emotional intelligence Archives - Page 3 of 3 - Teaching Children Meditation

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 […]

Is technology disconnecting our kids?

In society we want things easy. Maybe it’s a combination of technology, lifestyle and the way our brains are developing. Reading the book ‘Mind Change‘ has been fascinating as I learn I am a ‘digital immigrant’. That means I have been introduced to blogs, emails and the tech stuff later in my lifetime. According […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Useful ideas to help kids with ADHD

ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) is a condition very close to my heart as I see kids who benefit from learning easy, simple mindful activities that help them out of their stressed state. They enter that state very easily as they basically live there. It’s not an easy existence and while I don’t think […]

Teaching mindful meditation to kids with ADHD

For a long time I’ve been banging on about children with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) moving and fidgeting because they are ungrounded and the movement is their way of trying to rebalance – not intentionally be disruptive. A recent study now shows that kids with ADHD must move to learn. At last we are all […]

Useful resources for teaching kids meditation

So as you can imagine, I live and breathe anything to do with teaching kids meditation, children’s mental health and (teen’s) wellbeing. As a result, I collect a lot of information on this. If you are on our Facebook page, Twitter or Calm Kids group on FB, then you’ll know that we have become a […]

Helping Kids and Teens connect to emotions through mindfulness

One of the issues that we face as children (and all the way through life) is recognising what we feel, when we feel it. I have been practising meditation for years, yet just the other day I felt really flat and couldn’t name my feeling. It was so frustrating and disorientating. I went for a […]