Meditation for Kids: The Benefits and How To Incorporate In Your Child’s Day [Episode #688]

This week’s topic is: Meditation for Kids: The Benefits and How To Incorporate In Your Child’s Day

This is a topic that’s very close to my heart. I do meditate regularly with my older son, Emerson, who is now six and my younger son who just turned to Moses hasn’t yet formally meditated, but he’s certainly around the environment of meditation and he witnesses it and he’s been on my body countless times while nursing and other times while I’ve been meditating. I do think this is a very powerful tool that we can instill in our children.

Again, whether your child is 3, 4, 12 or 13, or however old they are, there are enormous benefits, which we will get into in our show today. Including an ability to handle stress better, to be more connected to their intuition, to be calmer, to be more joyful as children and as they go into growing into adults.

I certainly did not meditate when I was a child. It was something I didn’t learn. I didn’t have access to it. And so it’s, you know, it’s okay. We learn and we keep going and growing and figuring out what’s beneficial.

Whether you meditated in the past or you currently have a strong practice or not, or it’s something you’re interested in developing within yourself. It is something that you can start today and you can start to introduce into your family. And it’s such an incredible practice to do together as a family.

Have you been wondering about this very topic? If you want to know the answer to this question sent in by a Beauty just like you, listen now to find out!

Remember you can submit your questions at https://mysolluna.com/askkimberly/

[Question Answered]

Sharon – Idaho (Spiritual Cornerstone)

Kimberly I saw you meditating with your son on Instagram which is so amazing. I would love to teach my children to meditate. What’s the best way for me to get them to start meditating?

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Inspirational Thought of the Week

“Many people unsuccessfully strive for a material goal all their lives, failing to realize that if they had put forth one-tenth of the concentration used in seeking worldly things into an effort to find God first, they could then have had fulfillments of not only some, but all of their hearts’ desires.” – Paramahansa Yogananda

[RESOURCES]

• Children with ADHD who learn meditations
• ADHD significantly reduced exhibition of hyperactive behaviors and improved concentration
• After school program of yoga and meditation for kids
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• Additional resources in transcript

Other Podcasts you may enjoy!:

• How to Start Your Kids on a Healthy Wellness Routine
• How to Help Our Kids Thrive Through Meditation with Emily Fletcher
• Fitting In A Healthy Routine With Young Kids!
• Meditation Tips & Overcoming Anxiety!

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Transcript:

Note: The following is the output of transcribing from an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate. This is due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.

Kimberly: 00:01 Hi, loves and welcome back to our Thursday Q&A podcast where our topic this week is Meditation for Kids: The Benefits and How To Incorporate In Your Child’s Day. So this is a topic that’s very close to my heart. I do meditate regularly with my older son, Emerson, who is now six and my younger son who just turned to Moses hasn’t yet formally meditated, but he’s certainly around the environment of meditation and he witnesses it and he’s been on my body countless times while nursing and other times while I’ve been meditating. And so I do think this is a very powerful tool that we can instill in our children. Again, whether they’re, I’ve been meditating with Emma since, since he was about four or close to four. So let’s say three and a half four. And you know, whether your child is that young or, you know, 12 or 13 or however old, they are, there is enormous benefits, which we will get into in our show today, including an ability to handle stress better, to be more connected to their intuition, to be calmer, to be more joyful as children.

Kimberly: 01:15 And as they go into growing into adults, I certainly did not meditate when I was a child. It was something I didn’t learn. I didn’t have access to. And so it’s, you know, it’s okay. We, we learn and we keep going and, and growing and figuring out what’s beneficial. So whether you are, you know, you did meditate in the past or you currently have a strong practice or, or not, you’re, that’s something you’re interested in developing within yourself. It is something that you can start today and you can start to introduce into your family. And it’s such an incredible practice to do together as a family.

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Kimberly: 01:56 So what we’re doing with the shows now is rotating each week, a different cornerstone. So we can really focus in and give you very tangible action tips and research. So the shows are as useful as possible to your life. So we focus on one very key question and again, all the information around it before we get into our show today, just a little reminder to please leave us a review on iTunes or wherever you listen to your podcasts, which is an amazing way to support the show. It keeps the show going, and it’s not a big ask because it’s free and it’s easy, and it could literally be one sentence long. Please also be sure to subscribe to our show. And that way as life gets more full and busy, you don’t miss out on any of these Q&A podcasts, which are on Thursdays or the Monday interview shows.

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Kimberly: 02:51 And finally be sure to share our show with anyone that you think would benefit part of expanding the heart and love and compassion is generosity. And we do that through sharing resources. So if you can think of anybody that would benefit from our show, please just send it over to them or mention it to them. It could be a coworker or a neighbor or friend or whoever our new book, baby. I have to think of it. These books I birth into the world, you know, for our community really feels like a community book feels like a baby to me because I’m in here in my little writing, cave, researching and writing, and then it goes out into the world and it really has its own energy and just reaches out and is accessible to everybody. So our new book is called. You Are More More Than You Think You Are – Practical Enlightenment For Everyday Life.

Kimberly: 03:45 And it is me really sharing this practical guide to living your best life and accessing more abundance and love and success, true success and creativity. And it’s the teachings and practices and the perspectives and the shifts and overcoming negative beliefs that have really, really impacted me in an enormous way. So as always, I love to share what has really helped support me. And so I’m very excited to share this book with you. You can check it out, wherever books are sold, all right, all that being said, let’s get right into our show today.

Question around the topic of: Meditation for Kids: The Benefits and How To Incorporate In Your Child’s Day: Kimberly I saw you meditating with your son on Instagram which is so amazing. I would love to teach my children to meditate. What’s the best way for me to get them to start meditating?

Kimberly: 03:45 And our question comes from Sharon, who lives in Idaho and she writes Kimberly. I saw you meditating with your son on Instagram, which is so amazing. I would love to teach my children how to meditate. What’s the best way for me to get them to start meditating. So thank you so much, Sharon, for your question, sending you so much love out there in Idaho.

Kimberly: 04:46 And I’m so grateful that we are here together in our community, just supporting each other and helping each other. So, yes, let, let’s just step back for a moment. And I found some really great research here that I wanna highlight because meditation isn’t something that is just, oh, it sounds like a nice idea. Now there’s more and more strong research supporting the benefits of meditation. And we will link to these studies in the show notes. If you are interested in reading the studies themselves, one showed that children with a ADHD who learn meditations meditation with their parents twice weekly in a clinical setting and kept practicing at home, had better concentration at school among other benefits. Another study centered around a ADHD, found a significantly reduced exhibition of hyperactive behaviors and improved concentration. So often we’re told to just medicate our children or they have behavioral issues where they may just need more tools.

Kimberly: 05:52 They may just need how to learn, how to regulate their breath and their body and calm down big emotions and feelings through themselves, right, without having to go outside or, or get these these labels or again, just meds, right? So it’s really powerful. And another study found that an afterschool program of yoga and meditation for kids help them feel happier and more relaxed, help them reduce anxiety, depression, and fatigue. And so it goes on and on. There is so much research now and another study talked about increasing focus, boosting memory. So it helps with their actual academic life as well. And just again, relaxed, happy children, which is, I think what we all want for the children in our lives, whether they are our own children or our, you know, family members or neighbors or the community around the world will benefit. If the children are more connected to themselves, right? And the, the uniqueness inside of them and the true self, which is really what this feel good podcast is about feeling good means we feel connected. We feel connected to the whole, we feel connected to the wholeness inside of us.

Kimberly: 07:11 And so these are some of my practical tips in which you can really help to incorporate meditation into your child’s life. Number one is let them see you meditate and have a dedicated space for meditation. This encourages them. This reinforces the idea that meditation is important and should be valued. So my children see me meditate a lot and they see me down here in my meditation spot in my office. And they also see my meditation spot in our bedroom, which is, and there’s a little altar in the corner. And so they see and witness how important this is as a value to our family. And I remember reading research saying, if you want your children to be avid readers, you wanna read to them. And also you wanna make sure that they see you reading because it’s that do what I, you know, don’t just do what I say, but do what I do approach.

Kimberly: 08:19 If you want your children to be healthy eaters, they need to see you eating healthy food. And so it’s really important that we, we model what, what it is that we wanna teach. So if you don’t have, uh, actual practice yet as a parent or as an adult, I encourage you to check out our practical enlightenment meditations, our guided meditations, which are free on our Solluna app and to get into a regular, especially morning practice. And this will benefit the whole family and will benefit the children. Again, you having that in your body, in your life as a practice, number two is make it fun. Your meditation doesn’t have to be seen as this super serious thing or this thing that’s, you know, oh gosh, it creates this drug jury around it like this task or this chore. So what I do with my son is we do a little bit of stretching first.

Kimberly: 09:15 So you could say it’s yoga Asana. You could just say, it’s stretching. He likes to use the word stretching, but I find that it’s very beneficial to have your child move their body a little bit before you’re asking them to sit still. This is true for adults. Of course, it could be as simple as a couple twists. Sometimes we do some forward folds. We do a couple lunges. I’m trying to shift their energy and not bring up the energy. So I don’t really do standing poses before we meditate. I keep it close to the earth. So again, anything earthy child’s pose, but just so they get into that feeling of moving their body so that it can settle down.

Kimberly: 10:01 The next thing is that after we do the stretching, we get into meditation posture. And so with children naturally, usually are often, I should say, like to sit cross-legged on the ground and it’s natural in their bodies. And just as adults, you wanna make sure that their bodies are comfortable. So if you wanna put a cushion underneath, if it feels a bit hard on the floor or just to elevate their spine, that’s always something that you can also do with your child. And the first thing I do is I have Emerson, my son put his hands on his belly and just to check in with the breath or no, first we start with the little intention and I just very simple, you know, we’re here to breathe and to be still, um, you know, we’re here to dedicate this to, to more peace or whatever it is very informal. Just something that feels very resonant and organic for you and your child and your family. And then I haven’t put his hands on his belly and we check in with the breath. And so we talk about how this is an important tool. If he’s starting to feel agitated or impatient, the first thing is just to make sure the breath is coming all the way down into the belly.

Kimberly: 11:19 So I like to connect the meditation to the practical nature of, Hey, you can use this out in your life. This is something that you can do regularly and you can do it throughout the day. And just the simple practice of breathing deep. And I show him, Hey, like a balloon. Cause he loves balloons. There’s balloons around our house sometimes just to connect again to what he likes and what he’s familiar with. Just like a balloon that your belly rise up and then come back in. So we do that for a few moments. And I just wanna say that besides the stretching, the whole meditation is under five minutes, right? So we wanna build this, this attention span over time, but we never wanna push it too much. And then after that, I give him a focal point, which is usually his third eye, right.

Kimberly: 12:06 Between the two physical eyes and a little bit higher. So there’s a place to focus their energy. Now, if you prefer, you can also say focus in your heart in the middle of your chest, feel the love there, right? So you wanna give them a place to focus after they’re done breathing. And this again, over time will boost concentration focus memory because this what’s called a drishti. Gaze is a very powerful tool as well. So I tell him to focus on his third eye. And then we say a very simple mantra, which is usually peace, peace, peace. And I imagine I ask him to imagine a warm white light there, and he gets into this flow of repeating the mantra to himself. And I usually say it out loud.

Kimberly: 12:56 So then we just take a moment of silence and then we bring our heads together and prayer pose. And we say what we’re grateful for at least three things. So we just take a moment for gratitude and that’s it. So it’s a simple flow. And again, it starts with an intention or little stretching intention, just teaching them to breathe deep into the belly. And over time you can introduce more breathing techniques, but this is just keeping it real simple as we’re starting and then a Dr. De gaze, a focal point of the third eye or the heart with a mantra, feeling them get teaching them that they can get calmer and calmer. And then a moment of stillness, which really could literally be a couple seconds depending where they are currently and then closing in gratitude. And it really is so heartwarming and so bonding and so special these times together that I really encourage you to try it out for your family.

Kimberly: 14:01 And I also encourage you not to get discouraged if at first your child complains or doesn’t wanna sit or there’s resistance. I think that’s normal. It’s like introducing broccoli or any other healthy food. Some researchers say it takes 15 times to really integrate it into their life and for them to be open to something new. So I encourage you to just keep it light. Don’t push, let them see you meditate, talk to them about the benefits and how good you feel. So it’s not something like, oh, it’s like homework or school thing that I have to do, but really the energy and your intention around it is gonna be very powerful when it comes to when it comes to this sort of encouragement with your child and helping them to blossom into their own meditation practice, more and more as time goes on.

Thought of the Week

Kimberly: 14:51 Now, I’m gonna close with the quotes of the week. This comes from our new book, You Are More More Than You Think You Are – Practical Enlightenment For Everyday Life, the beginning of chapter seven meditation part one, which I definitely encourage you to read as a parent of a ch a caretaker or, you know, connected to a child that you would like to meditate. Again, going deeper into your own practice is invaluable in this respect. So this comes from page 87. This quote comes from the great Paramahansa Yogananda who brought yoga to the west. And he says, “Many people unsuccessfully strive for a material goal all their lives, failing to realize that if they had put forth one-tenth of the concentration used in seeking worldly things into an effort to find God first, they could then have had fulfillments of not only some, but all of their hearts’ desires.” The benefits of meditation cannot be overstated. So I am so grateful for us being connected. I hope you enjoy today’s show. Remember to tune back in Monday for our next interview podcast, and also to check out our show notes over@mysolona.com for links to other podcasts, recipes, articles, and so on that I think you would enjoy it’s you so much love take great care Nama, stay.

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