Supporting Mindfulness in Young Children

3 days ago

5 min read

“In today’s rush, we all think too much—seek too much—want too much—and forget about the joy of just being.”

Eckhart Tolle

I believe the joy of just being is all about mindfulness.

We have all heard the term mindfulness before and we know it’s good for us. We want to be present in all we do and make wise, healthy decisions instead of responding to situations in a nonrational way.

Mindfulness is defined by The Greater Good Magazine as the means to maintaining a moment-by-moment awareness of our thoughts, feelings, bodily sensations, and surrounding environment, through a gentle, nurturing lens. When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts tune into what we're sensing in the present moment rather than rehashing the past or imagining the future.

It’s important to teach mindfulness to our children so we can give them skills to develop their awareness of their inner and outer experiences, to help them understand how emotions manifest in their bodies and to allow them to recognize when their attention has wandered and when they need tools for control.

One school I was at focused on a quote every week to keep everyone connected and focused on a common mindset. We used this when we declared May to be “Mindful May” and it was one of my favorites:

Your mind is a garden, your thoughts are the seeds. You can grow flowers, or you can grow weeds.”

We wanted to help our students become more mindful while we were in the midst of Distance Learning because could see that many students needed support in this area.

Although these activities started out as simple connections to our quote, they ended up being routines we decided to keep throughout Distance Learning and to continue implement in our classrooms in the fall.

We made sure we started each day with positivity with these sentence stems:

Today I am grateful for ________

My favorite food, song, book, is _______

A person that makes me happy is ______

Today I feel ________ ( some classrooms used a rating scale and some an emoji continuum)

We took time each day for a “Mindful Minute.”

This included asking ourselves:

What can I hear?

What can I see?

What can I feel?

What can I taste?

We allowed for more ‘Mindful Minutes’ for breathing:

This can be very simple such as asking students to inhale for 4 seconds, hold for 7 seconds, and exhale for 8 seconds.

Our students also enjoyed these breathing exercises:

Spider-Man Meditation

Pizza Breathing for a Calm Mind

Find free mindful breathing posters such as this one here.

After the mindful minutes we asked the students to set a goal for the day. It was helpful, especially for the youngest students, to provide this sentence stem: My goal for today is __________.

We used several books to enhance our students’s understanding of mindfulness.

I Am Peace by Susan Verde helps children express emotions through direct speech, find empathy through imagination and connect with the earth. It also encourages kids to wonder about the beauty of the natural world, breathe, taste, smell, touch, and be present. It’s also available as a YouTube read-aloud here.

Listening with My Heart: A Story of kindness

and self-compassion by Gabi Garcia reminds us of the importance of being friends to ourselves. It also touches on the universal themes of friendship, empathy and kindness.

Mindful Bea and the Worry Tree by Gail Silver allows us to enter the world of a young Bea. Bea is anxiously waiting for her friends to show up for her birthday party. The worries start to grow around her like tree branches. She asks herself questions like, “What if my friends don’t like the games?” Her stomach flip-flops and she feels shaky. She tries to run away from the thoughts in the worry tree, but it doesn’t work! Bea uses deep-breathing exercises and visualization techniques to calm herself down

Breathe and Be: A Book of Mindfulness Poems by Kate Coombs includes 14 original poems that introduce children to the concept of mindfulness and incorporate meditation practices. The first poem sets the tone, encouraging readers to breathe in and out for "My breath/is a river of peace." Every emotion, including anxiety, doubt, fear, and anger is expressed through figurative language and the illustrations compliment each poem so well.

The Mindful Dragon by Steve Herman has the most adorable pictures and a simple rhyming story that introduces young kids to the concept of mindfulness. It talks about using mindfulness and focusing on the present whenever you're feeling sad or overwhelmed.

We love Cosmic Kids Yoga for helpful guided meditation and these are our favorites:

What is Mindfulness and How Do You Do It?

Friendly Wishes: Guided Meditation for Kids How to Beat Nerves

Superpower Listening

How to Make Good Choices

We can encourage mindfulness when children are eating by reminding them to savor the flavor. Give your child a specific piece of food, like a piece of cheese of a cookie.

Encourage them to look at the piece of food for about a minute. Then, have her put it in her mouth but tell her not to chew it right away.

Instead, ask them to pay attention to how it tastes and how it feels their mouth. They may experience textures or tastes they’ve never noticed before.

Find awesome tips on Mindful Eating here on this link.

Journaling is a wonderful way to increase mindfulness in kids at home and in school. Ask your child to write about his or her day. Pick a special part of the day, like his morning routine or his afternoon at the park and ask them to recall what they did.

The first couple of times your child does this they may be vague but it’s important to be consistent and ask them to do this every day.

With practice, they will most likely start walking through their day with more detail. They might start saying things like, “I was really excited when I woke up because I could smell pancakes on the griddle and I dressed up more quickly than usual.”

I love this activity because it keeps kids living in the present and noticing things they would have otherwise let escape them because of quickly going through the motions of their everyday busy lives.

Help your child experience the mood boosting power of music by guiding them in creating their own playlists. Encourage them to choose songs that help them feel peaceful, songs to help them focus, and songs that simply make them happy. This is a popular one for reminding kids to Slow Things Down.