Teach Mindfulness to Kids in 3 Steps
Mindfulness is becoming a way of life. I see meditation cross the headlines of mainstream news stations while I sip my morning coffee. Local bookstores carry more self-help books than ever before. We are in an age of information, and people are taking advantage of readily available tools and methods for a better, more connected life.
The mental health stigma is slowly fading away and as a society, we are beginning to understand that it’s OK to not be OK. Experiencing emotions is a normal and natural part of being human. Having a wandering mind that worries and plans and regrets and imagines is normal, too. People are starting to pay attention and notice what’s happening in their internal lives. This is good progress, especially during a global pandemic. We are learning that we need to take good care of our emotional and mental health, particularly when our social interactions are at an all-time low.
For those of you who have kids, teach them, care for them (or care about them), you may be wondering how to bring more peace, awareness, and compassion into your child’s life. 2021 is an ideal time to offer our children the mindfulness tools they need to navigate a challenging life. You may be asking yourself, where do I start? How do I teach mindfulness to my child?
This is a question that I hear more and more as we enter a new age of being. If you know little kids, you know they are like sponges. They soak up everything you say and do, repeat you, copy you. They want to go where you’re going, and use what you’re using. I should add, they can also get you to reach your breaking point really quickly by doing this!
Nestful’s goal is to help you integrate mindfulness into your child’s life. We want the next generation to have the skills to live a more mindful life, and not feel like it’s something “they need to do.” And the best part is, anyone can practice regardless of age, race, socioeconomic status, political affiliation and sexual preference. If you have a mind, a body and a breath, you can build these skills. From our own experience, teaching mindfulness to kids is a three-step process.
Regulate Yourself – Embody your own mindfulness practice.
Attune to Your Child – Name what’s happening. State what you notice without trying to fix it or minimize it or change it.
Empower them with techniques – teach them practices that can support them in the moment.
Imagine you’re learning to drive a car, and your friend who is supposed to teach you, doesn’t have a car or a license.
This is essentially what happens when we try to teach our kids mindfulness without having practiced ourselves.
When a child is angry because he can’t find the toy he wants we might frustratingly comment, “Don’t be mad just because you lost your Legos. Here, play with this ball.” Not only does it not make any sense to our child, but it is entirely unhelpful. When our own frustration gets in the way of seeing and hearing our child’s anger, we are acting just like the friend who has never driven a car before, but thinks they can teach you how to drive. Not only does your friend lack the experience, she also doesn’t have the right tools to give you what you need.
What would be useful in this situation if we could utilize our own mindfulness practice to pause, notice our own frustration with our child. Then shift our direction and notice our child’s anger. Instead of trying to fix or solve their anger, we could offer them a mindfulness tool to manage it.
Nestful blog will dive deeper into this three-step process with tips, tools and insights so that you can bring mindfulness into your nest whether that be your house, classroom, place of work or the home inside of yourself. You’ll have the techniques to incorporate mindfulness into your own life, which will help you support your child. This is a practice, not to make perfect, but to make progress with your emotions and your relationships. And you already have all you need to get started (your mind, body and breath).
We envision a peaceful world filled with compassionate, kind and self-aware human beings. The practices instilled in our children become the habits and patterns of our adults. Simply put, our children are our future.
3 Steps for Sharing Mindfulness with your child:
Regulate Yourself
Attune to Your Child
Empower Children