These days children seem to get very little downtime to just be themselves, breathe and relax. Enter meditation!
Meditation is a technique that has been used for thousands of years that involves focusing or clearing your mind using a combination of mental and physical techniques.
The benefits of meditating include:
- Improved sleep
- Increased focus and prolonged attention span
- Reduced stress and anxiety
- Stronger mental resilience
- Improved emotional regulation
- Increased self-awareness and empathy.
Sounds fantastic right?!
How do I get my child to sit still long enough to meditate?
Most children have quite a limited attention span, so how do you get them to sit still long enough to meditate? Our tip - get all the sillies out of them by having a crazy 30 second wiggle and jump and then get them to sit or lie in a relaxed position and off you go.
Even if your first meditation session with your little one only lasts less than a minute, stay the course, the benefits will be well worth it.
When is the best time to meditate with children?
Ideally bedtime or in the morning. Personally, I prefer bedtime as both my children find it difficult to quiet their minds after a full day.
Help! I don’t know how to meditate!
There are several excellent meditation apps available, so you don’t have to lead the meditation yourself – phew! And you can choose different guided meditations, depending on what you want to focus on (sleep, calm mind) and see what works for your child. As we all know, our children are unique, what works for one, may not work for others.
Here is a list of our top 4 children’s meditation apps to help your little ones sleep and destress.
By trying to incorporate meditation for kids into your child’s daily routine now, you’re helping them learn to use it as a tool to combat stress and refocus as they grow.
You can use Duski Dream Guardians to meditate by connecting your mobile device to the built in Bluetooth speaker and streaming meditation and mindfulness tracks through your preferred kid’s meditation app.