Season 2 EP 9: Two Kid-Friendly Meditations to Try at Home
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Perfectionist in Recovery
Two Kid-Friendly Meditations to Try at Home
Hello and Welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast!
Hello and welcome back to the Perfectionist in Recovery Podcast! My name is Marcy Parks and I am a perfectionist in recovery.
On today’s episode I wanted to share two kid-friendly meditations to practice with your little ones (that are also fun for adults to do, too), but first - I want to take a second and thank you so much for being here and for supporting this podcast! I love producing this podcast and it wouldn’t be nearly as much fun without other people to share it with, so thank you for being here. If you are enjoying this podcast and would like to show your support for my work, then please, leave a review for the podcast! Reviews are the best way to support the growth and success of the podcast. You can go to my website at www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery and find links to leave a review at the bottom of the page. In fact, it is in that same place where you can also send me your feedback about the podcast! As I have said before, your feedback makes this podcast more enjoyable for you to listen to, so please, let me know what you think! Let me know if there are specific questions you have, episodes that have helped you, or if you have any questions you want answered! So go to www.marcyparksart.com/perfectionistinrecovery to leave a review and send me your feedback.
Now for our meditation today, I have two different meditations to practice that are kid-friendly (and pretty fun for adults, too) that I wanted to share with you!
So one of the two meditations I am sharing with you today is from the kid’s book Breathe Like a Bear, and the other is from the kid-friendly meditation app, Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids, I recently shared in My Top Three Favorite Meditation Apps blog post that you can find on my website. And just in case you were wondering, no, this is not a sponsored post! These are truly just books and meditation apps that I love and enjoy and have found to be really helpful and I wanted to share them for anyone with littles that are interested in teaching their children about mindfulness and giving them tools to help regulate their emotions.
I have shared a meditation from the Breathe Like a Bear book before that Searsha and I do on occasion and we both enjoy it.
The first is the Hot Chocolate Breath from the Breathe Like a Bear book. To practice this meditation, pretend that you have a steaming hot cup of hot chocolate and you have to cool it off before actually drinking it. For a few rounds, you and your little one can practice taking deep breaths in and then blowing on your cup of hot chocolate to cool it off, just like you would do in real life. Then, after 3 or 4 rounds of taking deep breaths and blowing on your hot chocolate, you can then start to pretend to drink the hot chocolate. So at this point, you would bring your invisible cup to your lips and take a deep, long sip of your hot chocolate as your inhale, then on your exhale say “MMMMMMMM…” For the next 3 to 4 breaths, you can then sip your hot chocolate and say “MMMMMM…” as you breathe out.
This was the first breathing practice Searsha and I really tried together. Every now and then I will ask her if she wants to do some hot chocolate breathing with me. There are times when she says no, that she doesn’t want to do it, or isn’t in the mood to do it, so I don’t push her, but it is something that I do try to incorporate into our routine so that it is a familiar practice to her.
The second breathing exercise is from the Stop, Breathe, and Think Kids app that I shared in my blog post about My Top Three Favorite Meditations apps. This breathing exercise and meditation is Smell the Roses, Blow out the Candle.
For this practice, you and your little one will each hold up your index finger in front of your face pretending that they are roses. You can even have a little fun talking about what color the roses are, being mindful of the thorns on the rose, and what they might smell like. Then, holding your index fingers to your nose, you will take a deep breath in pretending to smell the rose. You can do a few rounds of breathing just pretending to smell the rose to start. After a few rounds of getting used to taking deep breaths in to smell the rose, you will pretend that your index finger is then a candle. Once again, you can have some fun visualizing the candle, talking about the color of the candle and even the flame of the candle. Then, you will practice taking a deep breath in and holding your index finger to your mouth to blow out the candle. Take some time to practice blowing out the candle, first with the intention of blowing out forcefully to blow the flame of the candle out, like you would with candles on a birthday cake, but then, after a few forceful, flame extinguishing breaths, practice blowing out slowly so as not to disturb the flame of the candle.
Once you have practiced blowing out slowly with control in order to not blow out the candle, start to combine the two practices together. Holding your finger up to your nose, take a deep breath in to smell the rose, then holding your finger to your mouth, slowly breathe out to blow the flame of the candle without blowing it out.
Then, on the last round, you can finish up by blowing out the candle!
So those are two kid-friendly meditation activities you can introduce to your little ones to start getting them acquainted with mindfulness and meditation. It might be a fun bedtime activity to introduce into your bedtime routines, or even something to try out after a meltdown or a stressful event to help your little one process the emotions afterwards. However you decide to practice it, let me know! Let me know what your little one thinks and if they enjoy the practice.
Otherwise, I hope these practices serve you well. Thank you for being here!
Until next time, friends!
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