Simple Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids

You and your child deserves to be less stressed!

Pause for even 20 seconds while reading this and give your full attention to becoming aware of your whole body. Notice any sensations like muscle tension, or feeling warm or cold. Notice what you’re thinking and feeling, you’ll gain the experience of being mindful.

It’s incredibly simple, yet most people can go through the whole day focusing on what they’re doing with little to no attention on how they are being, how they are truly feeling. People speak, act and make decisions spurred by their feelings, yet will be often unaware of what those feelings are.

When we take a moment to tune in, we tend to notice our breathing. We naturally adjust it to take in more air. Noticing how we feel brings a natural desire to do what needs to be done to come back to more balance. We might realize we need to relax our shoulders or drink some water, or go outside and enjoy our natural environment. Noticing high levels of frustration allows us to acknowledge that frustration, which in itself takes us a step towards being back in a calmer state and feeling more capable. Noticing our stress (rather than just acting out because of it) brings a natural urge to reduce our stress and relax more tends to emerge just from a few seconds of becoming mindful.

Managing our stress is a big job as parents

We all crave more peace and harmony in our families, and it’s easy to keep focusing on managing the kids. Managing everything that needs to be done on a daily basis. Equally, we need to work on creating more peace and harmony in our inner world and help our children do the same.

13 Simple Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids

1. Allow your child to decide how long the hug lasts

   This results in a parent being more present with their child in the hug. This slows the breathing pattern, allowing the child to relax more into the hug and enjoy the experience together.

2. Become mindfully present with your child every time that you can

   As they share their thoughts or their feelings, this allows them to be mindfully present with their own experience.

3. Enquire into your child’s thoughts, feelings and sensations with patience and curiosity

   Every time you do, you encourage them to do the same. This helps them develop the habit of tuning in to themselves.  When you reflect on their feelings; “you seem frustrated honey? What’s going on for you? – this helps them build their feelings vocabulary and know their feelings.

4. Ask “Where do you feel that in your body?”

   You’re teaching mindful awareness of their body’s sensations.

5. Reflect on what you see and enquire calmly about their in-the-moment experience

   This helps them see their own experience; “I notice you’ve dropped your head and your shoulders are slumped, is that because you’re feeling sad, or maybe exhausted? (Your question helps them self-enquire).

6. Narrate your experience of being present, and it encourages them to do the same

   “I love sitting here listening to the birds sing”. Or “I’m just going to sit here until I’ve slowed my breathing down and released my stress”. Or “I feel so much calmer after letting myself cry”.

7. Do yoga together

   Guiding them to fully breathe when it feels hard. Search YouTube for kids’ yoga videos for some ideas.

8. Factor in downtime in the day

   Talk about the importance of downtime, so that everyone recognises this important need to de-stress.

9. Allow and create space for non-directive play, especially in nature

   When they’re fully absorbed in their experience, avoid interrupting them if possible, they’re strengthening their ability to maintain focus.

10. Be present and empathise when they become upset and overwhelmed during an activity

    Acknowledge that it’s hard and frustrating, but allow them to go back and try again instead of redirecting them to a task that’s easier.

11. Practice slow and deep breathing

    Help them notice how it changes their levels of stress, frustration, anger, anxiety or anticipation. Alternative nostril breathing is a good one to do.

12. Give your child a massage

    We all know how that can bring us back to our body awareness so powerfully.

13. When your child is lying down, put your hand on their belly.

    Invite them to notice how your hand moves as they breathe in and out, speak just enough to get them engaged in noticing this, then ask “Does it help you relax when you watch your body breathing in and out?”

The role of mindfulness in peaceful parenting 

Learning to better manage our stress is our responsibility as parents. To live in a more peaceful and harmonious family, we need to develop more peace and harmony in our inner world.  Every time we choose to be mindful, we practice focusing our mind and strengthening our mental “muscles” in a similar way to strengthening our physical muscles through exercise.

Stress hijacks your child’s brain

A certain amount of stress is normal, unavoidable and indeed necessary.  Yet, children are very sensitive to stress. They function very well when stress levels rise and they don’t get enough relief.  Too much elevated stress leads to an endless list of emotional and even health problems.  Managing difficult behaviours is largely about helping children manage their stress.  The more effective we are at managing our own stress, the more equipped we’ll be to manage our children’s stress.

Becoming mindfully present again and again rewires the brain

In the more traditional parenting approach, most of the communication relates to what family members are doing or not doing. Not enough compassionate attention is applied to what family members are feeling and their emotional needs.

But the good news is that according to neuroscientists, the more we repeat an activity, the more likely we are to repeat it. Every time a parent acknowledges their child’s stress and frustration (“Oh honey this is so stressful/frustrating for you isn’t it”), the child is supported and encouraged to be more mindful of their own stress levels.

Just like those habits of deflecting, reacting to and trying to avoid emotional discomfort were hardwired into us. The more we practice mindfully becoming present in our experience, the more likely we are to do the same again and again and teach our children to do the same.

Mindfulness helps children focus, listen and better manage emotions

When a parent helps their child lower their stress, they help their child to be present enough to focus, to listen to family members, their parent included and generally function better. Stressed children can’t access their prefrontal cortex and do the problem-solving or see things from another’s perspective. They lose their ability to think creatively. When operating from the stress response, we become quite limited and even primal in our responses to threatening (stressful) situations.All of the child’s or the parent’s most dysregulated behaviour is driven by a dysregulated internal state. This will basically tend to fit into one form or another of fighting (like being rebellious and reactive), flighting (storming off, walking away, getting lost in their activity and shutting everyone else out, or freezing (numbing, becoming lost for words, unable to know what to do or not do).

Mindfulness brings back more balance to the right and left hemispheres of the brain while settling an overactivated amygdala, our emotional centre.

Mindfulness brings mental and emotional relief

And it evokes valuable insight into what we really need and how to access those needs. When we re-balance in this way, we regain access to important brain functions like problem-solving, creative thinking and empathy.  It will look different for each parent or teacher, but every adult who has the responsibility of caring for children needs to weave practices to slow down and do some inner reflection and gain more connection with their inner world if they’re to be more tuned in and sensitive with the children in their world.

Genevieve Simperingham is a Psychosynthesis Counsellor, a Parenting Instructor and coach, public speaker, human rights advocate, writer and the founder of The Peaceful Parent Institute. Check out her articles, Peaceful Parenting eCourses, forums and one-year Peaceful Parenting Instructor Training through this website or join over 90,000 followers on her Facebook page The Way of the Peaceful Parent.