Schoolage (5 - 12)
Meditation for children
Activities for children
There are teachers of Transcendental Meditation all over the country or, if you'd like to try introducing meditation to your child yourself, here are a few ideas to help you get started:
Breathing meditation
This is a good basic meditation for adults and children alike but, while adults can practise it for 20 minutes or more, young children should do it for no more than five minutes, and only one or two to start with. This is a very calming meditation as it slows down the breathing - we breathe more quickly and shallowly when anxious - and it helps the body to relax, too.
You can do this in a chair, providing your feet are flat on the floor, but children prefer to sit cross-legged on the floor. Make sure they are sitting on a cushion, their backs are straight and they have closed eyes. Then guide the meditation as follows:
Become aware of your breathing. Focus upon the feeling of coolness at your nose when you breathe in and the feeling of warmth as you breathe out. Don't let your attention follow the breath into your lungs. Pretend you're a sentry who is on guard at that point, watching carefully everything that goes in and out of the gates of the city. If thoughts try to get in the way, look upon them simply as people trying to distract you and take no notice of them.
Later, you can introduce counting the breaths.
Kinhin
This is a walking meditation from Zen Buddhism and particularly useful for children who find it hard to stay still for the previous meditation. It is rather like moving in slow motion and with the utmost care. Choose a path or a straight line for the children to walk along and ask them to lift one foot at a time slowly and very carefully feeling every muscle used in the process and every shift in body weight. The foot is placed smoothly and slowly the same distance ahead and then a step is taken with the other foot. Children usually love this and it brings great body awareness.
'A Safe Place'
This is an excellent meditation when children are feeling stressed or anxious. Begin with a minute or two of the breathing meditation and then talk them through every part of their bodies, asking them to check that it is relaxed - from their toes through their legs, backs, stomachs, shoulders, necks, faces and scalps.
Now ask them to picture in their minds a peaceful place. This can be somewhere they know or an imagined place, it is completely up to them. Tell them to go into this place and sit down (in their minds) and look all around them to see all of the things they like and enjoy. Explain that this is a place they can always go to where they know they can feel safe and relaxed.
Give them a few minutes to enjoy the sensation and then bring them back to the room and their breathing for a minute or two. Then ask them to open their eyes and remind them that this is their special place, always there for them in their own minds.
Useful resources
Teaching Meditation to Children by David Fontana and Ingrid Slack (#8.99, HarperCollins)
Maharishi School
Cobbs Brow Lane
Near Lathom
Ormskirk L40 6JJ
Transcendental Meditation
24 Linhope Street
London NW1 6HT
020 7402 3787
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