If you’re worried your child spends too much time on superficial activities, you should look into mindfulness for kids.
Teaching your kids about mindfulness will show them how to be aware of their surroundings and live in the moment.
Here are a few easy ways to teach them about mindfulness.
1. What are Your Expectations?
Before you begin with mindfulness for kids techniques, it’s important you set expectations. Are you doing it because you want to show them to be mindful, or because you want to calm them down and stop tantrums?
If you are trying to stop tantrums, it might not work as well because children might pick up on this energy. It’s also important you don’t force them to do anything they don’t want to.
2. Start by Keeping it Simple
It’s not easy to explain to a child what mindfulness is. To avoid losing their interest you need to present mindfulness as a fun game.
Children might be more willing to cooperate if there’s something at stake for them. Try to spark their curiosity.
3. Try the Bell Exercise
To teach them the importance of listening, try the bell exercise. Tell your children to pay attention to the sound of a bell after you ring it.
Have them stay quiet for a minute after you rang the bell and then tell you about the sounds they heard.
This will teach them to pay attention to the different sounds the bell makes. If the exercise sparks their curiosity they will apply it to other aspects of their lives.
4. Breathing Buddy Exercise
This is another exercise kids find to be fun. Tell them to grab their favorite stuffed animal or doll and lay on their back.
Have them place a stuffed animal on their bellies and stay quiet. Tell them to breathe in silence for about a minute while they pay attention to the movement of the stuffed animal on their chest.
Tell them to describe their experience to you afterward. This is a great meditation exercise for them.
5. Smell and Describe Exercise
Learning and describing things is an important part of being mindful.
Give them something fragrant to smell and tell them to close their eyes. Once they’re focused on the smell, ask them to describe it to you.
Click here to learn more about the power of words.
6. Make Them Aware of Textures
To develop their mindfulness, they should also be aware of the sense of touch.
Give them a textured object such as a feather, rock, or toy and ask them to describe the object.
They should describe how the object feels when they touch it. Encourage them to use descriptive terms, and how the object makes them feel.
Try Mindfulness for Kids Techniques
It’s possible to teach your kids about mindfulness without them even being aware of it.
You will give them the tools to become more aware of their surroundings and pay attention to things they never noticed before.
If you would like to learn more about meditation and mindfulness, visit our blog.
