Mindfulness for Children

We know mindfulness is good for us. Mindfulness allows us to be present in our parenting, choosing the
skillful response instead of succumbing to our visceral reactions.
Mindfulness is also good for our kids. There is an emerging body of research that indicates that
mindfulness can help our children improve their abilities to pay attention, to calm down when they are
upset, and to make better decisions. In short, it helps with emotional regulation and cognitive focus. Do

I even need to ask if you want that for your kids? 

So where do we start? How can we teach mindfulness to kids?

First things first…

Establish your own practice. You would have trouble teaching your children ballet if you had never
danced. To authentically teach mindfulness to your children, you need to practice it yourself. You can
read my guide to establishing a meditation practice here, or my popular post 40 Ways to Bring
Mindfulness to Your Days here for some ideas to get started. Don’t let this step intimidate you — you’re
probably practicing a lot of mindful habits already!
Check your expectations. A core principle of mindfulness is letting go of expectations, and this certainly
applies to teaching mindfulness to kids. Are you expecting mindfulness to eliminate tantrums? to make
your active child calm? to make your house quiet? If so, you are likely to be disappointed. While feeling
calm or being quiet are nice side-effects of mindfulness, they are not the ultimate purpose.
The purpose of teaching mindfulness to our children is to give them skills to develop their  awareness of
their inner and outer experiences, to recognize their thoughts as “just thoughts,” to understand how
emotions manifest in their bodies, to recognize when their attention has wandered, and to
provide tools for impulse control. It is not a panacea, and it will not completely get rid of what is,
frankly, normal kid behavior, like tantrums and loudness and whining and exuberance and arguing…
Don’t force it. If your kids aren’t interested in your lesson or activity, drop it. This is a good time
for you to practice non-attachment to outcomes!
Don’t make mindfulness a punishment. This shouldn’t be, “You hit your sister! Go sit in the mindful
corner!” ’nuff said.
Now that we’ve got the preliminaries out of the way, here are my suggestions for how you can begin to
introduce mindfulness to your children.
10 Ways to Teach Mindfulness to Kids
1. Keep it simple. With older kids, you can share the widely-used definition from Jon Kabat-Zinn in the
image above. But those are a lot of big words for little kids. I prefer to use the
words awareness or noticing with my children {ages 5 and 7, for reference}. Mindfulness is noticing our
thoughts, what our body feels like, what our ears are hearing, and anything else that is around us and
happening right now.
2. Listen to the bell. An easy way for children to practice mindfulness is to focus on paying attention to
what they can hear. I’ve used a singing bowl, like the one on the right, for this exercise, but you could
use a bell, a set of chimes, or a phone app that has sounds on it. Tell your children that you will make the
sound, and they should listen carefully until they can no longer hear the sound (which is usually 30
seconds to a minute). I find that this exercise does have a calming effect on my children, and it’s a fun
way to teach them to pay attention to their surroundings.
3. Create a mindful bedtime ritual. Bedtime is a great time to introduce mindfulness to kids. My
daughter loves to do a short body-scan meditation before bed — she closes her eyes, and I tell her to
bring her attention to her toes, to her feet, to her legs, etc. It is a calming way to return to the body at
the end of the day. You can find several downloadable meditation scripts (including body scans) here,
and you can read about the bedtime ritual my daughter and I created here.
4. Practice with a breathing buddy. For young children, an instruction to simply “pay attention to the
breath” can be hard to follow. In this Edutopia video, Daniel Goleman describes a 2nd-grade classroom
that does a “breathing buddy” exercise: each student grabs a stuffed animal, and then lies down on their
back with their buddy on their belly. They focus their attention on the rise and fall of the stuffed animal
as they breathe in and out. {You should definitely check out the video — it’s less than 2 minutes and
explains the exercise and all the good stuff that it teaches kids!}
5. Make your walks mindful. One of my children’s favorite things to do in the summer is a “noticing
walk.” We stroll through our neighborhood and notice things we haven’t seen before. We’ll designate
one minute of the walk where we are completely silent and simply pay attention to all the sounds we
can hear — frogs, woodpeckers, a lawnmower. We don’t even call it “mindfulness,” but that’s what it is.
6. Establish a gratitude practice. I believe gratitude is a fundamental component of mindfulness,
teaching our children to appreciate the abundance in their lives, as opposed to focusing on all the toys
and goodies that they crave. This post describes my family’s nightly gratitude practice  — each night at
dinner we each share one thing we are thankful for. It is one of my favorite parts of the day.
7. Try the SpiderMan meditation! My five-year-old son is in to all things superheroes, and this
SpiderMan meditation is right up his alley. This meditation from Kids Relaxation teaches children to
activate their “spidey-senses” and their ability to focus on all they can smell, taste, and hear in the
present moment. Such a clever idea!
8. Meditate with your children. I cannot even tell you how many times my meditation sessions have
been interrupted by my children. They know by now what mommy is doing when she meditates, so I will
try tocontinue with my meditation even as they play around me. Sometimes, my daughter will sit down
and join me for a few minutes. It’s beautiful.
9. Check your personal weather report. In Sitting Still Like a Frog, Eline Snel encourages children to
“summon the weather report that best describes [their] feelings at the moment.” Sunny, rainy, stormy,
calm, windy, tsunami? This activity allows children to observe their present state without overly
identifying with their emotions. They can’t change the weather outside, and we can’t change our
emotions or feelings either. All we can change is how we relate to them. As Snel describes it, children can
recognize, “I am not the downpour, but I notice that it is raining; I am not a scaredy-cat, but I realize that
sometimes I have this big scared feeling somewhere near my throat.”
10. Practice mindful eating. The exercise of mindfully eating a raisin or a piece of chocolate is a staple of
mindfulness education, and is a great activity for kids. You can find a script for a 7-minute mindful
eating exercise for children here. This is a fun way to teach children to pay attention to and savor their
food, and by extension, the present moment.
*****
Above all, remember to have fun and keep it simple. You can provide your children with many
opportunities to add helpful practices to their toolkit — some of them will work for them and some
won’t. But it’s fun to experiment!
 Teach mindfulness to your kids — it can help them develop emotional regulation and cognitive focus. 
Want more resources? You may find the following posts helpful:
Mindful Mantras for Kids {with coloring sheet downloads}
Learn to make a Mind Jar {this is the all-time most-read post on my blog!}
Teaching Mindfulness to Teens: 5 Ways to Get Buy-In
5 Strategies for Teaching Mindfulness to Children
The Totally Obvious Thing a Mindful Mama Overlooked

The Mindful Jar.

A mindful jar works in a couple of ways. First, it will to help them to understand what happens when
strong emotion starts to take hold of them. Second, it can help them find calm when they are feeling
stressed, upset, or overwhelmed. Here’s how:

Start with a jar and fill it almost to the top with water. Into the water, add a few big dollops of glitter
glue (or school glue and dry glitter). Pop on the lid and give the jar a shake. Here are some words:

‘Imagine that the glitter is like your thoughts when you’re stressed, mad or upset. See how they whirl
around and make it really hard to see clearly? That’s why it’s so easy to make silly decisions when
you’re upset – because you’re not thinking clearly. Don’t worry this is normal and it happens in all of
us (yep, grownups too). [Now put the jar down in front of them.] Now watch what happens when
you’re still for a couple of moments. Keep watching. See how the glitter starts to settle and the water
clears? Your mind works the same way. When you’re calm for a little while, your thoughts start to
settle and you start to see things much clearer.’

The beautiful part of this exercise is that while they are learning about their emotional selves, they
are also engaging in an act of mindfulness as they watch the glitter fall to the bottom of the jar.
1. Safari.

Oh but not just any safari! The idea here is to guide them towards switching on their senses, turning
down their thoughts, and being fully engaged in the present moment.Take them outside and explain
to them that they are on safari, looking for any animal that crawls, flies or walks. Let them know that
they have to be quiet and alert, with their hearing, feeling and seeing super-senses switched on so
they can discover tiny wild beasts that the world may or may not have seen before.

2. Mindful Smelling.

Take a bunch of delicious smelling things from around home – candles, fresh herbs, flowers, fruit,
vanilla, cinnamon, grass – anything – and invite them to breathe in the smell and to feel what
happens in their body as they do that. (‘The cinnamon reminds me of Christmas,’ or maybe ‘The
lavender makes me feel sleepy.’)

Relay the following instructions to your kids:

 “Please get into your ‘mindful bodies’ – still and quiet, sitting upright, eyes closed.”
 “Now place all your attention on the sound you are about to hear. Listen until the sound is
completely gone.”
 Ring a “mindfulness bell,” or have a student ring the bell. Use a bell with a sustained sound or a
rainstick to encourage mindful listening.
 “Please raise your hand when you can no longer hear the sound.”
 When most or all have raised their hands, you can say, “Now slowly, mindfully, move your hand
to your stomach or chest, and just feel your breathing.”
 You can help students stay focused during the breathing with reminders like, “Just breathing in …
just breathing out …”
 Ring the bell to end.
For more in-depth tips and ideas on teaching mindfulness to children, check out the book Planting
Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Plum Village Community. The
website from editor and children’s book author Annaka Harris also provides some great ideas for
exercises that teach mindfulness to children.
Spider-Man: Practicing Mindfulness and Increasing Focus

Posted on August 23, 2013

Here’s a Spider-Man Script for you to try out with your children or students to practice mindfulness and
increase focus.

Materials Needed:  Bell, Flower, Small Food Item (such as a berry, piece of cereal, or raisin)
One of Spider-‐Man’s super powers was the ability to tune into his senses. Like a spider, he could hear
very tiny noises. He was able to pay very close attention to the noises. When you pay very close
attention, you are able to calm your mind and let go of all the noisy thoughts in your head that can be
distracting. With practice, you can improve our focus and relax right now, right where you are.

Right now we are going to learn to activate your super powers to tune into your senses, just like
Spider-‐Man. These are your Spider-‐Man Super Senses. What it takes is a little practice. Let’s start with
your sense of hearing. First let’s sit down. Close your eyes and place your hands on your knees. I am
going to ring a bell. When you hear the bell, pay attention to the ring until you can no longer hear the
ringing sound, clasp your hands together in your lap. (Repeat 3 times). Like Spiderman, we have
activated your super power of ultra hearing! Excellent work!

Next we are going to activate your super powers of ultra seeing, touching and smelling. I’m going to give
each of you a flower. Hold your flower gently in your hand. When I ring the bell, I want you to gently
touch the petals. Feel what each petal is like beneath your fingers. Pay attention to if the petal is soft,
rough, wet, furry, smooth, or prickly. See what you can feel. Imagine, like Spiderman, your hands have
the power to sense very carefully what the flower feels like. As I ring the bell next, I want you to smell
the flower. Breathe in deeply with the flower under your nose. See what the flower’s scent is. Is it
sweet? Maybe it has very little smell at all? What do you smell? Now, finally, as I ring the bell, I want you
to look very closely at the flower. Pay attention to the lines on the petals. What does the center of the
flower look like? Is it bumpy? Smooth? Soft looking? Wet looking? Is there powdery pollen in the
center? See what details you can notice in the flower, what little shapes, what lines, what circles, if any.
(Ring the bell a final time to signal the end of the activity).

The final activation of your Spiderman super power of ultra senses, is to practice your sense of taste.
We are going to practice by tasting, paying very close attention to what a berry tastes like. (Please feel
free to use whatever small food you like such as a piece of cereal, a sunflower seed, a raisin, etc. . . ).
Start by looking at the berry and noticing, using your super power sight, what the berry looks like. Turn
the berry gently between your fingers, feeling what the berry feels like. Next, place the berry in your
mouth. Allow the berry to be slowly in your mouth, paying attention to how if feels on your tongue, how
the juices in your mouth start to flow. Now slowly begin to chew the berry. See how slowly you can
chew it. How does it taste? Sweet? Tart? Sour? Gently swallow the berry, paying attention to the taste
that remains in your mouth after you swallow it.

Now you have activated all of your Spider-Man Super Senses! Remember that when you get very quiet
and focus, your body and mind are able to relax and take a break from the day’s busy activities. You
have the power to activate your Spider-‐Man Super Senses whenever you want to calm down and focus
for a moment
 Establishing a Quiet Place

This table is in our Living

Room/Study, and we call it the “Quiet Place.” It’s where my children can go when they are feeling
overwhelmed or angry, and need to calm down. We keep their mind jars on this table, as well as a small
statue of the Buddha. I tell my children that the Buddha taught people how to calm their minds and their
bodies by breathing, and that they can sit in front of this table like the Buddha and just breathe. We also
have the pebble meditation cards on the table from Thich Nhat Hanh’s book Planting Seeds. These
simple meditations {below} are great, and they really help my daughter calm down when she reads them.
The other night, my daughter threw a fit in the kitchen, and, after yelling at her father, stormed out of
the room. I followed her, anticipating a nasty wake of destruction as she ran out in a huff. I found her
instead at the Quiet Place, reading the cards, and calming down.
When she woke up really cranky the other morning, she said, “I need you to sit and breathe with me.” So
she sat in my lap in front of the table, shook her mind jar, and we breathed quietly together. She read
through the cards, and then went off to eat her breakfast in a much better mood.
Dinnertime Gratitude
Gratitude is an important part of our mindfulness practice. I love Brene Brown’s research that reveals
that the most joyful people around are those who make gratitude not an attitude, but a
deliberate practice. Our family practices gratitude at dinner. Each night, we take turns sharing what we
are thankful for. This has become such a fun tradition that my son usually asks the moment we sit down
for dinner, “Daddy, what are you thankful for today?” I love this family ritual ~ it makes me pause and
think about what I am grateful for each day, and my children’s responses provide me with a precious
window into their inner lives.

We started this nightly ritual in November, when the school sent home a note explaining that they had
been talking about thankfulness at school, and we should ask our children what they are thankful for.
The first time we did this, my daughter smiled sweetly and said, “My family.”
I turned to my son and asked, “What are you thankful for?”
Without batting an eye, he replied, “Hot dogs.”
I love hearing what my children are thankful for each night. Sometimes it’s heart-warming and sweet ~
they’re thankful for their family, or their parents, and then they’ll go around the table giving hugs. Other
times it’s a bit more … random. My son has been thankful for not being shocked by an outlet, for the
treehouse not getting knocked down in a storm, and for having a belly button.
My little Buddhas have even added to this practice. A few nights ago, my daughter asked us each to
share not just what we are thankful for, but what we are hopeful for. And I just melted when, last night,
my son turned to me and asked, “Mommy, what’s your happiness today?” So last night our ritual evolved
into sharing hope, joy, and gratitude.
{Lest you get the idea that our family dinners are eerily perfect and harmonious, these beautiful
moments are likely to be followed by whining about not liking the food (quinoa, again??), or desperate
pleading to know the exact amount of food to be consumed before dessert can be earned.}
Finally, I have created pages for our summer binders where we are writing down each week the things
we are grateful for ~ I’ve done my own gratitude journals in the past and it is so fun to look back on
thankful moments!

The goal of mindfulness interventions is to teach participants to become aware of body sensations, thoughts,
and emotions and to relate to them with an open, non-judgmental attitude (
 Be the Pond.
This mantra comes from a story on the 100 Hours Foundation website {which has
fantastic resources for teaching mindfulness to young people!} A preschool teacher
tells her students the story of a pond, with lots of fish swimming in it. There’s
an angry fish, a happy fish, a sad fish, an excited fish, and so on. She has the children
close their eyes, as she describes the fish swimming past them. The children’s job is
to be the pond. There’s no need to do anything with the fish beyond observing them
as they swim by.
When I first read this story {which you can find on slides 13 and 14 of this
PowerPoint from the 100 Hours Foundation — click on the PowerPoint icon on the
site to download}, I was struck by what a perfect metaphor this is for teaching
children to mindfully observe their thoughts and emotions without engaging or
judging them! When they get angry or sad, which they will because they’re human,
they can notice the emotion, and realize that it will eventually swim away and a
different one will soon swim along. They can feel the emotion without letting it take
them over.
The teacher who developed this story described it to her students this way:
sometimes “we forget that we’re The Pond, and think that we are the ‘Angry Fish.’”
It’s a way to teach children that they are not their emotions. They are not their
anger. This non-identification with emotions is one of the most powerful ways
mindfulness can change our lives.
Here’s how you can use this story and activity with your children:
1. Have them close their eyes and tell them the story of being in the pond, with all the
different fish swimming by. “Your job is to be the pond, and simply watch all the fish
swim around you.”

2. Once they open their eyes, ask them what it was like to see all those fish go by.Was
it hard to let some of them go?
3. Use the coloring sheet I created and have them look at the fish and ask what they
think each fish is feeling {some suggested emotions are at the top of the page, but
there are no “right” answers.} Some questions to talk about while doing this:
 What makes you think the fish feels that way? {This can lead to a great conversation
about how our feelings manifest themselves in our bodies and in our faces.}
 How do you feel when YOU are ____ (angry, sad, excited, energetic)?
 What color comes to mind when you think of that feeling? {This is a helpful way for
younger kids to think about feelings.}
4. Kids can color in the pond as they talk about the different emotions of the fish.
When they’re done, you can come back to the story and talk about what it means
to be the pond. If they’ve colored in the water, perhaps talk about the water as
holding all these different fish, just as their minds hold all sorts of different emotions
and thoughts throughout the day.
Let It Go.
You don’t need to sing the song, because I know we’ve already let that go, but my
children LOVED this one! I think Let It Go is such a powerful mantra, because it is
about recognizing the things we cannot control {such as the actions of others} and
letting go of our frustration. It’s the Serenity Prayer. This is one I try to reinforce with
my daughter, who seems to have inherited my quickness to feel irritated when things
don’t go as planned! She lashes out when her brother’s behavior bothers her, or gets
angry when plans are cancelled.

Use the coloring sheet on the left for children to draw or write down the things they
can let go of. As I explained this to my daughter, I realized some of the ways
she misunderstands what I mean when I tell her {sometimes many times in a day!} to
“let it go.” She thought I meant ignoring her feelings!
Mindfulness is not about suppressing any emotion — it’s about acknowledging,
feeling, and holding an emotion in our awareness, without judging ourselves or
letting it take control of us. It’s about putting our minds {especially the developing
prefrontal cortex in our children} in control of the emotion centers in the brain.
Encourage your children to think of the things that sometimes frustrate them, but
that they have no control over. {It’s not about letting their brother go, but letting his
ability to drive them crazy go!} Draw the pictures in the balloons, and then envision
sending them into the sky, and letting go. {And, just to warn you, my children did
sing!}

Five Strategies for Teaching Mindfulness

to Children
1. Validate their emotions.
How many times have we said, “You’re okay,” “Stop crying,” “It’s not that big of a
deal…”? Well, it IS a big deal to children. In fact, children are probably better than all
of us at mindfulness ~ they live almost completely in the present moment!  {They
don’t have the past regrets and future worries us grown-ups carry around}. The
frustration, anger, or fear they feel is very real. Let them know it’s okay to be angry,
or sad. What we can focus on is what we do with that emotion.
Learn more
Click here to read about how you can teach kids about their emotions with the
movie Inside Out!

2. Help Them Understand What Emotions Feel Like

If your child is angry, ask “How does your body feel when you are angry?” My
daughter once told me it  makes her want to hurt someone or kick someone; she
feels “one thousand fifty hundred” mad.  My son once said anger feels like “poop.” 
{Ah, the insight of a potty-training preschooler!} Teaching them to recognize how
their emotions feel in their body will help them become more aware of their
emotions even if they can’t yet label them.
3. Teach them mindful breathing.
I distinctly remember a moment when my then-six-year-old was throwing a fit, and I
told her to BREATHE. “I can’t!” she yelled. “I don’t know how!” How can she not know
how to breathe?, I asked myself.  I tried to demonstrate deep breathing. It didn’t work.
In the book Planting Seeds by Thich Nhat Hanh, he describes dozens of ways to
demonstrate mindful breathing techniques for children.  It gives them more concrete
direction than just “Breathe!” The following three are my {and my kids’} favorites:
~ Noticing the Breath: Encourage kids to really notice their breath by putting
their fingers under their noses to feel the warmth and moisture of the out-breath.
Have them put their hands on their tummies to feel the rise and fall of their bellies as
they breathe. Let them know that when they are angry, it can be calming to focus on
what our breathing actually feels like.
~ Five-Finger Starfish Meditation: Make a starfish with one hand {fingers spread out
wide}. Using their pointer finger from their other hand, gently trace the outline of the
starfish hand, slowly going up and down each finger. The focused concentration on
the hand, combined with the soothing touch, often has an immediately calming
effect.  Later that day during snack time, I noticed my son gently tracing his fingers.
~ Counting the Breath: You can start with the basics — count the in-breath and out-
breath. One breath in and out is “1”, then “2”, and so on, up to ten.
4. Lead them in a guided relaxation.
Planting Seeds contains a script for a guided relaxation {as well as a soothing
narration for it on the accompanying CD}, which focuses first on the breath, and
then working through the various parts of the body to release tension. We can
remind children that they can do this type of relaxation when they need to, either
lying down or while seated.
Body Scan Script
Click here for a Body Scan for Kids script from Mindful Magazine!

5. Practice what you preach.

This advice probably applies to everything in parenting, but it’s worth noting here.
When we react with anger based on our emotions, without a pause to encourage a
more skillful response, our children see that and imitate it. They need to see us
practicing mindfulness as well. If you do these exercises with your children, breathe
with them, make starfish hands with them, and lay down on the floor with them.

Body Scan for Kids

An 11-minute body scan for children to help bring calmness, attention, and appreciation to
hectic daytime routines and marathon bedtime rituals.
 This is a body scan for children. If you’re a parent, you might choose to do this with your child, or
feel free to use the audio as part of bedtime or at any other time of the day.

Body Scan Meditation for Kids

 11:39

1) Lie down on your back. Let your legs and your arms relax and fall to the sides. Settle yourself in
a comfort-able position and close your eyes.

2) Start by taking two or three gentle, large breaths. Pay attention to how that feels. Your belly
rises and falls. Air moves in and out of your body. If you like, place a hand on your belly and feel it
move with each breath.

3) Now we’re going to pay attention to the other parts of the body. Start with your feet. They
might feel warm or cold, wet or dry, relaxed or restless. It’s also okay if you feel nothing at all. If
you can, relax your feet now. If that’s hard to do, that’s fine. Take a moment and notice how that
feels too.

4) For these few minutes, let yourself be still. There’s nothing to do. Pay attention as best you can.
You might feel a blanket or socks on your feet, or you might feel them pressing against the bed or the
floor. When your mind gets busy, gently bring your attention back to your feet again.

5) Now move your attention to your lower legs, noticing whatever is there. Do they feel heavy,
light, warm, cold, or something else? Let go of frustration and trying to do anything. Just do your
best and give yourself a few moments of rest.
Next, move your attention next to your knees and relax them. Feel the front, back, and sides of your
knees.

6) After a few more breaths, move your attention to your upper legs. Whatever you feel, or don’t
feel, is fine. Notice your legs and let them relax. If you feel restless or wiggly, that’s okay too. That
happens.

7) Now move your attention to your belly. It always moves when you breathe, rising and falling,
like waves on the sea. You might feel something on the inside, like full or hungry. You might notice
the touch of your clothing or a blanket. You might even feel emotions in your belly, like happy or
sad or upset.

If you feel that it’s hard to focus, that’s normal. Gently practice coming back again and again to
how your chest feels when you breathe.

8) Next, bring your attention to your chest. Notice it rising and falling as you breathe. If you feel
that it’s hard to focus, that’s normal. Gently practice coming back again and again to how your chest
feels when you breathe.

9) Now turn your attention to your hands. There is no need to move them or do anything with
them. They may be touching the bed, or the floor, or somewhere on your body. Relax them if you
can, and if not, simply paying attention to your hands for another moment.

10) Move your attention up into your arms. Maybe notice if you can find a moment of stillness
inside you, like the pause at the end of each breath.
11) Next, move your attention around to your back. How does it feel against the bed or the floor?
Notice how it rocks with each breath. When your mind gets busy or angry or scared, you can always
come back to how your body feels in this way for a moment.

12) Now move attention to your neck and shoulders, letting go and relaxing them. If your mind
wanders, that’s fine. No one can pay attention all the time. Just keep returning to noticing your
body whenever you find yourself thinking of something else.

13) And now feel your face and head. What expression do you have right now? What would it feel
like to smile? What else do you notice in your face, your head, and in your mind?

14) Finally, spend a few moments, paying attention to your whole body. If it is easier, continue to
pay attention to your breath. If it’s time for sleep, let that happen, remaining still and continuing to
pay attention to your breath or feelings in your body. And if it’s time to wake up, open your eyes and
sit for a few moments before deciding when to move again.

 great way to introduce children to the practice of mindfulness is mindful listening.

For many kids (and adults), focusing their attention on sounds is a bit easier than
bringing their attention to the breath. It’s more concrete — and it can be a bit more
fun!
There are LOTS of ways you can practice this with kids! Read on for my favorite
mindful listening lessons:
1. Listen to the bell
 You can use a traditional mindfulness bell (a
singing bowl), a chime, or an app that has bell sounds. You can say the following to
the kids:
“In just a moment, we are going to close our eyes and listen to the sound of the bell. So
let’s sit comfortably and let our bodies be really still. When you hear the bell, try to focus
on the sound, and see if you can listen to it until the sound fades away completely. When
you can’t hear it any more (and we’ll have to be really quiet and still to hear it that long!),
open your eyes.”
Ring the bell…
Sometimes it’s helpful to do the steps above one more time.
After a few times of listening to the bell, you can have a short discussion about
mindful listening:
 Was it easy or hard to be quiet and listen to one sound?
 Did you find that you got distracted while listening to the bell?
 What other sounds could you hear besides the bell?
 How did it feel in your body to be still and listen to sounds?
Sometimes kids will say it was easy; sometimes they will say it was hard. They may
say they felt calm, or bored, or restless. There is no “right” answer, and a big part of
mindfulness is welcoming ALL of our experiences. With any responses children give,
you can ask, “Did anyone else feel that way?” or, if it’s just you and your child, “Why do
you think you felt that way?” You can also share what the experience was like for you.
This is really about helping children understand their experiences, and what it’s like to
pay attention to just one thing (or at least to TRY!) Each time we bring our attention
to something and keep it there (whether it’s sound or the breath), we are
strengthening the attention circuits of the brain — this is mental training!
2. So many sounds around us!
 click the image to download a printable pdf
You can do mindful listening even without the bell! Just close your eyes, and listen
to what you can hear. You can ask children to identify five different sounds that they
notice in the room. You can download a coloring sheet here to use with this
activity — children can fill in the circles with pictures or words describing the sounds
they can identify.
You could extend this activity into a discussion about how our minds work:
 When you hear a sound, do you start thinking about which sounds you like and which
ones you don’t? Why do you think our minds do that?
 When you hear a sound, does it sometimes make you start thinking about something else
(a memory, for example)?
 Do you normally notice these sounds when you are in this room? If not, why do you think
you don’t notice them?
3. The sounds of silence

One of the powerful things we discover with

mindful listening is that even “silence” isn’t silent! You can help children grasp this in
the lovely book Silence by Lemniscates. The book encourages children to notice the
sound of snow, of leaves, of flowers, and lots of other things we don’t often think we
can “hear.” It’s a short and whimsical book that’s great for preschoolers and
elementary age kids.
 4. Stop, children, what’s that sound?
Make mindful listening into a game with this fun activity
from Yogainmyschool.com — the game is Easter-themed, but you could adapt it to
any season!
For a guided meditation on mindful listening for kids, check out the video below
from Mindscapes:
5. Mindful listening in the classroom
If you are a teacher, or work with large groups of kids, you may find the following
resources and lesson plans helpful:
 A Ten Step Guide to Mindful Listening from MindSpace
 Starter Lesson: Mindful Bodies and Mindful Listening from Mindful Schools
 Mindful Listening from MindUp

The
beautiful thing about mindfulness is that there are so many different ways we can
practice, and ultimately they are all about paying attention: to our breath or our
thoughts, to the movements of our body, to sensations, to sounds, or to the many
other elements in our field of awareness. Mindful listening strengthens our ability to
pay attention, and it brings us completely into the present moment, for we can only
listen NOW.
Happy listening!

7 Youtube Channels To Get Kids Moving & Grooving

1. Debbie Doo: Great movement routines to simple songs, perfect for younger kids.
2. Cosmic Kids Yoga: A big collection of yoga routines presented as adventures for kids.
Check out the short 2 minute videos for brain breaks or the longer stories if you have more
time.

Does your class love yoga? Click through to see our dedicated list of fabulous kids yoga YT
videos.

3. PBS SteveSongs: The Steve Songs videos feature a popular PBS performer.

4. The Learning Station: A huge range of fun action songs kids will love.

5. Have Fun Teaching: As an adult, the Fitness Songs are on the repetitive side but my girls
love them! Better for younger grades.

6. Dance Sweat Live: The Mini Workouts feature simple dance routines to popular songs.
Great for older kids too.

7. Move to Learn: Simple, fun workouts for children across a range of ages.

BONUS: Although not a channel, the DSDC Wellness Laughter Yoga Leap for Joy is
fabulous fun if you have a large space to move around in.

HOW TO MEDITATE
1.
Take a deep breath, and bring your attention to
your posture.
Sit upright, with your head resting comfortably on your spine.
2.
Bring your attention to your anchor (e.g., your
breath).
Your anchor can be your BREATH (noticing the breath in the nose,
chest, or belly)
or it can be SOUNDS, or it can be your BODY.
3.
Begin counting your breaths.
You can also simply say “breathing in, breathing out...”
4.
Your mind will wander... and then sometime after
that you’ll NOTICE it has wandered. When you
do, bring your attention back to your anchor.
 When thoughts arise, just notice them with curiosity.
5.
When the bell or timer rings, take three more deep
breaths.
This is a great time for journaling, or filling in the “Reflections” on your
Mindfulness Plan.

Walking Meditation

Since walking helps people concentrate and reduces distractibility, a meditation that

involves walking can be a great place to start.

Fellow PT blogger Dr Kelly McGonigal suggests a 10 minute walking meditation

involving 1 minute of paying attention to each of (1) the feeling of your body walking,
(2) the feeling of your breath, (3) the sensations of air or wind on your skin, (4) what
you can hear, and (5) what you can see.

Follow this with 5 minutes of open awareness where you allow anything you can
observe/sense to rise up into your awareness. Don't go looking for things to hear,
see, feel etc. Just let whatever rises up into your awareness to do that and be
naturally replaced by something else whenever that happens.