Mindfulness

Empowerment Tool

Mindfulness, defined as "moment-to-moment awareness of one's experience without judgment," has been linked to increased happiness, less stress, boosts to memory & focus, less emotional reactivity, better relationships, and host of other benefits.

In order to feel gratitude, presence, and connection, your child first has to be able to notice their internal and bodily sensations and their external reality. And these are also skills that help with emotional regulation.

By practicing being present and mindful with your kids, you:

Help them learn mindful practices and turn them into habits.
Help them maintain the value of be-ing as they grow, even as the culture and school and work structures will inevitably shape them toward valuing do-ing.
Give them the precious gift of your undivided attention.
Let them bring you into the present moment.

HOW TO DO IT

In some ways mindfulness is better "caught than taught" between parents and kids. Your own practice and sharing of mindfulness is one of the best ways to show your child the benefits of mindfulness. Below are various approaches to mindfulness you can try out together.

Slowing down and connecting with your senses helps calm the nervous system and allows space for gratitude. Tune into the sensory aspects of your environment, and savor the pleasurable ones. Look for:

Things you can see. Colors and textures, the quality of the light, or an interesting view.
Sensations of the things you can feel. Temperature, soft clothing, textures around you that you can touch.
Enjoy the sensations of food, noticing the look, feel, color, smell, process of preparing, and of course, the taste. Slow down while you eat and taste consciously.
Tune into what you're hearing. How many different sounds can you identify in your environment? Pay attention to the qualities of each one...

Slowing down also enables your child to participate more fully in activities, allowing them to feel increased competence and contribution to the family.

A body scan is a simple check-in with their body. Teach your child to close their eyes and start with the head and move down the body (or start with the toes and move up the body). Taking slow deep breaths, they can notice without judgment how each part of their body feels.

Breath is our primary tool for regulating our bodies. Here are a couple breathing techniques for kids. Try them out and see what your child prefers:

Put a "breathing buddy: (a small toy or stuffed animal) on their stomach, as they lie on their back and breathe. They can notice how their breathing buddy rises and falls with the breath.

Make a container with glitter and water in it, and screw the cap on tightly. Have your child shake it up and watch the glitter swirl around and then fall to the bottom.

Alternately, you can buy containers with colored oils in them that drip or recombine slowly.

Checking in with the 5 senses is a good way to become aware of external reality. Ask your child to use one sense at a time, each for a minute or two. Have them close their eyes and tune into all the sounds they hear, telling you what they hear. Then what they can smell, what things they sense through touch, eg a hard chair or a cool breeze. Have them open the eyes last of all, and ask them to describe what they see.

A ritual can be thought of as a routine with meaning - a sequence of actions that we perform and repeat with symbolic meaning. Rituals can have lots of functions, including marking transitions, reducing anxiety, helping to process loss, and facilitating group bonding.

In families, participating in rituals together has been shown to improve marital satisfaction, adolescents' sense of identity, children's health, academic achievement and generally build stronger family relationships. Pretty powerful!

Since you have lots of routines that you have to do on a daily basis anyway, look for a couple of spots to infuse with meaning. You'll likely have specific things your family already does, but some examples are things like:

a loving note or heart that you include in your child's lunch
the special way you say good-bye at school every morning
Monday night mother-daughter pow-wow
the pre-game de-jittering dance
family pizza movie night

To turn moments into rituals instead of buzzing past these moments in a "routine" way:

pause and consider the meaning in your child's life
tune in with your child and focus on connection between you
perhaps express some gratitude for the moment
tell a story about this thing you do together and what it means

A basic format for reflection is to ask: what went well? what could have been better? what do I want to try next?

It is important to keep reflection away from shame-triggering assessments of how we did things "wrong," or should or shouldn't have done x, y, or z. The best way to teach our children this ability is for parents to model playful and gentle self reflection.

A helpful formula to keep in mind is these three sentence starters:

"I like..."

"I wish..."

"I wonder..."

Model it yourself when reflecting on past events, and ask them to think about the three parts as well. For example:

"This summer, I loved how we spent so much time in the park. I wish that we had gotten to swim more, though. I wonder if next year we can sign up for swim lessons so that that's on our schedule every week. What do you think?"

"You know guys, I have been thinking about next year, and I think we could do a little better around homework. I like how you are getting everything done, but I really wish I didn't get so grouch about it. It reminds me of grandma, and I know I didn't like that. I wonder if you have ideas of how we could work together better?

Keeping a journal is a great way for children to record and start to process the events of their lives. Journaling has been shown to help people of all ages process emotions and let go of negative feelings related to difficult events. It's also a learning tool to help your child record what happened and then reflect on how they might change things.

Journals can either be completely blank, have dates to help organize things by time, or come with printed prompts for reflection. You can also try a journal dialog, in which you write back and forth to each other. Let your child choose the journal, what to write with, and how to embellish it.

Some kids take to journaling and some don't. Because it's such a helpful practice, it's worth trying to find a variation that will work for your child. BUT, it has to feel like their own choice - pushing too hard may be counter productive.

Savoring a moment consists of tuning in, heightening your focus on the good feelings, and heightening your physical embodiment of the good feelings.

Stop multi-tasking, even mentally, and come into the present moment.
Tune in to each of your sense in turn. What do you see? hear? smell? taste? feel?
Mentally take a snapshot of the moment.
Make a bigger physical expression of your feelings. For example, throw your head back and laugh loudly at a joke, give big warm hugs to greet your family when they arrive, jump up and pump your fist when you get a great gift. You get the idea - enhance your feelings with big expression in your body.
Make a note of things you’re grateful for and / or proud of in this moment. Pat yourself on the back for whatever is good.
Verbalize your good feelings. This could be as simple as:

“I’m loving sharing this meal with you!”

“I’m so excited to try out these snow shoes! Best Present Ever!”

You may have heard of the Danish concept of ‘hygge’ - creating and savoring cozy moments. Hygge is a practice of creating sensory moments out of simple, everyday parts of life, such as lighting candles, giving a backrub, putting essential oils in a warm bath.

The key is to switch off your autopilot and task master, and be on the lookout for minor opportunities to activate your and your child’s senses. For example, get caught up together in a soft sweater, roll down a hill, feel the airy froth of bubble bath... Truly one of the greatest gifts of having children is the invitation to get out of our comfort zones and experience the joyful, sensorial moments of connection, that are so easy for adults to zoom past.