How to Teach Mindfulness
You know how much mindfulness matters in the happiness and connectedness of your everyday life — at home, with your kids, at the office, with your partner, with your friends and family.But did you know that you can help your kids to be more mindful and therefore happier, too — both by how you parent and by exhibiting mindfulness yourself?True story, says Beverly Conyers, mindfulness expert, author of Find Your Light: Practicing Mindfulness to Recover from Anything, and mom to three grown children.In this guest post, she’s going to show us how to start incorporating mindfulness into our kids’ daily routines to help them better cope with stress, build relationship skills, and improve self-worth.We’ve all heard that mindfulness is great for de-stressing our life. But can mindfulness also be good for kids? Absolutely! In fact, many schools teach some version of mindfulness to help students of all ages cope with stress, build relationship skills, and improve self-worth.We can give kids the same benefits at home by incorporating mindfulness into their daily routine. Even if kids are too young to understand the word, they get the concept when they see us model mindful behavior. What’s more, by helping our kids learn valuable mindfulness skills, we inject some much-needed mindful relief into our own busy schedule! Here are four easy ways to get started.The essence of mindfulness is learning to be where we actually are. When it comes to our kids, this means setting aside time every day to give them our undivided attention. Sure, we have to teach them to put away their toys, pick up their clothes, and do their homework. But we also need to let them know that we value them as human beings. We do this by finding uninterrupted time – maybe at the dinner table or during the bedtime routine – to actually see and listen to them. When we give our kids our undivided attention, we teach them how to focus, how to be respectful of others, and how to value themselves as worthwhile individuals.Young children are naturally self-centered. It takes time to develop kindness, empathy, and compassion — important emotional skills that promote healthy relationships. We can use mindfulness to help kids develop those skills by encouraging them to pay attention to their feelings. We can say things like, “How did that make you feel?” or, “It’s okay to be sad (or angry or scared).” We can also open up about our own emotions, letting them know that we, too, have feelings. Finally, we can ask them to imagine what others are feeling. Role-playing with puppets and other favorite toys can help young children connect on an emotional level, while older kids enjoy exploring the feelings of characters in books, movies, and TV shows. By planting seeds of compassion, we help kids grow into caring, emotionally intelligent adults.
