Meditation entails much more than simply watching your breathing. Adults should include meditation in their everyday routines as a way of life. What about the children, though? Is it necessary for them to learn how to meditate? What are the advantages of fostering mindfulness in your children? Is meditation beneficial for child discipline? This article covers a lot more ground.
There has been a lot published on how to meditate. Advantages of meditation and various forms of mindful meditation. In short, most of us are convinced that meditation is one of the greatest techniques to deal with daily problems. However, not everyone applies it to their daily lives. Why? They regard it as an extra activity but try to give it a chance, but most of the time, they fail to fit meditation into their hectic lifestyle.
So, what if we raise our children in such a manner that they naturally practise meditation as naturally they eat, play, or socialize? What if we teach our children that meditation is a necessary part of their daily routine that they must not neglect?
Before we get into how to achieve that, let’s have a look at some advantages of practicing meditation from a young age.
Meditation Reduces anxiety and stress:
One of the primary benefits of meditation is that it helps relieve stress and anxiety. According to one research, continuous stress causes toxic stress, which damages a nervous system, immune system, and even causes a change in DNA.
Today, we live in a world full of uncertainty, confusion over whether to get the COVID–19 Vaccine, about wearing the mask all the time, about being afraid of people. As a result, these ways of life are too much for younger ones to handle.
Meditation would help to calm down, stay focused, and deal with circumstances sensibly and without panic.
School fights and disagreements:
Disagreement and conflicts are on the rise in schools, which might be because of academic pressure or anything else that kids are going through in their personal life. Their anxious brains make them easily irritable, resulting in conflicts over little things. Meditation in schools is the most effective technique for maintaining a peaceful school environment.
Schools should permit students 15 minutes of meditation time each day with the assistance of a qualified instructor who can assist them based on their age.
Better sleep:
Meditation can help kids sleep better. It is a good idea to meditate before going to bed and after waking up. Daily practise of 5 to 10 minutes will considerably enhance mood and sleep.
Patience:
Meditation also helps to build patience in children. While toddlers learn to keep calm, sit quiet, and control their spontaneous behaviour, they also learn to control their urges for immediate reward. It teaches them delayed gratification and patience; so, they don’t react too quickly.
You must be consistent in your actions. For example, if you promised to go on an outing, you must follow through on your commitment.
Allowing kids to unwrap gifts on a specific day is another way to teach patience and discipline during the Christmas season. That means if you had asked them to open the Christmas gift on Christmas Day, don’t be flexible about it; instead, let them wait and become more excited.
Following are some methods for teaching children to meditate and be mindful of their surroundings.
Take a walk in the woods:
Guess who has healing properties? Nature, indeed! When someone spends time in nature and sees the beauty, greenery, freshness, and colours, the healing process begins within. Take your children on a walk in the woods and ask them things as What do you hear? What’s the scent like here? Ask them to close their eyes and walk gently on the grass, and then to describe how the touch feels.
Mindful eating:
Did you know that eating may be a part of your regular meditation? It involves not just the look, smell, and taste of the meal but also, on a broader scale, how and who prepared the food.
- It begins with cultivation and continues through harvesting, preparation, and finally eating.
- Being thankful for food
- Then, feel the food’s flavour and texture.
- Describe how you felt after eating the food.
Focus on body:
- Ask your children to lie down on their backs
- Have a good stretch of their entire body
- Now, ask them to feel all the tightness in their body melting away
- Now, ask them to focus on their head and feel it getting lighter
- Then, go down from eyes to toes
- Let them stay in that light feeling for some time
- Count 1 to 5 five and ask them to open their eyes
- Discuss how they felt and how the experience went after the meditation session.
Backward counting:
Backward counting is the best approach to focus your attention away from everything else and on just one task. It is a simple and efficient method for calming down and sharpening attention. This meditation may be done seated or lying down.
Simply instruct children to count from 50 to 1 or 100 to 1. Make sure they count slowly; counting 50 to 1 should take them at least 15 minutes.
Be a role model:
If you want your children to accomplish something, you must first do it. Children learn through mimicking the actions of others. If you simply ask them to meditate, they will never do so. YOU must practice it in front of them, and they will ultimately imitate your actions. Later on, you can easily educate them on what to do and how to perform it.
Remember that every child is unique, and they may adapt the meditation in a different way or at a different age. Some children, for example, like to stay quiet and perform breathing techniques, while others enjoy any physical activity, such as yoga, walking, camping, or other sensory activities. Read why family camping is a fun way to spend time in nature.
Whatever form of meditation they adopt, keep in mind that forcing meditation on kids will repel them from it. As a result, they will never enjoy it; and it will just be a forceful activity that they will want to complete as quickly as possible.
Take it one step at a time; don’t expect them to be healing masters at the age of four; it’s impossible, and your child will lose interest if you keep forcing them to meditate.
Green Schools Green future promotes the natural ways of life. Read about the benefits of alternative medicine. We encourage people to include meditation in their everyday lives to heal from current problems. It will also help to prevent them from happening in the first place.
Sources:
https://www.headspace.com/mindfulness/activities-for-kids
https://hiyahealth.com/blogs/news/meditation-for-kids
https://www.happiness.com/magazine/health-body/meditation-for-kids/
https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/meditation-for-kids#meditation-apps
https://chopra.com/articles/3-kid-friendly-meditations-your-children-will-love
https://www.headspace.com/meditation/kids
Blog Image Credit: Yan Krukov from Pexels
Written By Samreen Ishaq
