Mindfulness has gained popularity for its easy and applicable nature and its positive benefits on mental, physical, and emotional health. Adults everywhere are beginning to integrate mindfulness and meditation into their everyday routines, and therapists are using mindfulness-based therapy to help clients overcome mental health obstacles.
With all of mindfulness’s proven benefits, is there any benefit for kids to meditate?
Yes! Mindfulness for kids and meditation for kids are powerful tools that can help kids at any age learn emotional regulation skills, coping skills, positive self-talk, and more. This article will cover what mindfulness for kids is and four easy strategies you can use to help your kids learn meditation.
What is the right age to start meditation?
The only prerequisite for learning mediation is being able to comprehend and follow simple instructions. Because of this, children as young as preschool-aged can benefit from mindfulness and meditation.
Meditation doesn’t always look like sitting still and trying not to think about anything. Mindfulness for kids can be active and often uses their imagination or five senses to help ground them in themselves and the world around them.
Benefits of mindfulness for kids
Kids of all ages can benefit greatly from mindfulness and meditation. Some benefits include:
- Improved Focus and Attention: Mindfulness practices help children enhance their ability to concentrate, focus on tasks, and stay present in the moment, leading to better performance in school and other activities.
- Increased Emotional Regulation: Mindfulness teaches children how to understand and manage their emotions effectively, leading to reduced reactivity and improved self-control in challenging situations.
- Stress Reduction: Mindfulness techniques provide children with tools to cope with stress, anxiety, and overwhelming emotions, promoting a sense of calm and resilience in the face of difficulties.
- Enhanced Social Skills: By cultivating awareness and empathy, mindfulness helps children develop better communication skills, empathy towards others, and the ability to cultivate positive relationships.
- Better Sleep Quality: Practicing mindfulness before bedtime can help children relax their minds and bodies, leading to improved sleep quality and overall well-being.
- Boosted Self-Confidence: Mindfulness empowers kids to build a positive self-image, trust their abilities, and develop a sense of self-worth, promoting resilience and confidence in themselves.
- Promotion of Creative Thinking: Mindfulness encourages children to explore their creativity, think out of the box, and approach challenges with an open and curious mindset, fostering innovation and problem-solving skills.
- Support for Mental Health: Teaching mindfulness to kids at an early age can provide lifelong coping mechanisms for managing anxiety, depression, and other mental health issues, promoting emotional well-being and inner peace. If your teenager is struggling with their mental health, meditation and mindfulness can aid them in overcoming difficulties and building resilience.
By introducing mindfulness practices to children, we equip them with valuable life skills that enhance their overall mental, emotional, and social development, setting them on a path towards a brighter and more resilient future.
Meditation for Kids: Four Practices
There are many different mindfulness exercises you can teach children. When teaching mindfulness for kids, remember these principles:
- Keep it simple: Adult mindfulness often tries to engage many different senses or invoke complex visualizations and imagery. When teaching mindfulness to kids, keep it simpler. Focus on one sense at a time, keep your sentences and instructions simple and short, and try to instill one lesson or goal at a time.
- Ground them in their bodies: A great coping skill is being able to ground yourself in your physical environment. For kids, learning to ground themselves through their own bodies is a great way to promote body awareness, a growing skill at that time.
- Make sure they’re comfortable: Adults may be able to tolerate sitting cross-legged for 15-30 minutes at a time, but younger kids may struggle with it. Try incorporating pillows or blankets, or have the kids lay down or move their bodies to keep them comfortable and engaged.
You can get creative with the mindfulness technique you choose to teach. You don’t have to copy someone else’s approach exactly, especially if you have a unique situation for which you’re using mindfulness. It can also help to incorporate other tools in your mindfulness practices for kids. For example, using the emotion wheel in addition to mindfulness gives kids a visual to help them understand abstract emotions.
Some activities that can promote mindfulness for kids include:
- Spidey Senses: Perfect for young children, this is an easy and fun way to get kids to engage in their senses. Have the kids get into a comfortable position of their choosing and then tell them to activate their “spidey senses” and look around for all of the red things, or all of the circle things, or any other imagery-specific prompt. Next, tell them to focus on four things they can hear. Continue this through their five senses, and then end with them trying to focus on all of the senses around them for a few minutes.
- Yoga Poses: Yoga can be surprisingly simple. Instead of connecting many complex poses, have kids take a “wiggle break” in between complex or boring tasks with simple yoga poses. Instruct them how to do the tree pose, for example, by imagining roots growing from their foot on the ground. Then pretend the wind is blowing them and have them keep their balance for as long as possible. Downward dog is another simple pose. Have them practice lifting a leg and “wag their tail” by moving the leg up and down. This motor coordination will teach them about their body, with the added benefit of getting the wiggles out!
- Positive Affirmations Mantras: For kids a little bit older, positive affirmations can be incredibly helpful. Saying positive self-talk out loud helps make it real. Have your child write down three things they love about themselves (or write the list down for them). Then have them say the list out loud as a mantra. Make it fun by challenging them to shout their affirmations as loud as they can or whisper as softly as they can.
- “Power Beam” Visualization: Kids have a great imagination, so put that to use with visualizations! For example, have them lie down with their hands on their stomach. Next, have them close their eyes and imagine they have a superpower: their hands can beam strength into their body. With every exhale tell them to imagine one power word they want to have (for example: strength, courage, love, wisdom, kindness), and then have them imagine they can beam that power into themselves by placing their palm on their stomach.
These four mindfulness techniques are a good place to start teaching mindfulness for kids. Remember that mindfulness can be anything that connects kids to themselves, their emotions, or the world around them. The goal is to help them become present. It can be serious and quiet, or it can be silly and fun. Choose a mindfulness technique best for the situation, and encourage them even when they find it difficult.
If your child is struggling with their mental health but responds well to mindfulness, mindfulness-based children’s therapy can help. It can help with anxiety, depression, difficult life transitions, grief, and more. Contact Lifebulb for more information about how mindfulness-based children's therapy can help your child. We accept most major insurances and can help you find affordable therapy options without insurance if you need.