Chapter 15

Coaching Children in Mindfulness

In This Chapter

Introducing children and teens to mindfulness

Discovering mindful games and exercises

Exploring mindful parenting

Once you’ve begun to develop your own mindfulness practice, you can consider how to coach your children in mindfulness too. Mindfulness can help children to become calmer and more focused. Mindfulness is a very natural process that children can practise from a young age. In this chapter you can find lots of fun exercises to train your child or teenager in mindfulness, as well as some mindful parenting tips to help keep your family smiling in the challenging but rewarding art of bringing up children.

Children and Mindfulness: A Natural Combination

Young children are naturally experts at mindfulness. Babies are like mini Zen masters! Since they haven’t learnt language, they see things as they are. A set of keys, a light bulb, or the eyes of another human being are awe-inspiring for them. All actions they take are spontaneous. One moment they can be crying, and the next moment they completely let go of the past and laugh. They eat when they’re hungry, sleep when they’re tired, and walk when they want to walk. Their minds are full of curiosity – they can’t help but explore. They’re naturally full of love and affection, which you can see beaming out of their eyes. Babies are often happy just to ‘be’. They can look around and shake their legs and arms, and that’s enough. They love to play and don’t take things too seriously. Babies don’t see themselves as separate individuals; they simply do what they do and go with the flow. Many of these qualities are the essence of mindfulness.

As babies grow up and begin to develop individuality, they begin to lose the sense of focused calm and can end up going from one thing to another, looking for a source of entertainment but lacking the attention to stay with it. When your child is age 5 upwards, you can begin to teach him some very simple mindfulness exercises to help give him some relief from his overactive mind, helping him to find out how to calm himself down. Often, children enjoy becoming calm and may even ask for the mindfulness exercise if feeling agitated.

As children approach their teenage years, they battle with a huge influx of hormones and struggle with the demands that the world makes upon them. They become more serious as individuality takes a firm hold, and begin to suppress emotions. In this challenging transition into adulthood, the innocence of being a baby seems distant and almost a dream. Some simple mindfulness exercises, like mindful breathing for a few minutes, can offer your child a method to focus the mind inwards and not spiral out of control each time something doesn’t go his way.

Teaching Mindfulness to Children

Before you attempt to teach your children the art of mindfulness, consider how they learn. By adopting the right attitude to this important and challenging endeavour, you’re more likely to avoid unnecessary frustration. Follow these tips when teaching mindfulness:

• Be light-hearted. Children don’t like taking things too seriously, so bringing an element of play and fun is important. At the same time, be clear in your mind what the purpose of each mindfulness exercise is, and explain it to your children. (See the next section for ideas for exercises.)
• Keep the sessions short. Children’s attention spans just aren’t as long as those of adults. You need to adjust the length of the session as appropriate for the child.
• Reduce talk and increase action. Avoid talking about how much meditation helps you and how wonderful it is. You’re better off practising more meditation and letting your child learn from what you do rather than what you say.
• Remember that some days will be better than others. Children don’t do meditation, the meditation comes to them. Some days you may feel as if nothing works – then suddenly, your child may sit quietly without distraction, for no apparent reason.
• Avoid using force. If your child doesn’t want to meditate, you can’t force him. This just creates a negative idea about meditation. Meditation isn’t like learning the piano, or maths. Mindfulness requires a desire to practise with a sense of curiosity, and using force can’t generate the right attitude. Instead, be creative and try something completely different. (See the later exercises in this chapter for ideas.)

Setting an example

Children learn far more from what you do than from what you say. Children love copying others, especially people they respect. If a child sees you meditating, he’s likely to be curious about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it. In this way you draw your child towards meditation, rather than forcing meditation upon him.

If you practise very little mindfulness, but think that your child would benefit from the practice, you may have a hard time convincing him of the benefits. He may have seen you react to your stress in unhelpful ways, getting unnecessarily angry and becoming frustrated over small things. Your child may pick up on these reactions and unconsciously begin copying them instead.

If you practise mindfulness on a regular basis and genuinely put in the time, effort and energy to develop it in your life, your child is going to pick up on this too. He’ll notice how you try to calm down when you become upset; how you take mini meditations when things become overwhelming for you; how you’re firm when you need to be firm, and light-hearted at other times. If your child sees you making genuine efforts to cultivate mindfulness, he’s likely to pick up on this. Even if he doesn’t show calm and controlled behaviour at the moment, the memory of his positive perceptions of mindfulness will stay with him, and is likely to flower as he gets older.

Taking baby steps

Don’t expect your child to start with a 30-minute, mindful-breathing exercise the first time you teach him. You may not even be able to do the eating meditation with a raisin or any other food. (See Chapter 6 for the eating meditation.) If your child feels bored, he’s likely to give up immediately and do something more interesting instead. You’d probably have a hard time trying to convince him to explore the boredom or to get interested in the cause of boredom!

If you have high expectations about your child practising mindfulness, you may be disappointed. Keep your expectations reasonably low and be happy with any small progress. Ultimately, meditation is about being in the present moment, so any time at all is very valuable and better than nothing.

Playing Mindfulness Games and Exercises

Children love games. Games help to focus your child’s mind and at the same time have an element of fun. Then, in this more focused state of mind, you can do a short guided imagery for a minute or so – and with young children, that’s enough. I know a couple of schools that do this, and the children really look forward to doing the meditations – they enjoy both the fun and the release of any anxieties and stresses in their systems.

Use your intuition to decide which games to use, but be brave too and try some that you initially doubt. You never know what will happen until you try! Some can be adapted for older children – just use more appropriate props, more adult language and extend the length of the mindful exercises slightly.

You can do these games with one child or more.

Memory game

This game helps to train attention and memory and focuses the mind before a meditation:

1. Put about 20 random items, such as pens, scissors, socks and toys, onto a tray.
2. Tell the child he has one minute to study the items and to try to remember as many as he can. He gets one point for each item he remembers.
3. Cover up the tray with a towel and ask your child to recall the items.
4. Praise your child for however many he gets correct, and challenge him to see whether he can remember one more next time you play.

Teddy bear

This exercise helps to encourage belly breathing, and also to focus the attention on the breathing:

1. Ask your child to lie down on the floor, a mat or a bed.
2. Place a teddy bear or any other favourite toy on your child’s belly and ask him to become aware of the toy as it rises and falls.
3. Encourage your child to be curious about how often the teddy bear goes up and down. Can he make it go up and down a little more slowly? How does that make him feel inside?

Paper windmill spinning

This game is a way of focusing your child’s attention on his breathing. The visual cue of a colourful paper windmill is far more interesting to your child than just feeling his breath alone.

The steps are:

1. Give your child a colourful paper windmill (pinwheel). Let him play with it for a while, and then tell him you’re going to practise being curious together.
2. Ask him to blow as softly as he can and to observe what happens. Ask him to see how slowly he can make the paper windmill turn. How does this make him feel?
3. Ask him to blow as hard as possible, and see how fast the paper windmill turns. What happens to all the colours? How does this make him feel?
4. Ask him to experiment with a long or short breath, and notice how long the paper windmill turns for.
5. Ask him to breathe normally, and to watch what happens to the paper windmill. Again, ask him how he feels.
6. Finally, ask him to put the paper windmill down and feel his breath without it. Ask him whether he can feel calm and relaxed even without the paper windmill, just by feeling his own breath.

Curious mind

This works if you have several children sitting in a circle. The game feels a bit like playing pass the parcel, a popular party game. Although children are naturally curious, this exercise helps them to become aware of the sense of curiosity itself:

1. Find a beautiful, shiny object, wrap it up in layers of newspaper and place it in a box.
2. Now ask the children to try to guess what may be inside. They can shake the box, but nothing else. Let everyone have a guess.
3. Now ask them what it feels like to not know or to be curious. Ask them to look at the faces of the other children – their eyes may be wide open, and there may be smiles around. Encourage curiosity about curiosity!
4. Begin to slowly unwrap the object. Explain how mindfulness is about being curious about everyday experience and in this way reveals the unknown. Tell them that eventually they’ll discover a jewel or other beautiful object inside themselves, and they’ll enjoy looking inside every day.

Loving kindness meditation

This is a powerful exercise to practise with your children. If your children really like the exercise, they may be happy to do the meditation every day before going to sleep. They may find that they sleep more deeply and feel calmer and refreshed the next day. Pause after giving each instruction, to give your child plenty of time to experience the meditation.

For the loving kindness meditation:

1. Ask your child to find a comfortable, relaxed sitting or lying-down posture with his eyes closed, if that feels okay for him.
2. Ask him to remember something that makes him feel happy. He may recall a game he played with a friend, a favourite hobby or much-loved cuddly toy. Adjust according to the age of your child.
3. Ask him to place both his hands over his chest and imagine the feeling of warmth, peace and happiness grow from there to all over his body and even the room around him.
4. Tell him to imagine this happiness and loving kindness spreading to everyone in his family, then to all of his friends, all of the children in his class, his school and his town, even those he doesn’t get on with very well. Then to all people on the planet, living in all the different countries. Then to all animals and plants on earth, including those that live high up in the air and down in the deepest oceans.

Some children may find difficulty in wishing happiness to people they don’t like or to animals such as spiders. Explain that loving kindness includes every living thing, and just as they want to be happy, so do others want to be happy too.

Bubble meditation

I’ve tried this meditation with children from age 10 upwards, and they all seem to like it. You can also try the meditation for younger children too – just simplify the language a little.

The steps are:

1. Ask your child to sit or lie down in a comfortable position. Allow him to use pillows and blankets to make himself cosy. You don’t need to ask him to sit up straight for this meditation. He can close his eyes if he’s okay with that.
2. Say to him: ‘Imagine you have a small, shiny bubble in your hand, that can’t be burst. Imagine dropping that bubble on the floor in front of you, and watching it gently expand until it’s so big you can step inside it. In fact, the bubble is the size of a large, spacious room. Then, step inside the bubble. Now, imagine you can instantly decorate the inside of this bubble in any way you like. You can cover it with blankets of your favourite colour or paint the walls and ceiling just as you like. You can have games machines, expensive televisions, and your favourite music playing in the background – whatever you want. Your favourite food is available whenever you need it. Consider all the sights, sounds, smells, tastes being just how you like them to be inside your bubble. You feel really relaxed, comfortable and safe inside this bubble of yours.’ Allow him time to really enjoy his own personal bubble that he’s created for himself. Children often like imagining what to put inside their bubble, and so you can extend this for more than five minutes.
3. Now allow some time to practise mindfulness. Say to him: ‘Notice how your body feels right now. Which parts feel relaxed? Become aware of your own gentle in and out breath. Enjoy the feeling of your breathing. Feel how soothing the experience is. Breathe in any feeling of happiness and breathe out any stress.’
4. Say to your child: ‘Now you’ve created and enjoyed your own personal bubble, you’re ready to keep this personal bubble of yours for later on. You step out of your bubble and see the bubble shrinking so you can hold the bubble in your hand once again. Now imagine the bubble becomes so small it can move inside your hand and up your arm. Allow the bubble to go into the centre of your chest, where your heart is. You can keep your bubble here for safety, and any time you feel you need to go back into your bubble, you can.’
5. Bring the meditation to a close by asking your child to gently open his eyes, and then discuss how the practice went.

Mindful drawing

This exercise trains your child to be mindful of shape, colour, and light and shade. This is particularly helpful for children who resist traditional mindfulness meditation with their eyes closed, because drawing doesn’t feel like meditation at all, and yet they’re training their attention for detail with a sense of curiosity.

This exercise goes like this:

1. Ask your child to draw an object in the room. He can look at the object as he draws.
2. When he’s finished, you can both compare the picture with the actual object. Which bits are close to the reality and which bits aren’t quite right? Emphasise that this isn’t a competition, more of an experiment to see what happens.
3. If the child wants to, you can repeat the exercise and see how much better the second drawing is through paying attention.

Mindful body scan

Children are far more likely to give their attention to the world around them rather than to their own bodies. This exercise helps to bring their attention back to their physical body, training their attention to focus on one part at a time; they also discover how to move their attention from one part of the body to another. Children can then use this capacity to hold and move their attention in their daily lives.

The steps for the mindful body scan are:

1. Ask your child to lie down in a quiet and relaxing place. He can close his eyes if he wants to.
2. Ask him to name each part of his body, beginning with his toes and moving up to his head. After naming each part, ask him to tell you how that part of the body feels. After naming the part of the body, the child can move it; this changes the feeling and brings a bit of fun to the exercise too.
3. When you get to the top of his head, gently ring a bell and ask him to put his hand up when he can no longer hear the bell. The bell is a way of expanding the attention from a sharp, focused one to a wider, more expansive and open awareness. By asking him to identify when the sound turns into silence, he is drawn naturally into the peaceful silence, and can feel more calm and refreshed.

Supporting Teens with Mindfulness

It’s not easy being a teenager. If you cast your mind back to those days, you may recall mood swings, frustration with parents, annoying teachers, scary exams and the constant battle to fit in with your peers.

Teenagers often judge themselves harshly, with questions like: ‘Why do I look fat? Why do I have a massive spot on my nose just when I managed to get a hot date? Why aren’t I pretty? Why doesn’t she fancy me?’ With all these thoughts hijacking the brain, it’s no wonder life is tough for teens.

The adolescent brain experiences more intense emotions than a child or adult’s brain does. This has evolved in nature, because emotions are designed to create motion. In Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain by Daniel Siegel (Published by Tarcher, 2014), the teenage brain has evolved to motivate the teenager to prepare to move away from home. So teenagers’ mood swings are not their fault – it’s the way their brains work.

Take a few moment to reflect on what your challenges were as a teenager. How may mindfulness have helped you? How would you have liked to be introduced to mindfulness?

About one in eight teens suffer from depression. And according to the US National Institutes of Health, a massive one in four teens suffer from an anxiety disorder, with one in twenty having a severe disorder. I think that, as a society, we need to do something about these alarming statistics.

Introducing mindfulness to teens

Mindfulness can be a great help to teenagers. With the cocktail of emotions that teens face, mindfulness can be used to help teens anchor themselves in the present by connecting with their senses, and thereby feel a little more in control.

When introducing adolescents to mindfulness, don’t use it as a way make them behave better. If that’s your attitude, it’s likely to backfire. Instead, offer mindfulness for the sake of it.

The aim of mindfulness is not to feel better, but to get better at feeling.

Teenagers need you to treat them like adults. They’re human beings, don’t forget! The more respect you can show them, the better they’ll be able to listen to you.

Offer short mindfulness exercises to teens. Around 10 minutes is a good length of time. A longer session of 15–20 minutes is acceptable for more relaxing exercises like the body scan, which can be done lying down.

With time, many of the mindfulness meditations offered in this book can work for teens.

These tips may help you:

• Use appropriate language. I think ‘mindfulness’ is quite a good word. The word ‘meditation’ has all sorts of connotations that may put teenagers off. Some people call it ‘relaxation’, but as I mention in Chapter 1, mindfulness is not really just relaxation. Teens may be interested if you explain the difference between mindfulness and relaxation.
• Use examples and role models that they can relate to. Think about the group of teenagers (or the individual teenager) you’re speaking to, and what kind of things they’re interested in. Tell them about famous personalities who are into mindfulness or meditation. Examples of meditators include Oprah Winfrey, Arianna Huffington, Bill Ford (executive chairman of Ford), Hugh Jackman (aka ‘Wolverine’), Russell Brand and many more.
• Respect them, like they’re adults. In my experience, the more you can show respect to teenagers as if they’re adults, the better they’ll respond. With the inner practice of mindfulness, you certainly can’t force it upon anyone. By being mindful yourself, you set the stage and provide an example for them to follow you.

Here’s a simple little exercise for teens to try:

1. Mindful Three: Three things with three senses

   Notice what you can see around you. Which three different objects can you see? Notice their colour and shape.

2. Now listen. Which three different sounds can you hear? Notice the pitch and volume.
3. Now feel the physical sensations in your body. Which three different sensations can you feel? What do the sensations actually feel like?

That’s a quick, easy way to get into mindfulness using three senses.

Helping teens with exam stress

Being a teenager without the stress of writing exams is difficult enough. But the added pressure of relentless testing can tip teenagers into anxiety or depression. If you want to help your teenager manage the stress of exams, mindfulness can help.

You can introduce teens to mindfulness in several ways:

• Show them this or another appropriate book on mindfulness. Perhaps suggest a couple of specific chapters for them to look at.
• Give them a guided mindfulness audio from this book to try – aim for one that’s between three and ten minutes long to begin with. Or invite them to practise mindfulness with you in a comfortable environment.
• Help them to find a time of day that’s right for them – mornings, afternoons or early evenings are all good.
• Share the short mini mindfulness meditation, and let them use that several times a day, especially at times when they’re feeling higher-than-normal levels of stress.

You can give these ‘mindful’ tips to your teenager in the run-up to exam day:

• Sleeping is like plugging your phone in at night. That’s the best way your phone will work best if it’s fully charged. The same goes for you. Make it a priority to go to bed on time. It’s tempting to revise more and more, but the less sleep you have, the harder you make it for your brain to recall facts.
• Start the morning with a short mindfulness practice. You can do a short body scan or listen to the short mindfulness guided audio tracks that come with this book.
• Avoid last-minute revision. In my experience of doing last-minute revision, all I remembered was the stuff I revised at the last minute, and everything else somehow got lost! If you do revise at the last minute, observe to see whether it works for you or not.
• Do a mini mindful exercise just before you start your exam. Take three conscious deep breaths before you open the exam paper. Or if you feel pressured to open the exam paper when everyone else does, do so, but then do your three deep, mindful breaths. Then take your time over the first question. Exams are like building a house. You need to take your time to build nice solid foundations early on. The first question is your foundation upon which to build.
• If you’re struggling to answer the questions, don’t panic. Now’s the time to stop writing for a few moments and gather yourself. Feel your body on the chair and your feet on the floor to bring you into the present moment. Try putting your pen down and opening and closing your hands a few times, noticing how that feels. Then make a fresh start with the next question, reading the question carefully. Don’t give up!
• Treat your exam like you’re a patient. When you go to see the doctor, do you want the doctor to rush or to listen carefully to your questions and answer them accurately? Of course you want the doctor to listen and take their time. Rushing exams will lower your grade, not increase it. Take your time and read each question at half the speed at which you normally read. See whether that helps you to answer the question more accurately.

Discovering 7/11 breathing

This is a nice, easy exercise for teenagers to use to deal with the anxiety of exams. Actually, younger children and adults can equally benefit from it. This breathing technique switches on your relaxation response, and if you notice the sensation of your breathing, the exercise can be a mindfulness experience too.

You can do this exercise anywhere: on a bus, on a train, sitting at home, lying down or even while gently walking. Here’s how:

1. As you breathe in, count to seven in your head. Count at a rate that feels comfortable for your breath.
2. As you breathe out, count to 11.
3. Repeat Steps 2 and 3.
4. Whenever you mind wanders off, just forgive yourself, smile and start again. That’s cool!
5. Stop after five to ten minutes, or sooner if you feel too relaxed or light headed!

As you do the 7/11 breathing exercise, consider these tips:

• You need to breathe in a bit faster than you breathe out. The in-breath is slightly harder, and the out-breath a little softer.
• This takes a bit of practice, like anything else. You’ll get better at it after you’ve done it a few times. Eventually it may get so enjoyable it’s slightly addictive, which is good!
• Combine this exercise with visualising yourself in a peaceful place if you like. That’s what I call mindful visualisation, if you allow yourself to stay conscious within the experience.

Mindful Parenting

I think that parenting is probably the most difficult, stressful, important and fulfilling responsibility in the world. A good parent needs not only to nurture the child with food, shelter and clothing, but to develop the child’s mind too. Your behaviour as a parent often reflects what your own parents were like, even if you want to change and improve upon certain areas. However, parents often end up repeating the cycle in subtle ways, passing on unhelpful behaviours. Fortunately, mindful parenting can help to break the cycle.

Being present for your children

How can mindfulness help with parenting? Mindful parents are aware of and awake to their actions and the actions of their children. This is very important in bringing up a child. Children crave attention. For children, attention is like love. If they don’t receive sufficient attention, they misbehave until they get that attention – even being told off is preferable to being ignored. Attention is a fundamental need for a child. How can you give that attention if you’re not attentive yourself? Mindfulness offers ways to hone your attention skills to help bring up a child in a more harmonious and peaceful way.

Here are the benefits of parenting in the present moment:

• You can meet your child’s needs. By living in the present moment, you’re more able to meet your child’s needs as necessary. You notice if your child needs to eat or sleep or just play. You notice if actually all that he needs is a hug. Each moment is different and fresh, and what worked yesterday may not work today. Your child is one day older and different – living moment by moment helps you to see this.
• You can meet your own needs. By being aware and awake to the present sensations in your own body, and noticing the way you react to situations, you’re also better able to look after yourself. Parenting is very tiring, and when you’re over-tired you can end up making decisions that just create more difficulties rather than solutions. Awareness of your own reactions helps you to sense when this is happening and to take whatever appropriate action is necessary.
• You cultivate gratefulness. Living in the present moment helps you to be grateful for what you have rather than ungrateful for what you don’t. You may notice how much work you have to do, or how frustrated you are by your children’s behaviour, but thinking about what isn’t going according to plan is draining. Living in the present enables you to see what’s going well and what you do have. You may have healthy children and a nice home; you may be having a spell of good weather; or you may have a supportive partner or friend.
• You see things afresh. One of the other key aspects of mindfully living in the present is adopting an attitude of ‘beginner’s mind’. (For more on seeing things afresh, jump to Chapter 4.) This involves seeing things freshly, as if for the first time. If you have a baby, you’re able to see how he’s always living in beginner’s mind. Babies look around the room or area with wonder. By living with this same attitude, you’re more able to meet the ever-changing challenge of parenting in the present moment.
• You free yourself from worries. Living and parenting moment by moment means you can let go of regrets about the past and worries about the future. Neither of them exist in the present moment. Do you have any problems at all, right now, if you don’t think about them? All worries, concerns, fears and anxieties arise from leaving the here and now, the present moment. All you need to do is take things one day at a time – or, better still, one second at a time. You may be worrying about how your children will be tomorrow, or next week, month or year. All you can possibly do is your best, right here and now, and let go of what has happened or may happen.

Trying out tips for mindful parenting

Here are a few tips for practising mindful parenting:

• Be present for your child. The greatest present you can give your child is your presence. Live in the moment and as if everything in front of you is your teacher. Your child will observe and copy this on some level.
• Find the balance between love and discipline. If you’re too lenient your children become spoilt, but if you’re too harsh your children become overly cold and closed. Set clear boundaries, but ensure that you praise good behaviour and attitudes, and don’t just criticise their errors.
• Trust your intuition. Your sense of the best thing to do is more intelligent than logical thinking – your intuition has access to all your unconscious learning that has operated in humanity for thousands of years. Use a combination of your head and heart in your decisions.
• Look for a balance in situations. You can’t get your own way all the time, and neither can your child. But perhaps a place in between satisfies you both to a certain extent and feels right.
• Imagine things from your child’s perspective. What’s it like to be dominated by adults most of the time? How does your child feel if adults’ seemingly silly desires are all they can think about? If you were your child, how would you want your parents to act towards you?
• Take some time to meditate every day, even if for a short period of time. Don’t force your child to do the same, but answer his questions about meditation honestly and simply, and play mindful games with him when you can.
• Practise mindful listening. Listen to your child as if you’re listening to a piece of music or the sounds of nature. Listen with a gentle attentiveness and respond as necessary. Listening to your child can be like a mindfulness meditation.
• Observe your own behaviour as much as you observe your child’s behaviour. See how you like to do what you like doing, just as your child likes to do what he likes doing.
• Look after yourself. Ensure that you eat properly, sleep enough (I know this can be difficult), and take exercise. You may need to be really creative to fit some of these things into your daily schedule.
• Be light-hearted. You don’t need to take things too seriously. If you made a mistake in your parenting, don’t beat yourself up about the fault – instead see whether you can laugh or at least smile about it. You’re human after all, and so is your child.