Benefits of Mindfulness for Children
Mindfulness exercises have a lot of benefits for children.
Research shows that mindfulness training improves attention, memory processing, and decision-making skills.
It increases their curiosity resulting in increased self-awareness, social awareness, and self-confidence.
It also helps them regulate their emotions especially when they feel fear and anger.
Mindfulness has been shown to improve empathy and perspective taking, which improves their social skills.
Here are some guidelines for teaching your children mindfulness:
Make sure that they’re ready to give the exercises a try. If they’re distracted and want to play, you may want to introduce them to the exercises at a later time.
Explain the mindfulness exercises in an age-appropriate way and in words they understand.
Practice with them so you can model the exercises to them.
Tell them when they get distracted from doing the exercises to gently go back to doing the exercises.
I've looked at different sites to find out the different ways to do this and these are the ones I think kids will find interesting and fun.
The Body Scan
This is one of the most basic mindfulness practices. You can ask your child to sit or lie down and take note of what sensations they’re feeling starting from their head to their toes.
Mindful Walks
You can ask your child to do the “noticing walk.” You can walk around the neighborhood and ask you your child what he hasn’t noticed before. It could be a new neighbor, a new dog, the sound of a lawnmower, a butterfly or a new sign that somebody placed in their yard.
Spidey Sense
This is great for kids especially if they are into superheroes. Spider-man has a power called the “spidey sense” that warns him of danger. You can ask your child to activate the power by noticing 5 things she’s seeing, hearing, touching, tasting and smelling.
Gratitude Practice
You can ask him to play the Gratitude Game daily (check the picture above for instructions.) Another thing you could do with your child is each night before sleeping, spend time with them and ask them three people or things they are thankful for. Then share with them the three people or things that you are thankful for as well.
Mindful Eating
Eat a healthy snack with your child like an apple. Ask him to notice what it looks like. Ask him to touch it and notice how it feels touching and holding it. Have him smell it and finally taste it and notice how it tastes. Ask him to also notice the texture of the food and the sound of chewing it.
Mindful Posing
Have your child pose like a superhero like Superman or Wonder Woman. Ask her to put her hands on her hips, smile, have her feet slightly separated with head held high. Ask her how it feels when they do it.
Mindful Jar
This activity helps kids how to stay grounded when they feel strong emotions.
Get a jar and fill it almost with water. Put in a spoonful of glue and glitter and shake the jar. Tell your child that when he’s mad or upset, his thoughts are like the glitter swirling around in the jar. Explain to him how it’s difficult to see clearly and how we make silly mistakes when we’re upset. Inform him this happens to grown-ups too and it’s normal.
You then place the jar on the table and ask your child to notice as the glitter settles and the water clears. Tell him that just like the glitter, their thoughts will settle and when they get calm they get to see things clearly.
Sources:
https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/mindfulness-for-children-kids-activities/
http://msue.anr.msu.edu/news/teaching_kids_the_art_of_mindful_eating
https://www.kidsmatter.edu.au/mental-health-matters/mindfulness
http://leftbrainbuddha.com/10-ways-teach-mindfulness-to-kids/
Thanks for reading my post and I hope you got something useful out of it
May you have a meaningful life.
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