3 Reasons Why Meditation For Kids Works
If you ever wondered if kids can be taught to meditate then this will help. From toddlers to teens children of all ages can be easily shown simple ways to meditate and be more mindful while learning a useful skill to help them through their formative years.
Meditation has been shown to help kids in a variety of ways such as sleeping better, feeling better about themselves, be more focused and reducing stress and anxiety. It has also been shown that when kids meditate together at school that it significantly reduces the instances of bullying.
Why Should Kids Be Taught To Meditate?
I can still recall when I first started school how anxious I felt about being away from home and having to learn to socialize with a bunch of strange kids. I was a natural introvert and as such didn’t mingle that easily with others.
It would have been great if the school I went to had a meditation program as part of what they taught children as it would have helped all of us kids to learn some good coping skills for the challenging years ahead both at school and at home.
While that wasn’t meant to be back then, at least now teaching children to meditate in school is rapidly growing in popularity. This is obviously perfect timing as everything around us continues to accelerate and more than ever people are losing touch with their sense of self.
Here’s 3 powerful reasons why meditation should be taught to kids:
1. It helps them to learn to cope better.
We all remember what it was like at school. There was social pressure to fit in, homework pressure to get things done and bullying pressure to try and get you to change. All of these things cause stress and anxiety in kids to varying degrees with little to no way for them to deal with it.
Sure, we like to think that the parents and teachers are there to help kids through their challenging times, but all too often they can be the last to know as kids withdraw deeper inside themselves to try and escape their troubling thoughts and feelings.
Meditation is a really simple, fun and non-confronting way for children to manage their stress levels in just a few minutes a day. It gives them a useful tool that can help them to cope better at school and at home. It can help them to feel better about themselves while finding a place of peace and quiet inside themselves.
2. It helps them to focus better
With all the technology that we have at our disposal these days it’s no wonder that kids and adults alike get so easily distracted these days. I’ve seen kids as young as 2 years old happily playing on a smartphone with more ease than most adults.
Teaching meditation to kids at an early age will help to train them to keep their mind focused on 1 thing at a time and that when their mind wanders how to gently bring it back to something that helps them to stay connected to their body.
This will greatly help them as they go through their schooling years as it will give them the mindset to be able to not only handle mental and emotional pressure but also to focus their minds on homework and assignments with more ease and creativity.
3. It helps them to feel better about themselves.
One of the biggest payoffs from consistent (daily) meditation is an increased sense of calmness. Over time, this calm is felt in every cell of your body as inner-peace that helps create a resistance of sorts to the stressful things that go on in our lives.
The younger we learn to center ourselves and be at peace with our thoughts, feelings and physical sensations, the easier it will be to stay calm as we move through our developing years. One of the ways to help kids have healthier self-esteem is to teach them a skill like meditation so that they have more control over their inner world.
When that happens, then they will be less likely to end up gravitating towards the wrong group of kids to feel like they belong somewhere, or turn to unhealthy addictions to cope with stress. Feeling better about ourselves is as simple as beating ourselves up for who we are. Meditation is one of the best ways to let go of having a critical mind.
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Michael Atma
Meditation Dojo Blog
Skype: michaelatma
Email: Michael@MichaelAtma.com
“I Teach You how to live a Happier, Healthier and More Fulfilling Life Through Meditation!”
