Meditation guided activities are generally associated with adult use, but really there is no reason not to bring your children in on your meditation sessions. In fact, children may be more susceptible to the benefits of meditation than adults are, so putting your kids on the guided meditation track is not only a great family activity, but also provides them with a great background of spiritual activity that they can carry into adulthood.
Children tend to have shorter attention spans than adults, so if your children do not sit rigidly still while you try to teach them to meditate, do not fight it. You can still guide their thoughts with regular guided meditation techniques, even if they fidget. It is another matter if they want to get up and do something else. Be patient with the kids, as they might not understand the purpose of meditating. They will come around soon enough.Before beginning, you should explain what meditating is about and what exactly you will be doing. Be sure to explain why it is an important activity. You might want to give specific examples of how guided meditation work has helped you in the past, and how it can help your child right now. If your child’s thoughts wander while trying to meditate, allow it. This is your child’s natural creativity coming through, and creativity is an excellent asset to have while meditating. You can even take these wandering thoughts and turn them into mantras for your child. However, you may want to facilitate the use of meditation music to help keep them a little more focused.Whatever breathing exercises or other relaxation methods you use before meditating will be just as helpful for your children. While you may use a guided meditation CD or DVD to help you meditate, your children will generally respond best if you give them directions. If you want to give them the same instruction you receive, you can simply rephrase your guided meditation directions in your own words so that your children will feel at ease. It would probably be a good idea to emphasize visualization and mental imagery techniques, as your children will likely respond to these more concrete aspects as opposed to some of the more abstract concepts. You may want to consider giving children meditation beads or stones after some initial sessions, as this can give them something tangible to work with as they become increasingly meditation guided.
