What is mindfulness? Why it can be helpful for children

From losing a fickle friendship to being teased for wearing out-of-style sneakers, childhood has always come with slings and arrows. But now more than ever children are being diagnosed with anxiety, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), behavioral problems and depression, according to the Centers for Disease Control. And it’s clear that the pandemic and social media, as well as political and environmental challenges, have created tremendous new stress for kids, on top of their usual worries.

Talk therapy and medications are the mainstays of treatment for kids who are struggling with these problems. However, there may be at least a partial solution rooted in ancient meditation traditions. Simple mindfulness exercises may be able to help kids find new emotional balance. Exercises to promote mindfulness — nonjudgmental awareness of the present moment — have been shown to reduce rumination, improve focus, and help children and adults feel less anxious and stressed. “We know that mindfulness skills help kids who have experienced trauma or who have anxiety, depression or ADHD,” says Nikki Rose, a licensed clinical social worker at the Mayo Clinic Center for Safe and Healthy Children and Adolescents.

According to Rose, mindfulness exercises for kids produce their positive effects by helping children slow their breathing and stay focused in the present, rather than worrying about the past or the future. Kids who’ve been silent or withdrawn also may relax enough to begin speaking about what’s been upsetting them, she says. And mindfulness activities for kids appear to teach them “that even though they experience uncomfortable feelings, the emotions themselves are not harmful,” she says.

Having greater capacity to tolerate big emotions, without getting overwhelmed, allows kids to begin thinking of creative solutions to their problems. She adds, “When kids reduce their symptoms of anxiety through mindfulness, they develop an attitude of curiosity toward their troubles and can think more clearly.”

Rose tells the kids she works with — and their parents — that developing mindfulness skills takes practice, just like getting better in baseball or gymnastics. But it’s worth it, she says, “because the more you practice mindfulness meditation, the easier it gets to implement the skills when you need them.”

So how can you help your child tap the benefits of mindfulness? Here are some mindfulness exercises for kids of all ages, recommended by Rose. Pick one — or a few — that works for you.

The 5 Senses exercise

To help kids who are agitated or stressed calm down, Rose often begins counseling sessions with a simple mindfulness exercise that encourages them to use all five of their senses to notice new details about their surroundings. To try this mindfulness technique with your child, first find a quiet, comfortable space to sit together in your home or yard — or set out for a walk around your neighborhood. “Then ask your child just to begin paying attention and noticing things,” says Rose. Encourage children to describe what they’re seeing, hearing, smelling and feeling in their bodies. Finally, encourage tasting — if, for example, it’s possible to nibble on a blade of grass or take a sip of water. “Then ask them to notice and describe a picture on the wall or, if you’re walking outside, flowers blooming, dogs, people — whatever they’re observing or experiencing. Then encourage them to let that go and move on to noticing something else,” says Rose.

Especially when kids are new to mindfulness activities, she adds, “guiding them like this is super helpful,” as is normalizing the fact that they’re going to notice their minds wandering. “Let them know that that’s OK, because everyone’s mind wanders, and if they can only do it for a few minutes at a time to start, that’s great.”

5, 4, 3, 2, 1

With kids who love games, Rose sometimes uses a variant of the five senses exercise that’s a meditative cousin of I Spy. First, she has kids name five things they can see in the room, followed by four things they can feel, three things they can hear, two things they can smell, and one thing they can taste. And since moments of mindful gratitude have been shown to increase positive emotions, she ends this mindfulness exercise with a question about appreciation: What’s one positive thing that you’re grateful for?

Pizza (or wave) breathing

This kid-friendly mindfulness exercise starts with pizza. Rose asks kids to imagine their favorite kind of pizza, piping hot out of the oven, and then to breathe in deeply, through their nostrils, imagining the tangy, spicy smell of the sauce. Then she has them exhale, through pursed lips, as if they were “cooling” the slice down with their long outbreath.

Rose does pizza breathing herself when she’s feeling stressed. But it’s a flexible template, where the goal is to encourage kids to take a good deep breath inward, followed by a good deep breath outward. With older kids, Rose may instead say, “Imagine yourself sitting by the edge of the ocean and breathe in deeply as a wave rolls in, then breathe out slowly as the wave rolls out.”

Bubble time

If you’re looking for a hands-on mindfulness activity with some built-in levity, this one’s for you. Rose keeps bubbles in her office and sometimes has kids — of any age — blow bubbles to mindfully de-stress. The instruction here is easy: Just encourage your child to blow slowly through the wand and make the biggest bubble they can. “There’s just something about bubbles,” Rose says. “They make people happy.”

Deep listening

As a tool to increase their child’s attention, parents of older children especially may find it beneficial to have them listen closely to a favorite song. Then ask them to describe what they heard in it for the first time. “Even if they’ve listened to a song a hundred times, there’s probably something in it that they’ve missed,” says Rose. To help your child dig into the music mindfully, Rose suggests asking questions like: What instruments did you hear? What did you pick up in the lyrics that you haven’t picked up before? How do the beats and vocals change throughout the song?

Mindful coloring

Another popular mindfulness technique for kids (and adults) is coloring, says Rose, who enjoys drawing with colored pencils in her own mandala coloring book. “Coloring is calming and relaxing, and sometimes I do it, too, with kids in our sessions. It’s great when kids are escalated in their feelings and just need a little break.” Rose recommends keeping colored pens or pencils, along with coloring books, out in the open and readily accessible so kids can grab them for a bit of break whenever they’re feeling stressed.

Yoga

If your child finds sitting still to practice mindfulness a bit too challenging, doing yoga — which can be thought of as moving meditation — is another strategy that can help children slow their breathing and begin noticing what’s happening in their bodies. “There are a lot of kid-friendly yoga videos out there on YouTube that I encourage parents to check out,” says Rose. A couple of sites recommended by Rose are Cosmic Kids Yoga and Mind Yeti. Away from a computer, Rose recommends Yoga Pretzels, which is a deck of cards with various yoga moves. She also recommends the books “Sitting Still Like A Frog” by Eline Snel and “Yoga for Children” by Lisa Flynn. Although yoga does require a bit of equipment — a mat and comfy clothes — kids who develop a regular yoga practice often find that helps them keep stress in check so effectively that they make yoga their mindfulness practice of choice for years to come.

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