Introduce mindfulness to your child by modeling awareness, exploring emotions together, and using fun, simple activities like yoga or breath exercises. Build focus, resilience, and emotional regulation as a team!
“Mindfulness isn’t difficult, we just need to remember to do it.” - Sharon Saltzberg
Key Concepts:
Mindfulness: the state in which the mind is fully tuned into the present moment in a curious and non-judgmental way.
This concept is a trait and practice. Mindfulness training is a thing!
Remember those executive function skills we keep talking about? Mindfulness is one of them. Pausing and reflecting is a valuable skill associated with problem solving and understanding how actions affect other people, to name a few.
Hear this – mindfulness works! Benefits include greater resilience to stress, improved attention, and stronger ability to regular emotions.
Are you interested in reacting less to your toddler’s behavior? Research tells us that mindfulness can do just this by helping to temper the cycle of reaction and continued misbehavior from your child.
What to Try:
Model what mindfulness looks like and sounds like. “When I feel sad, I feel sad in my eyes, my throat, and in my chest. I start to feel it in my whole body. When you feel sad, where do you feel it?”
Set realistic expectations - 3 minutes is plenty of time for your child to do some yoga poses or rock slowly back and forth.
Help your child visualize their thoughts. “Think of your thoughts like a parade. Some of the floats might grab your attention more than others. That’s okay. Watch as the floats pass by.”
Use props to make mindfulness concepts concrete. For example, to build their awareness of their breath, place a stuffed animal against their chest or tummy and say, “Rock Tiger to sleep using gentle breaths.”