Mindfulness meditation for kids (how to boost their wellbeing)

How can you help your kids become more focused, confident, emotionally stable, and able to manage their frequent outbursts of bubbling emotions?

Can mindfulness meditation be a successful and reliable technique for kids? How exactly can mindfulness provide the much needed ”precious gift of space”?

Is it possible to develop these types of practices with young, energetic children?

We need to admit that in today’s world filled with one click-away irresistible distractions, our children’s lives are busier and more hectic than ever.

You have surely heard about mindfulness and meditation tools for young kids. However, you might feel hesitant and have some concerns related to its realistic use and benefits.

So, first, let us explore together what research has to say about it!

This article explores these questions and common concerns. It includes plenty of free resources, practical activities, and ideas you can start using right now.

It was initially perceived with skepticism and dismissed, mainly because of the esoteric labels of an ancient practice rooted in Buddhism for more than 2000 years. However, mindfulness has recently become a buzzword in the Western wellness world.

Notably, this practice has gained popularity since it sparked the interest of researchers across various domains.

Thus, a growing scientific body of research demystified the concept of mindfulness and documented the multiple benefits on the human body and mind.

According to Harvard Gazette, studies from neuroscience and psychiatry reported how this long-term practice could alter the brain’s grey matter and functions to improve mental conditions from stress to even serious depression.

Moreover, among numerous other benefits, research shows significant developments in essential areas such as attention, memory, the sense of self, supporting self-regulation of emotions, and empathy.

Additionally, scientific research revealed even from the mid-70s a myriad of benefits for body and mind: decreased blood pressure and heart rate, reduced levels of stress and anxiety, among others.

Recent studies show that daily or regular mindfulness meditation practice has significant beneficial effects on children too. Specifically, these target mental, cognitive, social, emotional well-being as well as physical health.

Most importantly, mindfulness can equip our kids with invaluable life skills, which will help them overcome potential challenges. Particularly, they can better manage their own feelings, develop social skills, and boost their academic performance.

In a nutshell, introducing children to regular meditation practices can:

• maximize focus even with children with ADHD³;
• enhance their potential for creativity and learning;
• develop CREATIVITY and boost SOCIAL and EMOTIONAL LEARNING;
• reduce anxiety⁴, resilience and promote emotional and self-awareness⁵;
• develop better decision-making skills;
• develop patience, compassion, and empathy.

Hopefully, now you are aware of the primary advantages of exploiting mindfulness. However, you might probably wonder how it is possible to implement this practice with young, energetic kids? If you are interested in some effective strategies to overcome anxiety, you can read our article here.

Fortunately, there is an increasing number of books, apps, and videos to determine how the process works. However, it might be overwhelming for someone unfamiliar with this topic. Hence, to help you establish a routine and introduce daily practices, we have curated some of the best mindfulness activities and techniques for kids.

This video can help you introduce kids to mindfulness through a simple exercise. It can be a great start until they learn this method. Essentially, it allows you to follow the four lines of a square while performing a breathing exercise. You breathe in along the ascending vertical line, holding your breath along the horizontal one. Of course, you breathe out along the descending vertical line, and the process resumes.

We selected the following set of exercises from Sarah Sherman’s (2020) recent mindfulness workbook for kids. We love this resource because it offers an engaging set of practical, necessary tools to help your kids or students to begin their mindfulness journey.

The workbook starts from the building blocks of mindfulness like breathing-work, body scans, and tuning to their senses. Additionally, it includes exercises to help them face their worries, find their focus, and foster a connection with themselves and the world around them.

There are some interesting and practical exercises in Chapter 4 (Get to Know your Feelings) to try with your kids so they can explore their feelings. It can really make a difference in their lives by enhancing their social and emotional skills.

This exercise aims to help children notice and name different emotions without judging them. They can draw balloons and write the names inside them. After that, the author suggests thinking about the colour they associate with their feelings. Is it bright or pale? Dark or light? Warm or cool?

Source: Activities from Mindfulness Workbook for Kids: 60+ Activities to Focus, Stay Calm, and Make Good Choices by Hannah Sherman LCSW, September 1, 2020.

This fun activity shows children how to be mindful of their feelings and how to explore, label, and recognize emotions and changes using weather conditions.

Basically, your child has to give you the ‘weather report’ on how they are feeling. For example: “I’m dark and cloudy with some raindrop tears coming out” (Source: Angela Pruess, 2018; more details here).

The process of revealing their emotions becomes easier and funnier by asking the question: What is the weather like inside you?

You can also find interesting ideas on how to implement this activity in a lesson plan: Forecasts of Feelings: Exploring Emotions using Weather here.

Popcorn thoughts

This exercise adapted from the course Overcome your Monkey Mind teaches children how to focus and control their distracting random popping thoughts. It is based on an analogy between a busy mind and a popcorn machine.

There are some great practices to help your younger kids to achieve a state of calmness and emotional stability. Here are some practical activities with toys:

Rock a-bye

This exercise (Greenland and Harris, 2017 ) will help young children relax their bodies and calm their minds. The simple idea of rocking a stuffed toy on the belly to sleep introduces kids to a useful breathing exercise: as they breathe in, the toy gently moves up. Conversely, while kids breathe out, the animal rocks down.

The authors suggest replacing the stuffed toy with a pillow or a soft object and leaving the rocking imagery out for older children. Additionally, as it is challenging to focus on your breathing, they can silently say the word up every time the animal/ pillow moves up, respectively down every time it goes down.

This game is taken from Mindful Games Activity Cards: 55 Fun Ways to Share Mindfulness with Kids and Teens.

Place a boat on their bellies while lying on their backs! Young children will enjoy watching it rise and fall with each breath! Why not, to have more fun, they can imagine their breathing pattern embodies the rhythm of waves lifting and down the boat! My son used to enjoy this type of activity even when he was five years old!

Of course, you can improvise with any of his favorite cuddly toys. Alternatively, if you want something specifically designed, we have discovered some interesting meditation toys. For example, Omy, the interactive cuddly zen elephant.

What is interesting is that more than a soft, cute toy, it has four guided mindfulness exercises that can introduce your kid to DEEP BREATHING, how to deal with their emotions and positive thinking:

1. Daily Reset to identify emotions;

2. Sad or Mad Reset to let go of negative feelings;

3. 30 Second Reset for rest;

4. Calm Music for relaxation.

The procedure is the same: simply place Omi on your belly as he guides you through a mindful breathing exercise.

It is a fun game based on relaxation breathing and visual imagery.

This engaging exercise helps kids gain a state of calmness in a fun way by incorporating two essential mindfulness practices: relaxation breathing and guided visualization. The author recommends a follow-up for this activity: drawing their bubbles and writing the worries they have just visualized floating away.

An alternative version is challenging your kids to focus on breathing deeply, slo-mo’ style, and then exhaling to fill up the bubbles as slow as possible.

Encourage them to examine the bubbles attentively. They should notice how balloons change shapes and colours as they form, detach, and finally pop or float away.

This activity can teach children how to control the storms of bubbling, often overwhelming emotions. More than that, they will be able to achieve balance and a state of calm.

All you need is a transparent jar filled with water and some glitter. Put the lid back and shake the jar energetically. Now while gazing at the glitter scattered in all directions in the water, you can use ideas from the following script:

You can see this fun activity to practice mindfulness demonstrated by Karen Young in this video.

If you do not have the resources at hand, an interesting alternative is to exploit the power of a creative visualization exercise.

This is a variation of the previous activity. You don’t need a jar or real glitter as here you will work with creative visualization and the power of imagination.

Basically, you project on the mental screen of your child the imagery of the previous hands-on activity. It is a very powerful tool to help your child calm down. Plus, they can do it easily no matter where they are.

Insight timer app provides an impressive collection of free guided meditations for kids (more than 800) targeted for a variety of needs:

Positive morning mindfulness

Guided practice for deep sleep

Body scans

Bedtime visualizations

Mindful breathing with anchor words

Rainbow breathing

Bubble meditation

Balloon breath practice

Mountain meditation for children

If you are curious to learn more about age-appropriate mindfulness games to engage children, a great resource to start with is this practical book Mindful Games: Sharing Mindfulness and Meditation with Children, Teens, and Families by Susan Kaiser Greenland.

It contains a wide range of entertaining games that bring mindfulness into children’s daily activities. For example, anchor games for concentration, visualization games that support kindness and focus, analytical games to develop clarity in thinking, games for sensory awareness, and self-regulating emotions. Plus, these activities aim to develop what the author calls the “A, B, C’s”—Attention, Balance, and Compassion for your child’s successful and happy life.

The same author has designed a deck of 55 mindfulness games, great to develop life skills.

We hope that you enjoyed the topic and found this article helpful. If so, why not start using some of the tools and resources today?