Miraculous Mindfulness With Kids

Accessing the Heart of the Matter

Supporting our students to be “in the zone” for increased happiness and stability enhances all aspects of their life: home, school and leisure. Social skills and communication along with their grades all rise to the occasion, too. Decision making becomes easier, more conscious and deliberate.

Often these days, we come across children who are
so “full up” with experiences that they are trying to integrate, that they can’t just sit still and quieten their minds in an instant. However, when you bring the heart into the equation, then this is possible.

Working with children for the past 6 years (even in some instances where an entire classroom has needed to be evacuated due to behaviour) and showing them how to self-regulate beyond anger, anxiety and overwhelm has been a privilege.

Children with fears and phobias who feel “very public” with their reactions to what other children appear to be able to do easily often feel embarrassed and humiliated. They are very successful with self-regulation as they are wanting the relief that these techniques provide.

The foundation of the self-regulation starts with the heart. Bringing their heart into their focus, utilising the stability of the breath, and creating deliberate hormones that enable them to choose their mood and stabilise this calm state for longer periods throughout the day.
If this would be taught in our kindergartens, we would have an entirely different experience moving forward with our children able to manage emotional chaos, appreciate others, connect deliberately with their intuition and feel in control of what they can control: their physiology.

Just for a moment, now…

Pause.

Place your hand on your heart.

Smile.

Breathe deeply into your belly, and at the same time energetically breathe in and out through your heart.

Continue for 30 seconds.

Note the difference.

Repeat during your day, when going to sleep and upon waking.

Could you do this at roll call? Perhaps you could take
a pause when preparing to leave the class as a group
for outside activity, or assembly? What about just after lunch, or preparing for reading? Then, prior to presenting, or being tested? After these exercises, watch the success of your students increase and their smiles emerge more throughout the year. If just for 30 seconds, twice a day you do this with them and remind them they can do this whenever they are happy, or whenever they are feeling a more challenging feeling, you will absolutely support them with the gift of self-regulation. The 1-minute a day that you spend doing this will transform your life and your students.

For adults to establish creating this new neural pathway, I have noted the best results do arise when you spend six weeks dedicated to spending 3-6 minutes morning and night and create this to become an “unconscious way of being” and showing up in your world. Wellness on all levels: mental, emotional and physical are the result for many of the teachers and parents whom I have taught this self-regulation system to over the past six years. The moments you invest in this will pay you back ten- fold throughout each day for the rest of your life.