You and I know, that how we parent affects our children as well as ourselves on a daily basis.
The majority of parents experience more stress, struggle and shame than one could possibly want. And often parents find themselves sad, lonely and frustrated in not having balance in their day.
Parenting concerns seem insurmountable in a world that seems indifferent and disconnected.
The reality is that, through our beliefs and choices, we create our parenting experiences and our family life with our children.
What if you were invited to shift your choices and beliefs for calmer, more effective parenting?
I am honored to be a featured guest for the Inspired Parenting Summit hosted by certified Parent Coach, Mary Wheatley. In her quest to be a more effective coach to parents who truly want to enjoy their parenting and overcome their struggles; she has created an interview series of parenting visionaries, including myself. We are excited to share relevant and inspiring conversations about parenting for the greatest impact in today’s world.
Mary’s 21-day online event is entitled Inspired Parent Summit II: Awaken Your Parenting Strengths, Raise Creative, Confident and Conscious Kids. This is a FREE audio event, and you can register by clicking here!
This Summit is designed with easy access for on the go parents. You will be able to listen from your smart phone, in your car while driving, or through your computer.
Topics will include:
Educating your child for an optimal life
Mindfulness for children
Countering media’s hold on youth
Guidance to raising teens and tweens
Changing role of fathers’
Building lasting relationships with your children
and so much more!
Inspired Parenting Summit II is a FREE event, consisting of daily interviews with individuals leading the conscious parent movement, and is available to all who join today.
Children learn best by actively doing rather than passive watching. As a classroom teacher for nearly 20 years, I could not agree more. The old school lecture style of teaching of is thankfully not as common in the schools today. Children need to have visuals, be hands-on and engaged and that is when the true learning and attention truly occurs. Teaching mindfulness for kids goes along these same lines.
This is true for your kids yoga classes as well. Are children going to best learn the poses and breathing exercises while endlessly watching you? Yes, maybe, but they will not remember and retain near as well as if props and visuals are used. While demonstration and safety are important, there are several other ways to actively involve children in the learning process.
Use Props and Visuals
One way that I involve children a lot is by providing visuals. While teaching yoga poses, I like to use yoga pose cards that help showcase the poses that we are learning. My favorites are the Kids Yoga Challenge Pose Cardsbecause of the included starred difficulty level as well as the mantras for each pose. With these cards, the children can easily look at the pose and model it to the other children and say the mantra. This way your students are getting the physical and mental benefits.
When I introduce mindfulness to children, I have found it is important to use visuals as well. As mentioned children retain information when they are seeing and experiencing it as well.
For this mindfulness exercise and visual all you need is a balloon. Children are usually mesmerized by balloons and especially enjoy as they are being blown up so this is a great activity that will keep their attention. I like to begin by holding a deflated balloon and ask the children to picture themselves as they wake up in the morning. They feel easy going and flexible just like the balloon.
How to Teach Mindfulness
Next, I stretch the balloon up and down and talk to the children about how they may stretch their bodies and feel calm, flexible and ready for the day. That is how you want to feel. After that, I would walk the children through a series of events that could happen throughout the day which could change how you feel.
For example, our dialogue may go something like the following, “Let’s pretend that something disappointing happens in the morning, such as the orange juice is spilled at breakfast (blow up the balloon a little), then you can’t find your backpack (blow up the balloon a little more), it is raining outside. “Your best friend is gone from school” etc. Continue blowing up the balloon as this scenario is painted.
Finally, show how the balloon is really big and inflated. Explain how there are lots of feelings and emotions trapped up inside. What is going to happen? Can you continue in this way? No of course not.
With that much emotion and feelings bottled up inside, there is sure to be a consequence. Let go of the balloon and watch as it spins around and settles.
Ask the children, what can they do instead of letting things continue to bottle up inside?
Be still. Breathe. Take a moment.
It is important to help teach children to acknowledge their feelings, take note of them, but to understand how to deal effectively with them and then move on. By using this balloon visual the children will definitely remember it and will be better equipped to not keep those feelings bottled up inside.
Affirmations and mantras can be an important tool to help children develop positive foundations on which to grow. A positive self-belief system built in childhood will hopefully stay with a person throughout their life. While attending the National Kids Yoga Conference, I got the pleasure of meeting Erin Hurley, an elementary school guidance counselor from Virginia. Erin was also named “School Counselor of the Year” for her school district.
She is the kind of guidance counselor that any of you would love to have your children work with and learn from. Erin has a kind and creative spirit and truly cares about children. Plus she definitely understands the importance of introducing yoga and mindfulness to children so they will have these skills for life.
Erin shared with me how she uses the Kids Yoga Challenge Pose Cards when she works with students in her elementary classrooms. She has loved using these pose cards with her students as they are visual, age-appropriate, and include simple yet memorable mantras.
Each yoga pose card has a corresponding empowering mantras for success such as “I am strong” or “I am fair and equal.” This ensures that the students are not only receiving the health benefits of each pose, but also the mental and mindfulness benefits as well.
Erin shared with me one incredible activity and lesson plan that she did with her students that I wanted to pass along. This lesson could be done anytime throughout the school year, but would tie in nicely with the beginning of the school year, Thanksgiving or a kindness theme.
Mantras and Mindfulness Kids Yoga Lesson Plan
This lesson would work well with children ages 5-11.
First, brainstorm with the students about positive qualities that they see in themselves. For example being kind, honest, hardworking, caring, strong, etc. Write these qualities on the board.
Next, the students took the “hand template” and wrote qualities that described themselves. They did this by writing around the hand template.
Finally, the students were able to put the yoga poses and mantras for success together to practice and perform. This absolutely made the lesson even more memorable as it ties together so many different types of student learning such as visual, auditory, and kinesthetic learning.
As a mom of three and a teacher for over 18 years, I frequently see a recurring theme of anxiousness in children, and it is completely normal. Kids get nervous or stressed. Any different event such as starting a new school year, taking tests, trying new activities, and meeting new people can bring about uncertainty, unease, and worry. Luckily yoga for anxiety can give kids the tools the handle the stress.
When we worry, we take short, shallow breaths which continue to ignite the feeling of unease in our bodies. Slowing down our breathing and taking long, deep breaths naturally brings on a sense of calmness and peace.
Try these three breathing exercises with your kids. These calming techniques are effective for any age, and can be done anywhere – in the morning, during a car ride, sitting in school, or before bedtime. Yoga for anxiety can be done anytime, anywhere.
Shoulder Shrugs
Roll your shoulders back and down so they are away from your ears. Breathe deeply in through your nose as you raise your shoulders up by your ears. Breath out and lower your shoulders. Repeat movement 3-5 times and feel the tension melt away.
Darth Vader Breath
This is a favorite with children as they associate an image with this breathing exercise. Breathe deeply in and out while exhaling strongly through an open mouth.
Ocean Waves
Close your eyes and imagine you are an ocean wave. Breathe in and out deeply as if you are an ocean wave crashing on the beach. Alternate the frequency of your breath to become shorter and longer waves.
By introducing yoga for anxiety to kids, you will be giving them lifelong skills to become calm and focused, and better manage their anxiety when facing new situations.
Children learn best by actively doing rather than passive watching. As a classroom teacher for nearly 20 years, I could not agree more. The old school lecture style of teaching of is thankfully not as common in the schools today. Children need to have visuals, be hands-on and engaged and that is when the true learning and attention truly occurs. Teaching mindfulness for kids goes along these same lines.
