While mindfulness is sometimes taught at schools, parents can also practice it at home with their kids. Incorporating mindfulness into your child’s daily routine will help them learn how to manage their feelings, emotions, and thoughts. Plus, it creates a space for bonding and open conversation.
Here are a few ways parents and caregivers can incorporate mindfulness into a child’s daily routines:
Practice Mindfulness During Meals
You can teach mindfulness to your child before, during, and after every meal. Before any meal, help your kid learn how to identify hunger cues. You can ask them how they feel when hungry, for instance, if they have headaches or a growling stomach.
During meals, encourage your child to identify the sensation of the food — how it looks, tastes, and smells. Encourage them to slow down and chew one bite of food for 20-30 whole seconds, describing their experience.
After the meal, ask them to describe the signals their body sends when they are full.
As a result, they can develop a better connection to their senses.
Take Guided Meditation Walks
Meditation walks help improve your child’s physical well-being, such as blood flow and digestion, and calm their mind. The walk is an engaging activity that teaches them what to do when they want to tune into their mind and body.
While walking, invite them to focus on their feet and steps; ask them how they feel when walking and what they see in the surroundings. You can also ask them to describe how their entire body feels while walking.
Encourage Mindful Breathing
Breathing exercises are another fun and friendly way of calming your child’s mind. Encourage them to take slow, deep belly breaths and describe how their lungs and body feel as they breathe.
Try mindful breathing when your kid wakes up, at bedtime, or when they are feeling anxious or angry.
Some examples of breathing exercises are:
Box Breathing – inhale four seconds, hold four seconds, exhale four seconds, hold four seconds, repeat.
Cyclic Sighing – encouraging and drawing out the exhale, even audibly sighing if it helps. Breathe in for four seconds, hold for four seconds, exhale for seven seconds, and make sighing noises.
Teach Positive Affirmations
Affirmations are a great way of promoting positive thinking in your child’s life. They not only make them feel good but also increase their self-esteem.
You can teach positive affirmations to your kids by:
- Sneaking them into their lunchbox or backpack
- Writing them on notebooks, journals, or books
- Drawing them on the mirror
- Singing affirmations in songs
Mindful Meditation
Mindful meditation helps your child develop feelings of safety, empathy, and stability. Additionally, it can help improve your child’s sleeping patterns, enhancing their self-esteem and creating solid mental resilience.
Here are some ideas options for teaching meditation to your kids:
- Create meditation songs and games
- Encourage still sitting
- Introduce mindful eating
- Practice sleep meditation
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