PLUS: Free Downloadable and Printable Mindfulness Activity For Kids
Mindfulness, meditation, holistic wellness… Our vocabulary is expanding with new terms for mental and spiritual health. Mindfulness is a term that you have likely heard of but aren’t clear on how it is distinct from meditation. If you are raising young children and choosing a gentle, compassionate parenting style (good for you!), mindfulness is a perfectly aligned practice to teach your children. Read on to learn how to teach mindfulness to your children through mindfulness activities for kids.
What is mindfulness?
Even though they seem synonymous, mindfulness and meditation differ from each other slightly. Meditation is usually meant to indicate a practice of stillness, silence, and self-awareness for a set period of time, whereas mindfulness is a more general term that refers to inviting some of the self-awareness of meditation into everyday activities. Meditation is usually practiced while seated, lying down, or even walking. Mindfulness can be practiced while washing the dishes, while having a difficult conversation with your partner, or while going about your morning routine. Mindfulness encourages presence through awareness of your surroundings as well as the physical sensation in your body, the emotions you feel, and the thoughts you are having. Have you noticed that while doing one thing, you’re often thinking of something else, or even listening to or watching something else simultaneously? Mindfulness is aligning your mind with your present by turning your attention to where you are, what you’re doing, who you’re with, and how you feel. As you can imagine, this is an incredibly helpful practice for people who struggle with overthinking or anxious thought patterns focused on either the past or the future. It is also useful for staying tuned in to your body and recognizing when tension is arising, or when a break or some movement might be needed.
Why is mindfulness important for children?
Mindfulness - placing awareness on the present moment - does not come easily to us, especially as we get older and responsibilities inevitably pile up. Once one gets fully immersed in the stress and drama of everyday adult life, it is very difficult to create the space and energy required for learning new self-care habits. Offering the opportunity for your children to learn mindfulness for kids lays a healthy foundation for them as they grow up. Perhaps a young child doesn’t need mindfulness for managing the stress of working two jobs and paying off the mortgage (we hope not, anyway), but mindfulness is an amazing tool for something else: emotional regulation. Having a trained awareness of your feelings, and bodily sensations allows you to identify and soothe strong emotions before they become overwhelming and either take complete control, or get pushed way down and repressed.
On top of the intuitive body awareness, having an awareness of your thoughts and words is also a key practice in mindfulness. As children are developing their cognition and speech, it is crucial that they set patterns that are kind and loving. Even if they are not saying something negative about themselves, they might be silently internalizing a negative belief in their minds. Mindfulness encourages positive self-talk (out loud and in the head!) through empowering I am affirmations. By learning to listen to their thoughts carefully rather than receive them automatically, children develop the capacity to take sovereignty over their mental space and consciously replace negative thoughts with positive ones.
If you’re thinking, “I wish I had these tools as a child”, then this is the perfect practice to offer to your young ones. Some of us cannot even imagine what it would be like to have so much positivity and love in our youth, but we have the power today to break those cycles.
3 ways to teach your child mindfulness
As mentioned, mindfulness has several benefits: emotional regulation, mental sovereignty, and body sensation awareness. Here are three activities that address each of those factors: the emotional, mental, and physical. Practice them with your child to teach them mindfulness, and don’t be afraid of adapting them to your child’s unique needs and adding your own creative twists.
Mindful Breathing For Kids
Our breath is the most dependable and accessible anchor to bring us back to earth when we are overwhelmed. The emotions we feel directly impact the depth and pace of our breathing. If anxious, we might have a tight belly and our breathing is stuck high up in the chest. If we are feeling distressed or panicky, we might be breathing very quickly. Young children are no strangers to strong emotions! And those big emotions we feel as kids are the same ones we feel later in life, for different reasons, so it’s important to learn how to deal with them. Mindful breathing is similar to mindfulness meditation; it means becoming aware of how we are breathing and then consciously adjusting the rhythm to signal to the nervous system that everything is ok. Mindful breathwork for kids can look like counting the seconds of each inhale and exhale, counting the breaths down from 10, filling the belly up like a balloon, or many other techniques. Once the heightened sensations in the body are relaxed, the child has more space for clarity on and communication about how they are feeling.
Positive Affirmations For Kids
Have you ever caught yourself thinking or saying something about you that you would never direct toward another person? We are incredibly harsh self-critics and often choose to focus on and enhance the negative while completely ignoring the positive, like when a snarky comment can ruin your whole day but a genuine compliment seems to go in one ear and out the other. These thought patterns and self-concepts are like a mental blueprint that was drawn when we were growing up and soaking in everything we could about ourselves and our place in the world. Because of a child’s deep desire to belong and be loved, they are hyper sensitive to recognizing what they did wrong or how they are differently flawed. Negative self-beliefs get so deeply internalized that they form the basis for a person’s lifelong self-esteem. Positive affirmations are empowering statements, usually beginning with “I am”, that are read, listened to, or spoken out loud in order to boost confidence and practice self-love. Imagine you could go back in time and tell your childhood self something they needed to hear. “You are enough”, “you are loved”, “you are beautiful exactly as you are”. Have many of us heard this often enough in life, or ever told it to ourselves? By consciously practicing positive self-talk and being mindful of any negative voices that arise, you can lay the groundwork for a healthy self-esteem and kind inner-voice in your child. Consider using positive affirmation cards for kids to introduce your child to mindful activities for kids.
Mindful Movement Exercises For Kids
How is mindful movement different from regular movement? For mindful movement for kids, put on some soothing music (nothing loud or jumpy) and invite your littles to “listen” to their bodies and let their bodies “talk” to them by moving. It doesn’t have to look any certain way; it can come out as dancing, it can come out as stretching, it can come out as simply lying down. As they move, ask your child to “translate” what the body is saying to them. The child can ask their body questions, too, such as “does anywhere hurt?”, “am I hungry or thirsty?”, “where is it soft, where is it tight?” This is a fun mindfulness exercise for kids of all ages.
This practice has the double benefit of strengthening mind-body connection as well as recalibrating your child’s energy. Excess energy can intuitively be danced or shaken off, blocked energy can be stretched or breathed out, and low energy can be stimulated.
Summary
Mindfulness is more than a practice; it’s a lifestyle. It is synonymous with presence and awareness, and is accessed through our five senses as well as the observation of our inner world. Taking a mindful approach to life’s events enhances the ability to regulate and communicate emotions, consciously build healthier inner narratives, and feel grounded in our body’s natural intuition. Children who learn to regulate their emotions, listen to their bodies, and empower their minds will grow up happier, healthier, and more confident. Our mission is to teach mindfulness to children through play; Bishy Bishy Bash’s Positive Affirmation Friends are 100% cotton knit dolls with inspiring stories that each come with a deck of empowering positive affirmation cards for kids. Our strongest voice is our inner voice, so gift your child a voice of love, confidence, and kindness. The Positive Affirmation Friends teach children to speak love into the mirror and the world.
Click here for a free downloadable and printable mindfulness worksheet for kids. The Positive Affirmation Friends take your child on a mindfulness scavenger hunt!
