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Description

Learn you beavers to relax and stop
Mindfulness can help reduce stress

Resources

None you could light a candle or incense or play calming music

Instructions

Guided Meditation: The Balloon
This guided meditation brings a visual component to a very simple deep breathing exercise. You can do this standing or seated.

Relax your body and begin to take deep inhales and slow exhales through the nose.
Start to take a slow, deep breath to fill your belly up with air, as if you’re trying to blow up a big balloon. Expand your belly as much as you can.
Slowly let the air out of the balloon (through the nose) as you release the breath from the belly.
Encourage your kids to feel their entire body relax each time they exhale, each time air is slowly being released from the balloon. You can even make a “hissing” noise to encourage them to slow down the exhale even more, “Like letting air out of the balloon.”
Continue for several minutes.
If the child you’re teaching is younger, you can add a little more detail and fun to the exercise to keep them engaged. Young kids, especially under the age of 6, love the extra movement when they’re learning to bring awareness to their breath. Encourage them to stand up in a relaxed way and follow these steps:

Ask them to think of their favorite color and picture a giant balloon of that color in their mind.
Then have them take a slow, deep inhale through the nose, filling up their tummies with air as if trying to blow up a giant [their favorite color] balloon. As an option, you can also have them stretch their arms open and overhead to represent expansion and the big balloon.
When their balloon is totally full, have them hold their breath at the top, and then you can “pop the balloon” for them (gesture finger to belly) and they can fall down as they exhale.
This one will likely elicit giggles and awareness of their breath.

Guided Meditation: Follow the Leader
This meditation works best for kids who are at least 5 years old. Ask your child to picture their best friend or a sibling—someone they do everything with or someone they look up to. Then ask them which one (your child or their best friend) usually leads. Usually one friend is the one who decides things—the one who is more of the leader; the other one is the friend who usually follows the leader. Ask them which they are.

If they are the leader, you can tell them to picture themselves as the breath. If they are the follower, you can ask them to picture themselves as the mind. For this example, I’ll pretend that they’ve chosen their big brother as their best bud, and the big brother is the leader.

Say something like, “So you and your big brother do everything together. Let’s pretend that your breath and your mind are best friends, too. And that you are just like the mind—the follower, and your big brother is just like the breath—the leader.” Then follow the steps below to guide them through the meditation.

Sit down comfortably and close your eyes.
Bring all of your attention to your breath and slow it down, taking deep inhales and slow exhales.
Let’s have the mind follow the breath—no matter what. Picture yourself as your mind, the one that’s following your big brother, your breath. Try to focus your mind on the breath and follow as the breath inhales and exhales.
Count your breaths at the end of every exhale. Don’t let your mind count before the end of the exhale. The mind always wants to jump ahead, but don’t let it. Allow it to remain focused on being the follower.
Count to 10 slowly, always at the end of each exhale, continuing to let the mind follow the breath.

Tags

• Health and Fitness
• relaxation
• rest
• Wellbeing

Badge Links

• Health and Fitness - Heart