calm kids Archives - Page 4 of 5 - Teaching Children Meditation

6 steps to creating a meditation script for kids or teens

Excerpt from Calm Kids This is an excerpt from my book Calm Kids where I teach you the 6 important steps to creating your very own meditations. It is a key part of the level 1 course that I teach online/in class. It can be used to help develop guided meditations or mindful practices. […]

Child Genius – academically bright but emotionally inept?

Emotional vs Academic Intelligence The other week we caught the end of the TV show ‘Child Genius’ – where children with (usually) a high score on Mensa take part in a quiz to become the Child Genius for that year. These kids demonstrate an amazing array of skills – from their ability to remember facts […]

Meditation to help you see the best in your kids and teens

Negativity Bias and Mindfulness It means that our brain and body constantly scan the environment for threats. If we detect a threat, we manage it as it activates our stress response (fight/flight/freeze) – which is designed to keep us alive. What it means is that we are hardwired (neurologically speaking) to seek out the negative in […]

How to help Kids in Canada thrive – with meditation and mindfulness

Are Kids in Canada Coping with Stress? I’m writing this post with a focus on Canada. Why? Because I’ll be going there to teach in September and I wanted to find out more about how Canadian Kids could benefit from meditation. What I find fascinating is that many of the issues facing young people in […]

Mandala meditations for kids

I love mandalas. They are one of the most effective ways to teach children mindfulness skills while they meditate. The idea behind mandalas in Buddhist practices is to create the mandala out of coloured sand while paying attention to thoughts, body, breath and emotions. Then when complete, the mandalas are released to symbolise impermanence and non-attachment. However […]

Teaching Meditation to Teens or Kids is a Journey of Trust

So last week I was on holiday. This was no ordinary holiday – this was a skiing holiday. First of all wasn’t sure why I was there. I had never had a desire to ski and skiing holidays are quite expensive. But life is short and I thought ‘why not’? Little did I know how […]

watch out for mindfulness ‘cowboys’

One of my students Ali Gray, is very passionate about the world learning meditation. He is one of our Connected Kids students and together with his colleague, Gary Young, is pioneering a project to make it part of the school curriculum in Scotland. At a ‘business and mindfulness’ conference, he heard the term ‘mindfulness cowboys‘ and wondered […]

Good intentions about teaching meditation to your kids

I had good intentions… I wanted to write an post about perception and how we what we see and perceive is what we experience. It’s how our brain works and how it helps us interpret life. If our brain is wired differently then it can be challenging to respond to life in the way we […]

what is a connected kid? teaching meditation and mindfulness

There’s a whole story behind the name ‘connected kids’. Originally we had called our programme after the first book ‘Calm Kids – help children relax with mindful activities‘. However the name didn’t sit comfortably with me. I felt a bit ‘icky’ with the idea of adults trying to ‘calm kids’ down. Meditation isn’t about […]

The real reason why we teach kids/teens meditation

Today I read an article about someone in the States using a derogatory term for the President. This term is an insult to people who have special needs. However a Special Olympics athlete replied to the incident with a response that gave me chills – because it was so compassionate and kind – even in […]