You send your children to school with both confidence and crossed fingers. School can be such a whirlwind of experiences and emotions. Feeling as if there is so much to remember and to learn can make any child a little anxious, but some simple mindfulness exercises can help your kids to calm themselves and refocus. Mindfulness is giving our attention to the present, noticing without judging or evaluating.
For children, mindfulness enables them to calm themselves if they are worriedÐÐhelping them to direct their attention to the lesson or teacher. These exercises provide a tool to promote positive self-talk, eliminate any negative, and help children center their wandering minds. Here are three simple mindfulness exercises to help your children focus at school:
1. List 3
This is an exercise any of us might want to do, but it is especially helpful for students beginning a new school year. Throughout the day, your young student simply notices 3 new things. Stopping to listen and look helps youngsters be part of the time and place they find themselves, rather than in their thoughts. Young students may want to tell mom or dad about their noticings at the end of the day, but is the noticing that matters – not any later activity. Your student may choose to make a list or draw a picture; but additional activity beyond just noticing is not as important as the simple act of putting themselves in an attitude of being in a moment and stopping to look, listen and notice.
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2. Toes
A simple and fun exercise, called ‘Toes’, is way to bring a wandering or anxious mind back to the moment. What do you do when you have been sitting at a task too long? Maybe, stand and stretch? What if you are at a meeting? Do you shake your hands or wiggle your fingers under the table? Movement is important to keep our blood flowing and our brains focused. ‘Toes’ uses just a little movement; but adds thinking about, really noticing, those toes. Children simply clench or wiggle their toes and notice, think about, everything they can feel. Soft, fuzzy socks? Sand? Stopping for a minute to focus on toes brings your student back to the moment and able to focus. It is, also, completely unnoticeable (and not disruptive like getting up and shaking your hands wildly).
3. One Breath
Many yoga or meditation exercises focus on breathing. Young children, though, don’t find breathing either interesting or fun. ‘One Breath’ encourages even young children to slow down and focus on a single breath. While they are looking at their book or watching the teacher, children take in one breath as slowly as they can. As they feel that breath traveling through their body, they imagine the breath soaking up their favorite color. Slowly releasing the breath they imagine the color is spreading and moving through the classroom. As with the other exercises, this activity focuses children on the classroom moment rather than their own wandering thoughts or worries.
These exercises can provide a starting point to help your child maintain focus in the classroom and to worry less. You can build some familiarity and comfort for your child by practicing them together at home. When you are reading together or watching television, stop and practice toes and describe aloud what you feel. On a walk stop and take a breath. After you let it out, describe where you imagine the color drifting. Tell each other your three new things at dinner or on the drive home. Building confidence with the mindfulness activities will, also, help children build confidence with school.