Mindfulness has become a popular buzzword, but its roots stretch back thousands of years through various cultural and spiritual traditions. Psychologists have long recognized its benefits, and it is now widely used to support emotional well-being in children. 

If you’re reading this blog post, I’m guessing you’re at least a little bit interested in mindfulness for kids. Maybe you want to teach mindfulness to your kids. Or perhaps you want to expand your practice and add a few more tools to your arsenal. But I’m also guessing that your kids are similar to mine, and sitting down to quietly meditate for 30 minutes (or even 10 minutes!) every day is not their idea of a good time. But do they like craft? Are you nodding right now? Awesome! What about mindfulness crafts?

The great thing about mindfulness is that it doesn’t have to involve quiet meditation. When teaching mindfulness to kids, we want to make it as fun as possible! Mindfulness for kids can be active, noisy, and messy. It works best when we incorporate their senses and make it a whole-body experience for them, so craft is a great way to practice mindfulness with your kids.

Mindful listening is a form of deep listening which encompasses listening with our whole body. Many of us, without realising it, don’t listen fully. We tend to think about what we are going to say next. We make judgements. We offer solutions. And sometimes, we try to divert the conversation onto something we want to discuss.

We all want to feel heard. When someone truly listens, it validates our feelings and demonstrates genuine caring and interest. It helps us feel okay about who we are and what we are experiencing in a way that offering someone a solution rarely does.

A martial artist once asked Bruce Lee to teach him all he knew about martial arts. Bruce held up two cups filled with liquid and said, “The first cup represents all of your knowledge about martial arts. The second cup represents all of my knowledge about martial arts. If you want to fill your cup with my knowledge, you must first empty your cup of your knowledge.”

To create a life you love, find solutions to problems or discover your life calling, you need to ’empty your cup’ by quietening the left hemisphere of your brain. The left hemisphere is the logical, analytical part of the brain that processes information sequentially. Give this part of your brain a problem, and it will work on finding a practical solution for you. The brain is a beautiful tool. However, if you don’t know what you want or don’t know how to create what you wish, logic, reason, and analysis can have you going around and around in circles. This can lead to feelings of frustration or uncertainty, and that’s when it sometimes gets too hard, and we settle for what is.

Teenagers face unique challenges, from academic pressure to social media distractions. Teaching them mindfulness can be particularly helpful in managing stress and anxiety. 

Mindfulness for toddlers is something I get asked about often. In fact, some variation of, “How do I teach my toddler/baby/preschooler mindfulness?” is probably one of the most frequently asked questions I receive. And it always makes me smile a little. Not because there’s anything wrong with the question – I happen to think it’s a great question. But I also happen to think we’re asking it the wrong way around!

Because toddlers actually have a lot to teach us about mindfulness. We’re often just too busy to pay attention to the lesson.

You see, toddlers are naturally pretty mindful already. Sure, mindfulness for toddlers looks different to mindfulness for adults, or even for older children. But if you’ve spent any amount of time with one recently, then you’ve likely already witnessed their mindfulness in action. You’d know that they’re curious, and they love to explore everything. That they like to take their time, savour experiences, feel emotions fully (and with passion!), and they notice everything (even when you don’t want them to). They delight in the simple things and living in the moment is the only thing they know how to do.

This week is Mental Health Week here in Australia. And on October 10, we celebrate World Mental Health Day. This is an international day dedicated to raising awareness of mental health issues and reducing the stigma associated with these debilitating illnesses.

Mental health, but particularly youth mental health, is something I’m very passionate about. My entire career as a psychologist has been spent working in mental health. I have seen first hand, the damage mental illness can have on young people and their families. 

But I have also seen the positive relationship between mindfulness and mental health. I’ve seen the powerful effects of mindfulness. And the research agrees with me. Mindfulness build healthy minds. Which is of course, why I started Mindful Little Minds! I believe that teaching kids mindfulness skills can have a hugely beneficial impact on rates of mental illness in children and can drastically improve their mental wellbeing.

So just in case you need more reasons to practice mindfulness with your kids, here are 6 ways mindfulness can protect, support, and improve your child’s mental health.