By practicing Mindfulness with your kids, you become a mentor and you can help them learn to hit the pause button and react calmly. You can help them to be attentive and be an example for them. Mindfulness is a lifelong practice. Your children will learn to bring control to their thoughts and actions from an early age, helping them in school and with peer relations. It can be of great benefit for children with special needs, such as ADHD.
Getting Started
Before you start to implement Mindful Practices with your family, it’s important that everyone understands and chooses to participate. This is not a practice that can be forced upon a person and children in particular should not be taken by surprise. Secondly, it’s important to have a space for your Mindful practices. This should be the same space that you always use, so that your children can learn to recognize it. It can be a spacious room or a spot in the home that has open space and is well ventilated.
Suggest to your family that at a certain time each day everyone gets together to experience one minute in silence. It can be in the morning before leaving for school. It can be in the afternoon or evening before beginning homework. The idea is to insert a pause at a time when everyone is otherwise caught up and engaged in the doing of things. Setting a (non-ticking) timer can be helpful so that no one is too attentive to keeping track of the passing of time.
What to do
You can suggest to everyone any of a variety of “ways to be” during the minute. Everyone can close or lower their eyes and pay attention to (or count) their breathing. Everyone can look into each other’s eyes and smile. Everyone can hold hands. Suggest a simple practice based on your mindfulness experience.
Regardless of the specific structure, the One Minute Mindfulness Practice allows us to press the collective reset button. It give us a moment to connect in a different way. It teaches us that silence can be safe, even fulfilling. If you think you may forget the title of the practice, you can remember its acronym: OMMM.
