Meditation is a beneficial practice that can help reduce stress, promote creativity, and help discipline the mind. Children can reap the rewards from meditating if they can learn to sit still. Start your child with guided meditations so that your voice gives them something to focus on during the exercise.
Progressive Muscle Relaxation
This is a technique that focuses relaxing one area of their body at a time. This helps kids to concentrate on each body part and prevents their minds from wandering. You can use this technique alone at first, and then use it as an introduction to more lengthy meditations.
Set the mood before meditating. Turn off any noisy distractions. Make the room dim, but not dark. If you think it will help, play relaxing instrumental music in the background or burn incense.
Have the child sit or lie in a comfortable position. In a soft voice, tell him that you are going to help him relax his mind and his body. Have him take in and let out a few deep breaths and close his eyes.
Instruct him to tense up, and then relax, each body part in turn. Start with the left foot, then right foot. Work up the calves, knees, thighs, buttocks, lower back, upper back, hands, arms, shoulders, and neck. For the face, have him tense and relax his jaw, cheeks, eyes, and brow.
After tensing and relaxing each part, tell him to note how warm and comfortable that body part feels, how it sinks into the floor (or bed) and is totally at peace.
After you've worked through the body, allow him to sit and feel relaxed. Start with just two or three minutes, gradually increasing the time spent relaxing with each session.
Bring the child back out of the meditation by asking him to draw attention to each body part again. Tell him to become aware of each part in turn, that he can stretch or flex as he feels comfortable. Have him finally focus on his breathing again, and how he still feels relaxed, but more alert. Ask him to open his eyes and the meditation is over.
Color Meditation
Prepare your environment and begin the session with progressive muscle relaxation as described above. Instruct him to imagine himself walking through a sunny field. Appeal to the senses by painting a picture of warm sunlight and fragrant wildflowers.
Imagine walking into a beautiful forest full of tall trees. The tree's canopy cast shadows on the ground, darkening the area. Have him imagine laying down somewhere comfortable, looking up at the canopy.
The light then turns red. Have him focus on the color absorbing into his skin. Ask him to consider how red makes him feel and what it makes him think about. Tell him he can think about this color whenever he wants to use it's energy and feel those feelings. Move on to orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The breeze then blows the branches aside and he sees he is standing in a rainbow. Enjoy the rainbow for a while, then have him imagine walking out back into the field.
Proceed to ending the meditation by bringing awareness back to his body and breathing.
Dispose of Negative Emotions
Begin again with preparing the environment and progressive muscle relaxation. Again, tell the child he's in a field, but this time the weather is stormy and gray. Paint a picture to appeal to the senses.
He finds a path, and follows it. It winds deeper into the woods until he comes to a clearing. There is a round wooden cover with a large handle in the ground. Have him lift the handle to reveal a deep well.
Have him think about the bad emotions that have been plaguing him. Imagine each thought as a cloud of black smoke rising out of his body and falling into the well. Have him cover the well, reminding him that he has just released those bad emotions.
Have him walk back down the path, and now the field is sunny and bright. Paint a picture of beauty and hope before bringing him back to awareness.
Tags: body part, each body, each body part, think about, each part, muscle relaxation, Paint picture