloring Activity: Get a coloring book that has many small boxes in the objects. Have each child color in a couple of the boxes in silence, then pass it to the next child to do the same. This is great for children to focus on doing the task at hand.
To summarize, with all the things clamoring for our kids’ attention, mindfulness can be a great way to help your kids step back and have a sense of what is really important. Mindfulness can enhance your child’s life in so many ways, while helping them face whatever life will throw at them.
Please comment below on anything that you’ve enjoyed from this post.