110 – Mindful Children: What is a good starting age for meditation?
Good morning, folks! I am Jin with Morning Mindfulness Podcast. Hope you are doing fabulous! Let’s breathe and smile.
Speaking about Mindful Children…
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There are quite a few discussions going on today about teaching kids to meditate. One of the questions that comes up is when is a good time to start teaching that? I guess it depends on the teacher, type of meditation etc. However, I’d suggest to pay attention to a couple of points.
1. Don’t try to force children to meditate. Remember, their attention span is different. Also, they don’t see any health benefits, any philosophical ideas etc. They like to play.
2. I think the most important is the example set by parents.
I personally started my own meditation pretty early, some time in 70s. My great uncle was an energy healer, and he showed me some exercises which I liked to do. Things like imagining sending a beam of light out of my finger in a dark room, or stretching my arm and imagining that I was touching a Moon. I was actually feeling the Moon in my hand like a tennis ball.
That was how I started, you don’t need to go that far. But I think a simple mindfulness meditation can be started pretty early. In fact, I believe that it should be started early. Observing the breath, for example, or listening to the ocean waves, or waterfall, or rain. This can be a guided meditation with some imagination, using kids language in a playful type of practice. And I think it works great, as long as you don’t expect kids to sit for an hour with no distractions, of course. Ha-ha.
So if you have kids, think about that.
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Now let’s breathe and smile. I will talk to you next time.
PEACE!
Jin