Whether a child is anxious, active or full of confidence meditation can support them in so many ways. A child’s mind is so busy taking so much information in daily, there in no doubt they are inundated with stress and anxiety.
It is proven that children that learn to meditate early in life will pick it up as a life skill,. They are able to focus on daily activities, have more self control, finding better strategies coping with life’s hurdles, regain control of their emotions and form better relationships.
Meditation is all about calming the mind, practicing being present and tuning in to ones thoughts,
This can be taught in various ways to children. Some children won’t want to close their eyes during a meditation and that is fine. Get them to focus on a object during the meditation. Children’s Meditations don’t have to go on for hours for them to feel the benefits, in actual fact you will lose a child if you would make them meditate for too long.They can also meditate anytime and several times during the day. Once they know and feel the benefits of meditation they will know when they need to stop and reconnect with their breathing during their day.
DIFFERENT FORMS OF MEDITATION:
A Guided Visual Meditation:
This form of meditation is used to get the children to connect their breathing to a visual component. This really helps the children to stop their mind from wandering off and focus on their breathing. A visual meditation can be set anywhere , for example “The beach”.
Explore all the scenarios, sounds and objects during visual meditation. This really gets the children to go in deeper and connect into the meditation. Put soft music on in the background if needed. Let your imagination run free.
Balloon Breathing:
Balloon breathing is one popular form of meditation and can be achieved it so many ways. It can be added during a guided visual meditation too. It is simply done by the children laying or sitting and connecting to their breathing. Children need to visualise their belly filling with air, just like blowing up a balloon. Breathing in through the nose and raising up the belly and then breathing out through the mouth and sucking the belly all the way in.
We often try getting the children to breathe in for three counts and breathe out for three counts. By placing an object on their belly, the children can watch their teddy go up and down and connect their breathing to this.
With older children try challenging them to hold their breath in between breathing in and out, they love a challenge.
This technique is also a great one for children to remember and they can do this as frequently as they want too, especially for those children that suffer anxiety.