How do we help kids feel safe enough to be mindful of their moment-to-mote experience? And how does that approach differ from helping adults to be mindful of their experience? We all need to be safe when we're practicing mindfulness meditation. In order to open to our actual raw experience, we need to have a sense of safety. Like it's going to be okay if I take time out from doing so that I can simply be, so that I can take time to maybe close my eyes or look downwards so that I can tend to my inner world in a way that feels safe enough for me to do that. And so sometimes it takes a while for us to sense into our surroundings, take some deep breaths, realize that in this moment things are going to be okay. I can take the time to go inward. And this transition period for some of us takes longer than others, and some of us, you know, we're in the habit of feeling safe right away. There's no right or wrong, but we all need to feel safe enough in order to look inward and to meet our experience. And many times there's layers of experience, and sometimes we don't know what those core layers are going to look like or feel like, which can be scary, which is all the more a reason why, as mindfulness and meditation teachers, we need to do our part in helping kids and adults to feel safe with their practice. And so with helping kids, it is different than helping adults. I've been teaching mindfulness and meditation to kids and adults for about 15 years in schools, retreat settings, meditation centers, healthcare, etc. And I've been teaching a lot of educators and counselors and therapists and yoga teachers how to help kids feel safe in mindfulness and meditation practice, regardless of the meditation, whether it's a body skin, mindfulness of breathing, loving kindness practice. I've been helping people to teach mindfulness and helping kids feel safe enough to do so for quite a while. And last week someone asked this question in our mindfulness teacher certification program like, what does it look like to help kids feel safe versus adults? And so I'd love to play this clip for you in which I share a few practical tips and tools with you so that hopefully you can help kids feel safe when you're helping them to be present and self-compassionate and resilient. My belief is that as mindfulness meditation teachers, a big part of our job is to encourage courage. Courage to meet whatever's here, whether it's pleasant or not. In baby steps, we want to be trauma sensitive, maybe not trauma-focused, but we want to be sensitive to the possibility of trauma. Uh with kids, we can be a little bit playful. We can use imagery a little bit more in a way that's going to engage them. And we can look for certain cues from kids that they're showing us to know how much more we can do with this practice of awareness. But we want to be gentle. And uh we want to, you know, establish a trust, trusting relationship with kids. We're not talking down at them, we're not talking at them, we're not telling them what they should do, we're not judging. We're forming a relationship with them where we're engaged with their energies in a responsible, loving way where we have boundaries, but we can also show our own kids' side as well and have fun with it. Um so I would like to play this clip for you of a real raw, impromptu interaction I had with someone who was uh wondering about how to create safety with children and how that experience differs with adults. I hope you like it. And if uh you'd like more support, check out the links below and we'd be happy to help you. But I hope you like this video. I think largely it's the same, but there's a few things that I might emphasize a little bit differently. It's a bit of a broad age group, you know, K through four together. But I don't know. For me, like when I I I've taught kids in different ways, and one of the things I try to emphasize a little bit more with kids is really like looking at them in the eyes. So I think a lot of adults don't really look at them for that long, but I think like really like looking at them, you know, as they walk into the room, maybe just spending time with them before you introduce yourself or whatever, just kind of look around and look at them in the eyes. I think that has a big impact on them feeling seen, you know, like just connecting them with them in the eyes with kind eyes. I mean, that's true for anybody. But I try to do that with kids more, or I'm I'm much more aware of it with kids, and sometimes it just takes a couple seconds for them to like look at you, and then you kind of see them shift a little bit. And you probably probably preach into the choir here, but anyway, so that's one thing I would do with kids. This kind of goes to the trust thing. Like, I maybe this is just my own personality, but I try to be silly, you know, and I'll play the fool, you know, and I'll be silly, or I'll be like really kind of random sometimes. But I I tend to have a bit of a dry humor around that, which I think most kids pick up on. But yeah, I think like emphasizing there's no right or wrong here, you know, like with mindfulness, it's really not about right or wrong. It's just about being aware. And you know, so much of their day like what are your grades, what did you get right, who got in trouble, you know, comparing, you know, what did you get for lunch, all these things. And it's so they're kind of in a comparing mode quite a bit. I'm generalizing. But with mindfulness or with art, mindful art, like you can really emphasize like this is not about good or bad, best or worse, A plus or fail, or whatever. It's just about being aware. What can you notice? And so with art specifically, you know, like shades of color, and uh the texture of crayon on the paint on the paper, the sound of the paper, or sound of the instrument on the surface, uh the sounds, you know, there's so many different art things you can do, but like you know, sights, sounds, tastes, smells, feelings, you know, do you judge yourself if it's not coming out the way you envisioned? Do you judge others' art in different ways and noticing what that's like? You know, journey versus destination, process versus outcome. You know, like can you just notice the experience as it's happening, you know, or is there sort of this holding on to an outcome that is you know right or wrong? What emotions are coming up for you as you do this? Can you do it with a gentle awareness? But anyway, to really emphasize the non-judgment piece, or or rather, like you know, if judgments arise, then notice those with gentleness. Because you know, most of us judgments will arise. So not shaming ourselves or judging ourselves for judging, but just noticing judgments as they arise. But it's not about the good or the bad or the right. For me, like having enough space around you, just like even like how much space between the chairs or the desks is there, like you know, do people have enough space? You know, maybe if you're not comfortable with where you are right now, feel free to move somewhere else in the room. You know, maybe they want to be away from that bully or closer to a teacher, you know, and it can even be as like simple as like, are you hydrated? You know, water's over here, bathrooms are over here, you know, doing a little check like a breathing moment or a emotion check-in before you get into art mode, you know, a little mini meditation of some sort. So they're present for what they're about to do. Can be really helpful. And you know, again, I'm really preaching to the choir here. If you've already gotten good feedback on this, then you know, do what you know works well. But these are just a few, you know, ideas of things to consider.
