Mindfulness may be often practiced by adults, but they can be done by kids too! Recently, there are many activities that has been made for children to enjoy and practice while on quarantine at home. Here are some ideas that you can teach or do with your child.
Mindfulness Benefits for Kids
Numerous studies have shown how beneficial mindfulness is, not only with adults but for kids too. Listed below are the benefits that your child will get from practicing mindfulness:
Stress Reduction
Adults are not the only one that gets stressed – kids do too! Mindfulness has the ability of shifting your child’s focus from one thing to another. Mindfulness can remove the present worries of your child at home or at school and bring their focus on practicing mindfulness. It redirects and trains them on how their minds should react during unexpected situations.
Emotional Regulation
Children are very expressive of their emotions and they have no problems doing it so. A study that focused on the different attention and behavioral issues found out that mindfulness is an effective therapy for kids who are known to have these issues. Aside from that, mindfulness help train them to focus their mind and reduces the anxiety that they are feeling. Lastly, mindfulness can regulate the different emotions that they experience making them understand these emotions.
Cognitive Improvement
Children continuously develops as time goes by. They learn a new set of skills on each step that allows them to focus on the tasks given by following the instructions or directions set. This set of skill is a must especially when they start schooling. They will be able to adapt at school and learn without any problems. Mindfulness has the ability to better improve these set of skills leading to a better adaptability when at school.
Strengthens Self–Control
Children often do tantrums whenever they did not get what they want or as a form of expressing their disappointments. One of mindfulness’ focus is on a person’s attention on their body and feelings – including their emotions. Mindfulness, when practiced by a child, not only shifts their attention but it also helps control their body and themselves too.
Improves Mood
Accepting the present moment is a vital part of mindfulness meditation. During this time, one should accept the emotions and experiences while meditating. This teaches your child to accept the pleasant and unpleasant emotions and eventually makes their emotional health good.
Good Social and Communication Skills
Kids are social beings. They can’t stop talking and playing with each other. Mindfulness improves their social and communication skills even at a young age. It increases their awareness of their emotions and other’s too. They are going to be good listeners and talker when they grow up, indeed!
Mindfulness Games for Children
1. Mindful Posing
Kids are very observant and often times mimic whatever the adult is doing. Mindful posing will definitely make your kids excited as it involves doing fun poses that will make them feel strong, brave and happy. They wouldn’t realize that by doing this, they are already practicing mindfulness!
Bring your child/children on the part of the house that is somewhere quiet. Next, let them try one of the following poses:
- The Superman – let them stand up with their feet wider than their hips, fists clenched and arms up in the sky. Let them reach the sky and stretch their body as tall as possible.
- The Wonder Woman – are you familiar with wonder woman’s pose? Stand tall with legs wider than hip and place the hands on the hips.
If you are familiar with other poses, you can let them try it. Ask the kids how they feel afterwards, and you will be surprised by their answers.
2. Spidey-Sense
Superheroes is just one of the kid’s favorite topic! Doing something related to this will guarantee that your child will be interested and will have a lot of fun too!
Spidey- senses is done by instructing your child to turn on their senses such as the sense of smell, sight, hearing, taste and touch. Tell them that these are what spiderman used to know when someone needs help. This will make them focus on the activity and open their awareness on these bodily sensations. This is just one of the classic practices of mindfulness made fun for children to do!
3. The Mindful Jar
The mindful jar is a good activity to teach your children how emotions (strong ones) can overwhelm a person and how to eventually find peace after.
First, prepare an empty jar, glitters and water for this activity. Then, fill the jar with water and put a big spoonful of glitter inside the jar. Close the lid and shake it to make the glitter swirl. Lastly, use the following script as a mini lesson:
“Imagine that the glitter is like your thoughts when you’re stressed, mad or upset. See how they whirl around and make it really hard to see clearly? That’s why it’s so easy to make silly decisions when you’re upset – because you’re not thinking clearly. Don’t worry this is normal and it happens in all of us (yep, grownups too).
(Now put the jar down in front of them.)
Now watch what happens when you’re still for a couple of moments. Keep watching. See how the glitter starts to settle and the water clears? Your mind works the same way. When you’re calm for a little while, your thoughts start to settle and you start to see things much clearer. Deep breaths during this calming process can help us settle when we feel a lot of emotions” (Karen Young, 2017).