Sitting Still Like a Frog: Mindfulness Exercises for Kids

KINDNESS IS one of the most powerful qualities a person can possess. It is like a gentle rain that falls everywhere, without excluding a single place.

Thoughts never stop. All you can do is stop interacting with them, stop listening to them.

From chapter 5, Out of Your Head and Into Your Body (page 41): If you teach children to listen to their body's signals, they will learn from an early age that the body not only does what it is told but also sends out important signals that they can feel.

From chapter 3, Attention Starts with the Breath (page 25): Practicing mindful attention takes effort. It is never easy to break with habits and patterns. The same is true for our mind. By tuning in to their breath, kids learn just how easily they are distracted by thoughts, fantasies, and plans for tomorrow that pop into their heads.

My daughter knew that dealing with difficult feelings is often not about solving anything, crying in sympathy, or playing the blame game—but about attention. Very loving attention.

In adults, mindfulness training has been shown to positively influence important regions of the brain having to do with executive functioning, including impulse control and decision making, perspective taking, learning and memory, emotion regulation, and a sense of connectedness with one’s own body. Under intense and unremitting stress, all these brain functions rapidly degrade.

Given the stress that young people are under in our society, mindfulness training is not an optional add-on to improve the learning environment or promote relaxation. It is essential for optimal learning and emotional balance, and to protect the developing brain in young people from the negative effects of excessive stress.