Simple meditation exercise for parents and children

Hi All~ I wrote below blog on my website and I hope it will be beneficial if I post it here for all of you~ Enjoy!:)

School starts finally and all of us are getting busy again. No matter how busy we are, it’s important to take a break. Below is a simple exercise called ‘squared meditation’, which we can practise with children to relax and learn to stay focused.

Let’s find a quiet place and sit comfortably. When you close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and focus on your breathing. When you are ready, breathe in slowly and count ‘1-2-3-4’ as if you are drawing a square. As you are breathing out, count ‘1-2-3-4’ and visualize drawing a square again. Do this slowly and gently, but don’t struggle if you can’t hold the breath for too long. Practise this until you feel you’ve done enough then take a few extra deep breaths and bring your attention back to the room. I recommend five to ten minutes to begin with.

If you are practising with older children, you may verbally count ‘1-2-3-4’ slowly in order to lead the exercise, adjusting to a speed that all of you feel comfortable with. If you are doing this with younger children who may not be able to visualize shapes, you can aid them with pens and paper. Tell them you are playing a game where they have to compete to see who can draw a square as slowly as possible, whilst not forgetting to match with the breathing. It maybe a challenge at first but once you get started, you will see how quickly they become focused. This may also help them to improve concentration at school eventually.

Have a nice school year!

thanks for this, I have a very stressed child at the mo who could benefit from this. I'll try it when they're back next week.

thank you, sounds very interesting and useful. :)

Could you send me your website address, i'm really interested as suffering severe headaches which have been diagnosed as stress. I can't sleep well at all, no matter what I try, I just can't switch off, I wake up having stressed out dreams, chasing children or running around not knowing where things are. I have started to read a book about meditation and am interested in taking it further.

Thank you all for your reply and like! Please let me know if you ever have any questions or anything that I can help. I m looking for ideas to put on my website