A Guide to Help Children Relax and Become less Stressed

Meditation for kids, can help children to overcome feelings of stress or despair. Many students find that school-related stressors such as low grades, overly challenging classroom settings, athletic requirements, peer relationships, conflicts with others, exams, and clashes with teachers cause undue stress.

Although occasional or moderate stress is for the most part healthy, children exposed to high stress levels over time can damage or impair cognition. Learning cannot take place when the mind is stressed.

Some children may feel emotionally hijacked when they have an argument with a friend, receive disappointing marks or don’t understand lessons. Daniel Goleman explores the idea of “emotional hijacking”. He explains it happens in a split second timeframe. It then triggers a specific reaction prior to the thinking  brain (neocortex) having assessed what is happening. this often results in actions that may not have been a good idea, had the neocortex come first! The amygdala also plays an important role here.

Steps for Meditating with your Kids

Meditation for kids provides parents with a way to cool down and bring into more focus to their child. Meditation provides parents with a way to help kids cool down, clear their minds, and have better concentration.

1. These activities can be done at desks or students may prefer to lie down on the floor or get into a more comfortable position.

2. Ask students to close their eyes. Explain you are going to ask them to imagine they are in another place where they feel calm and happy.

3. Ask the students to breathe in deeply. Breathe in. Breathe out. Continue deep breathing for one minute. It is a good idea to play soft classical music or nature sounds in the background.

4. Begin to read the meditation exercises in a slow, even voice taking time between the words or phrases.

5. At the end of the meditation you may wish to continue with the deep breathing.

6. Ask children to open their eyes. Stand up slowly and stretch their arms and feel how relaxed their body feels.

Scripts for Meditating

Try these scripts to help children relax and reflect. Sit quietly or lay down on the floor. Play soft instrumental music in the background.

Meditation for Kids 1

Close your eyes…..breath in deeply…..relax your body…..imagine a warm, day with rain pattering down lightly…listen to the rain dropping one by one, slowly and evenly from the clouds above…. Breath in and look above you to the sky…feel the slowness of the weather…imagine the sky filled with a rainbow……see the vibrant colors …see how it lights up the sky…imagine yourself riding the rainbow and grabbing the calm night air……release all your tension as you find the calm.

Meditation for Kids 2 

Relax…close your eyes…imagine you are a flower growing quietly in the garden …breath in deeply…breath out all your stress and tension …for you are a little flower bud bursting out of the soil…imagine your pushing through the soil around all the other flowers….reach reach and release … out you come and are growing tall and proud under the sunlight…breath out again…and breath in deeply full of dreams from colorful garden bed……

Meditation for Kids 3 

Relax your arms…..relax your toes…..breathe in…..breathe out..feel you fingers and toes getting ready for a journey to a calmer place….feel a breeze across your face….lift your hair into the air…..feel all the aches and pains of today life away…breathe in and breathe out….you are in a calm and happy place…you are feeling well…….roll your neck left and right….picture yourself free and calm racing in the wind….