Meditation can be a wonderful practice for kids, helping them cultivate mindfulness, reduce stress, improve focus, and develop emotional regulation skills. By teaching your kids how to meditate (and then meditating WITH them!), you can give them great tools for life, while enjoying some fantastic parent-child bonding. If this sounds intimidating, don’t worry! We’ll walk you through a great place to start: a “Mantra” meditation.

Mantra Meditations – What and Why

A mantra is an impactful word or phrase that we can repeat to influence our mood, focus, and experience. The fun part is, the mantra can be anything you wish! Don’t worry, we’ll give you a step-by-step walkthrough shortly – but first, here’s something worth remembering:

Children experience many emotions as they navigate  different life stages and periods of growth or transition.  Sometimes they can feel angry, sad, scared, or due to anxiety, even have trouble falling asleep. Taking time to identify and repeat a relevant mantra teaches children practical and healthy ways to navigate their feelings.

Simple Mantra Meditation to Do with your Kids

Let’s begin by finding a quiet place for today’s meditation. If you have pillows, cushions, or a favorite toy that might help your child meditate, feel free to include them!

[Step 1: Be Relaxed and Present]

Let’s start by making yourself comfy and relaxed. You can sit down any way you choose. Evaluate how you are feeling today: If you had a good day, smile and be grateful for this moment. Or maybe it was a tough day. Sometimes, things happen during the day that create fear, anger, sadness, or nervousness. That’s okay, too – everyone feels that way sometimes.

Whether you are feeling good or bad, let’s use Mantra Meditation today to feel great!

[Step 2: Breathe Normally]

A mantra is a type of meditation that helps us focus and stay calm. Once you’ve finished this practice, you’ll feel happy and relaxed.  For this Mantra Meditation practice, you can breathe like you normally do.

[Step 3: Close Your Eyes]

When you’re ready, get started by looking straight ahead and gently closing your eyes. Remember – no peeking!

[Step 4: Choose a Mantra]

Instead of focusing on our thoughts and feelings, let’s choose our very own special, happy mantra!

Choose a word or a few words that will become your mantra for this practice. For example: if you want to feel warm and happy, your mantra could be a word such as “sun,” or a few words like “I’m happy like the sun.” If you want to cool down from anger or frustration, it might be a word like “ice,” or a few words such as “I’m cool and calm as ice.” If you want to feel sleepy before bed, your mantra might be “sleepy,” or “I’m ready to sleep.” If you want to be strong and conquer your fears, just say “I’m strong like – “ and the name of your favorite superhero or brave character! Or you may choose anything else as your mantra that has a happy meaning for you.

[Step 5: Repeat Your Mantra]

Repeat your mantra out loud at a slow, steady pace. Let’s repeat together for 1 minute.

Great job so far! If you get distracted, that’s okay. Focus again on the  mantra and keep repeating it.

[Step 6: See the Results]

Observe how repeating your mantra is slowly making you feel better. This is because repeating your mantra keeps the mind focused on happy things. Mantras are a wonderful tool to help us relax!

You’re doing amazing! Continue to repeat your mantra. Enjoy the happy and relaxed feeling as it grows stronger and stronger!  Keep repeating your mantra and enjoy the moment.

[Concluding Your Meditation]

When ready to end this meditation practice, slowly open your eyes.  Notice how much better you feel now! Anytime you need some extra joy, peace, or courage, use the power of a mantra to bring you to your happy place. This is a tool that can be used at any time, in any place.

For more information on meditation and tools kids can use to help with their overall mental health and wellbeing, download the Innergy App!