Mindfulness
“Be where you are, otherwise; you will miss your life.”
In the first episode of The Paper Girls Show, Kami invites Caily and Reese to “take a deep breath” and “clear your minds.” This theme of mindfulness continues to be woven throughout the show.
Mindfulness not only has benefits while you’re doing it, but can actually change your brain over time! For example, one study showed that engaging in daily meditation over the course of eight weeks led to changes in the amygdala, which is central to stress and anxiety, the hippocampus, which is involved in learning and memory, and brain areas associated with self-awareness, introspection, and compassion. To learn more about this study, read The Harvard Gazette’s Eight weeks to a better brain article.
There are many child-friendly ways to introduce mindfulness to kids, and when children practice mindfulness it supports the development of many important social-emotional skills. Research shows that when children engage in mindful reflection, it develops their self-awareness and emotional regulation skills, which help them respond to emotional experiences in healthy ways. Further, research shows that practicing mindfulness can nurture children’s perspective-taking skills, empathy and compassion. Research suggests that mindfulness can also help children problem-solve effectively, just like it did for Caily and Reese in the first episode of The Paper Girls Show!
Would you like to try mindfulness activities with the children in your life? To get started, read below!
Teach Children Mindful Breathing Techniques
Try taking a few slow, deep breaths, letting your stomach expand as you breath in and come down as you breath out. How did that make you feel? Research shows that practicing mindful breathing techniques can calm us down and bring us into the present. Teaching children these techniques is an excellent way to introduce them to mindfulness.
Teach mindful breathing in child-friendly ways
There are many child-friendly ways to introduce mindful breathing techniques. You can coach children using imagery. For example, you can ask them to fill up the air in their bellies like a big balloon and slowly let it out. It can be helpful to use concrete props as well. For example, you can have children choose a stuffed animal as a “breathing buddy” and then lay down with the stuffed animal on their stomach. You can then instruct them to slowly breath in and out and watch as the stuffed animal moves up and down on their belly with their breath. This Breathing buddy video demonstrates this technique. Fingers can provide a concrete support as well! You can ask children to raise each finger up one by one, taking a deep breath in and out each time they raise a finger up until they get to 10.
Use guided breathing techniques
If you’d like to offer guided breathing techniques, there are many wonderful child-friendly resources available online, such as Susan Kaiser Greenland’s Breathing on purpose: A cooling outbreath, Breathing with a pinwheel, or Stop, breathe and be.
You can also download a mindfulness app with guided breathing techniques for children, such as Stop, breathe and think, Smiling mind, Headspace for kids, Calm, Three good things: A happiness journal, or Insight timer.
Encourage children to use mindful breathing to regulate their emotions
Breathing techniques provide an excellent way for children to tune into their emotions. A fun way to support this is to ask children to take a few deep breaths, notice how they are feeling, and then give a “personal weather report” in which they explain which weather conditions best explain how they are feeling, such as sunny, clear, calm, rainy, stormy, or tsunami! This technique encourages children to observe their emotions without overly identifying with them. In addition, it reminds them that, like the weather, emotions are temporary.
Once children are familiar with mindful breathing, you can encourage them to use their breathing anytime they want to calm their body down. It’s helpful to coach them to learn to do this by suggesting that they use their breathing whenever you notice that they are feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, or upset. With this approach, over time, they will internalize mindful breathing as a tool that they can use themselves whenever it is helpful to them.
Engage Children in Mindful Movement
Since most children like to be active, they might enjoy mindful movement.
Take children on mindful walks
Engaging children in mindful movement can be as simple as taking them on a walk in which you encourage them to be fully present by paying close attention. There are many fun ways to make this activity child-friendly.
For example, you can tell children to turn on their superpower “spidey senses,” the super-focused senses of sight, hearing, touch, smell, and taste that Spiderman uses. During the walk, you can encourage them to use their spidey senses to carefully tune into what is around them.
Another fun mindfulness walking activity for children is to take them on a safari walk! In this activity, you ask the children to find as many birds, bugs, creepy-crawlies, or other animals as they can! Tell them that they’ll have to pay close attention to find them, especially the little ones. These types of mindful walking activities encourage children to stay in the present moment.
Practice yoga with children
Yoga provides another active way to practice mindfulness. Why not practice yoga together?
A simple way to begin is with mindful posing. Here are two fun poses for children to get you started:
The Superman: this pose is practiced by standing with the feet just wider than the hips, fists clenched, and arms reached out to the sky, stretching the body as tall as possible
The Wonder Woman: this pose is struck by standing tall with legs wider than hip-width apart and hands or fists placed on the hips
There are lots of great resources for practicing yoga with children online. A quick YouTube search will give you plenty of options for online classes you can try together at home. To get you started, here are few that work well for children ages 6-8: Yoga with Adriene’s Yoga for kids, Sophia Khan’s Yoga for kids, Yoga Ed.’s Kid’s yoga class. You could sign up for a local in-person yoga class together too!
Offer Mindful Maker Activities
Another way to engage children in active mindfulness activities is using mindful maker activities.
Make origami mindfully
In The Paper Girls Show, the characters often make origami, which research suggests can support mindfulness. Children can become engrossed in making origami, which focuses their attention and brings them mindfully into the present moment. Moveover, as children practice origami, you can remind them to focus on the process and embrace mistakes along the way, which encourages them to let go of self-judgment and perfectionism. To read more about how origami can support mindfulness, read this Psychology Today 5 ways origami boosts mindfulness article.
To get started with origami, try The Paper Girls Show and Taro’s Origami Studio’s Origami activities with your children! When they watch an episode, they can make the origami featured in the episode following the directions for these activities.
A quick search on Google or YouTube will provide instructions for making just about anything in origami! Follow children’s interests. If the children you’re making with are fascinated by animals, look up directions for making animals. If they love flowers, find directions for making flowers.
Most importantly, as children work on their origami, remind them to slow down and stay focused on each step as they do it, without jumping ahead in their mind. Also remember to encourage them to embrace mistakes along the way!
Write notes of gratitude
Cultivating gratitude is central to mindfulness. Research shows that writing thank you notes promotes feelings of gratitude. To learn more about this, see Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center’s Gratitude letter. Ask children to make their own thank you cards! You can find plenty of resources on card making online. Get creative! You can also invite children to send thank you notes with Research Schools International’s free Gratitude app!
Children may also enjoy making a gift and writing a note of gratitude on it. For example, you could have children make the origami photo frame in The Paper Girls Show and Taro’s Origami Studio’s Origami activities, put a photo in it, and write a note of gratitude on the back. This makes a wonderful gift!
For further resources on mindfulness for children, see below.
Further Resources
AtentaMenta’s Mindfulness resources in Spanish
The Mindfulness in School Project and University of Exeter’s Evidence for the impact of mindfulness on children and young people
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health’s Yoga resources
Research Schools International’s Mindfulness research
Rina the Poet’s Yoga resources
Susan Kaiser Greenland’s Mindfulness resources for kids
UCLA’s Mindful Awareness Research Center’s Mindfulness resources