Meditation can be incredibly helpful for calming the mind and body. Whether you already meditate or are interested in starting a practice, have you ever considered introducing meditation to your child? You might be surprised to see the difference it makes in how they feel.
In fact, one day, during the time I set aside for my own practice I realized just how powerful it was for my daughter.
One weekend morning before I went to my room to meditate, I told my partner and daughter that I would be doing so, just so that I wasn’t interrupted. I go to our room, close the door and sit and begin when I hear this light knocking on the door. My five year old daughter wanted to be with me and sit next to me. At first I thought this would be a time reserved for myself to sit in quiet meditation. Though seeing that she wanted to do as I was doing, I thought it would be a great opportunity to teach her and tell her about it. So we sat together and began, but it wasn’t before long that she wanted to get up to talk and play.
Meditation doesn’t come easy to adults, let alone a 5 year old child. So, I decided to try and guide her through a meditation talking about breathing and bringing her attention back to her breath…it worked for a few minutes and she sat quietly attempting to meditate once again. When she became tired of the practice, after several minutes we stopped and went about our weekend activities.
A few days after she came up to me asking if she could meditate again and I said “Sure!”, but this time I decided to select a guided meditation for kids that I had found on Spotify. She loved it! The cool thing was that she sat through the entire thing on her own and not only finished the 15 minute practice, but asked me to put another one on for her….I was pretty surprised. I found the guided meditation that was tailored to kids actually helped her do calming visualizations that she enjoyed. She ended up doing 30 minutes of guided meditation that day! She also was calmer after the session.
So if you ever want to introduce your child to meditation, I highly recommend putting on a story-based children’s guided meditation for them that they can follow. It can be a great skill for them to learn and can make a difference in how they feel throughout the day.
Do you and your children meditate? If so, what techniques do you use?
Let us know. We’d love to hear from you!
