Mindfulness for Parents and Kids

Mindfulness. Over the past few years, I have heard this word over and over again, especially in regards to education. The more I heard about it the more curious I became. So this year, one of my wonderful fellow ECFE teachers and I set out to learn more about mindfulness and see if we could teach parents and young kids mindfulness techniques. Here is what we learned.

Mindfulness is not some mystical thing. It is actually an innate ability that all of us have, even young children. Mindfulness defined in the simplest ways is the ability to pay attention to what is happening around and within you with nonjudgment and acceptance.  This short video does a great job of explaining just what mindfulness is. The narrator states "the proposition here is not that you should be rendered into some lifeless nonjudgmental blob. The proposition is that you should learn how to respond wisely to things that happen to you rather than just reacting blinding." Practicing mindfulness is a way to accomplish this.

While mindfulness is an innate ability that we all have, it is also something that needs to be practiced. We can practice mindfulness in a variety of ways. Meditation is one way we can practice mindfulness. If you are anything like me, the word meditation is a bit of a turn off. I always thought of meditation as having to sit for a long time and keep my mind blank. I have since learned that meditation is really just paying attention to one thing like your breath and then noticing when your attention has shifted and refocusing on your breath. Meditation can be done for any amount of time, even just a minute or two. Other types of mindfulness practices include yoga and calming techniques.

Kids are uniquely suited to mindfulness. Children, for the most part, live in the moment. They experience each moment fully. I recently watch a little girl with her mom move from puddle to puddle in a parking lot. She jumped joyfully in each puddle without any concern for rushing or moving to the next puddle. She wasn't paying attention to anything else but the puddle she was currently enjoying. This is mindfulness.

Mindfulness also wires our kids' brains for self-regulation. Studies using MRI imaging show that the regular practice of mindfulness grows and changes the brain in positive ways. Areas of the brain that are positively impacted include areas responsible for impulse control, decision making, emotional regulation, integration of emotions and thoughts, learning and memory. Mindfulness also helps to quiet down the part of the brain where our fight, flight or freeze response occurs. Practicing mindfulness helps us have a more accurate representation of danger, reduces stress and allows us to respond instead of react to what is going on around us.

The most exciting part of this quest to learn about mindfulness was watching the two-year-olds in our class not only participate in mindfulness activities but use them at other times on their own. We taught the parents and kids several mindfulness techniques including:

• Smell the Flower, Blow out the Candle-Hold up your hand and say smell the flower. Have your child take a deep breath in through their nose. Then tell your child to blow out the candle. Have your child to slowly blow out your candle. Lower that finger. Repeat until your child has done this for each of your five fingers. 
• Drive the Train- Hold up five fingers. Place your pointer finger (the train) on your other hand at the base of your thumb. Inhale through your nose while driving the train up the hill. Exhale as you drive the train down the hill. Repeat for all five fingers, moving your finger up and down each one. 
• Volcano Breath-Fold your hands in front of your chest. Inhale through your nose. Exhale while raising your arms up and out from your body. 
• Animal Ride-Have your child lie on their back. Place a stuffed animal on their tummy. Tell them to breathe slowly in and out to give the animal a ride. Another idea is to have your child watch you do this. Notice how they respond. I bet they will calm and be relaxed. This is another great benefit of mindfulness. When parents practice mindfulness, the benefits trickle down to their kids. 
• Yoga-Check out Comsic Kids Yoga and Kids Yoga Stories to practice yoga with your children. 
• Sensory Bottles-Fill a plastic bottle with colored water and glitter. Use a hot glue gun or super glue to glue the lid on the bottle. Then shake the bottle up and watch the glitter calm and settle to the bottom of the bottle. 

We practiced all of these different mindfulness techniques with the parents and kids in our twos class. Parents reported that their kids would use these different techniques at home when they were upset. One mom shared that she was getting upset and her two-year-old held up her finger and told her to blow her candle. Other parents shared that when their children were frustrated or sad they would sit down and start taking deep breaths all on their own. The kids had practiced these skills at school when they were already calm so understood they could help them feel calm. This is a key component to practicing mindfulness with children. Make it part of the routine and then they can extend it to other parts of their lives. 

Since we learned mindfulness trickles down from parents to kids, we wanted to teach parents a few mindfulness techniques for them to use. 

• Breathe in Breathe out-Breathe in through your nose for a count of 3. Exhale out of your mouth for a count of 6. 
• 3 X 3-Choose three objects that you can touch or see. List each object by saying "This is a ____." Take a deep breath and exhale following each item. Remember not to place any value or judgement on the items. 
• STOP-This stands for Stop, Take a breath, Observe, then Proceed. This mindfulness technique gives you a moment to pause before you respond to what your child is doing. It takes just a few seconds and helps prevent us from blindly reacting to what is happening. 

So, what do you think? Can you find a time to fit a little mindfulness into yours and your child's daily routine?