How To Teach Your Children To Be Peaceful
How To Teach Your Children To Be Peaceful
Hi Ladies!
In my last post, I gave you some tips to return to balance. This is especially important as we are going through the Coronavirus, but of course, maintaining balance is always important. In today’s post, I want to focus on steps we can teach children to be peaceful. Our children may not understand what is going on right now, but we can teach them to find peace even if their schedules have changed and they may not be able to see their loved ones, even if they are emotional, even if they cannot express their emotions as eloquently as we can.
Many people think that children are too young to learn meditation or mindfulness, but actually it is the best time. If we teach our children while they are young, they can incorporate these tools into their lives for a lifetime, have more peace, and return to balance quicker.
Today I am going to give you tools that you can teach very young children.
The first meditation was taught to me by spiritual teacher, Gabby Bernstein. She gave this example to a woman who wanted to teach her daughter to meditate.
Sit with your child and ask her (or him) to repeat the phrase: Peace begins with me. Then instruct her to tap her fingers softly starting with the thumb and forefinger as she repeats “Peace”, then her thumb and middle finger as she says “begins”, then her thumb and ring finger as she says“with”, and then her thumb and ring finger as she says “me.” Do the exercise with her, using your hand and say the words aloud for each finger.
Once she has the phrase and the tapping down, ask her to slow it down. Tap each finger and slowly say the phrase: Peace begins with me. Say it slower and slower and softer and softer until you are slowly whispering the phrase. She may then close her eyes and continue but thinking the phrase inside.
For kids who are very active or who may need something a little more advanced, you can instruct them to use both hands. You can even ask them to sit cross legged while they do it and then after they finish thinking the phrase in their head, they can sit in silence with their eyes closed for a few minutes.
This is a great meditation that you can do with your kids or teach them and they they can practice on their own.
Yoga is great for kids too. Baby pose and Leaf pose are great postures to relax anyone’s nervous systems and simple enough for young kids.
For Baby Pose, sit together on the floor on your knees, sitting on your ankles. Stretch your arms out in front of you, as you bend forward. Your forehead should be pressing on the floor. Your hands are flat on the ground in front of you, with straight arms, head width apart. Sit in this position and breath deeply for several minutes.
Alternatively, you can do Leaf Pose together. For Leaf Pose, start by sitting on your ankles, bend forward and place your arms along your sides, facing in back of you. Your palms are facing upward. Your head is still on the floor. Breath deeply. This pose is almost like you are a leaf on the ground. For both positions, you are sitting on your heels.
For a little more joy, you can teach your child, Happy Baby. Happy Baby is fun. Lie on your back with your legs up to your chest. Hug your knees in. Lift your feet in the air. Grab your feet on the inside of your legs. Reach for the soles of your feet. Keep your knees bent as you hold your feet with both hands and rock from side to side. If you fall over to the side and start laughing, that’s fine. That’s part of being a happy baby! If you fall over to the side, get back into position with your feet up and start rocking some more.
Another simple meditation is teaching your child a hand position called a mudra. In yoga there are various hand positions which all have different meanings. The simplest one to do is to touch the forefinger and thumb together and allow the rest of the fingers to be open and relaxed. Palms face up.
The thumb is symbolic of the divine and the index finger is symbolic of human consciousness. This connects us all. The index finger is also a sign of inspiration and the thumb a sign of intuition, so by touching these two fingers together for several minutes you are connecting your intuition with inspiration. This is an uplifting mudra. You will connected and uplifted.
You can teach your child to hold this position as she breaths deeply or she can simply walk around the house holding this position with both hands. If your child is older, you can instruct him or her to sit in a cross legged position, holding this mudra with the eyes closed, and breath deeply for several minutes. They will feel calmer and more peaceful.
I hope you enjoyed these tips. Please let me know which ones you tried with your kids and which ones were their favorites. Do you do the exercises together? Do you now do them regularly? Do you like to play music while you do the exercises? What changes did you see in your child afterwards? Share with us below.
I hope these tips bring both of you peace during the Coronavirus and that you will continue to use these meditations anytime you need more peace.