When children tell me they can’t handle stress and strong feelings, I’m reminded of Christopher Robin’s advice to his friend Winnie-the-Pooh: “You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” Yet becoming overwhelmed by strong emotions is common both on and off the meditation cushion. Children and teens can turn the tide if they shift their attention away from thinking about what’s upsetting them and toward experiencing how they feel in the moment. When they do, their nervous systems settle, and some space opens up in their heads, allowing them to see and understand what led to their discomfort in the first place.
Scientists are beginning to understand how the brain helps children and teens regulate emotion. Some regions of the brain are linked to feelings of fear, anxiety, and other challenging emotions, while other regions enable kids to notice how they automatically react to these feelings and, in some cases, to alter the course of their emotional responses. Sometimes their automatic reactions are natural and entirely appropriate. When they step off the sidewalk without noticing a bus coming down the street, for instance, fear mobilizes their stress response so that they get out of the way in a hurry. Sometimes kids’ stress responses are neither appropriate nor helpful, however. When they’re behind in their schoolwork, for instance, the worry and fear that bubble up can motivate them to get the job done. But if kids get stuck on thinking about what will happen if they don’t complete their assigned tasks on time, fear and worry can trigger more thoughts, which can trigger even stronger emotions, and on and on it goes. Then their thoughts and feelings are running the show. They know the seemingly endless loop of thinking that’s running in their heads isn’t helping them, yet they feel powerless to change anything. This is called emotional hijack—a term coined by the psychologist Dr. Daniel Goleman in his book Emotional Intelligence. Emotional hijack explains why it’s tough for kids to think clearly when they feel overly excited or upset. Steady, flexible attention allows children and teens to avoid emotional hijack by recognizing when their thoughts and emotions begin to take over. Because children and teenagers’ cognitive control is not yet fully developed, they are usually more susceptible to emotional hijack than their parents.
Kids’ bodies manage stress through a variety of built-in mechanisms, ranging from chemical circuit breakers that shut off stress hormones to the complex, interrelated network of neural pathways known as the nervous system. When one of these mechanisms fires, all of the other mechanisms are affected. Mindful games that target stress management, pain management, and Quieting often encourage a light Focus on the out-breath because that simple shift in attention can ease physical and mental discomfort.
The nervous system—a complex network of cells with billions of connections that carry messages to and from the brain and spinal cord to and from all parts of the body—is divided into two interrelated branches known as the somatic and autonomic systems. The somatic system is involved in voluntary movements (jumping, walking, speaking); reflexive movements; and the sensations kids are aware of, such as pain and light. The autonomic system manages functions that happen largely outside of awareness, such as heart rate, blood pressure, and digestion. To better understand how emotional hijack and Quieting strategies work, let’s take a closer look at how the nervous system functions in a crisis versus how it functions when kids are calm.
In an emergency, a branch of the autonomic nervous system called the sympathetic nervous system prepares kids’ bodies to fight, flee, or freeze. In nonemergencies, a second branch called the para-sympathetic nervous system allows their bodies to rest and digest. These two branches work together to keep children and teenagers balanced. Emotional hijack kicks the autonomic system into gear. Mindfulness-based Quieting tools also affect the autonomic system, but rather than intensifying the fight-or-flight response, these strategies tend to be calming.
The body’s response to stress is complex, but as a general rule the baseline, balanced state of the autonomic nervous system is mostly resting and digesting, with a mild activation of the fight-or-flight response for alertness and vitality. This may surprise the many parents for whom a stressful life, and the adrenaline rush of a fight-or-flight response that comes with it, is their norm. Autonomic system functions are almost entirely independent of the conscious mind, but one aspect that children and teens have some control over is their breathing. When kids exhale, their brains send a signal down the vagus nerve—a long, complex cranial nerve that runs from the brain through the head, continues through the midsection, and ends in the belly—to slow their heartbeats. When kids inhale, that signal gets weaker, and their heartbeats quicken. Scientists have referred to the vagus nerve as the single most important nerve in the body because of its role in supporting emotional-regulation, self-soothing, and social-engagement functions.
Long before scientists understood the connection, meditators and yogis used their breathing to tap into their autonomic nervous systems by lightly Focusing their attention on the in-breath for energy and alertness (arousing fight or flight) or on the out-breath for relaxation and calm (stimulating rest and digest). Young children in mindfulness classes have noticed this connection, too. After a brief mindful breathing game taught by Annaka Harris (one of the first to teach mindfulness and meditation in schools), an eight-year-old student at Toluca Lake Elementary School, in Toluca Lake, California, said, “I noticed that when I breathe in, my heart beats fast, and when I breathe out, my heart beats slowly.”
Many children find the next game, which emphasizes the out-breath, to be calming.
breathing on purpose: a cooling out-breath
We learn that focusing on a long out-breath can be relaxing and help us feel calm.
LIFE SKILLS Focusing, Quieting |
TARGET AGES All Ages |
LEADING THE GAME
1. Sit with your back straight and your body relaxed and gently rest your hands on your knees. Breathe naturally while I count the length of your inhale and exhale.
Count out loud, adjusting your pace to the natural rhythm of the child’s breathing.
2. Now, breathe in for two counts and breathe out for four counts.
As the child increases the length of his exhale to four counts, adjust the pace of your counting so that it syncs with the pace of his breathing. (There is a natural pause between the inhale and exhale.) Continue for a few breaths.
3. Let’s go back to breathing naturally.
TIPS
1. Vary this game to help children feel alert and more awake by asking them to focus on a long in-breath. Follow the instructions for A Cooling Out-Breath but lengthen the inhale rather than the exhale (children will breathe in for four counts and out for two counts).
2. Introduce kids to Breathing on Purpose when they have some down-time, for instance, at the dinner table or in the carpool line. Once they understand that extending their exhale can cool them down, children can use their out-breath to Quiet their minds and bodies. Similarly, they can use a long inhale to help them feel more alert.
3. Breathing on Purpose is best practiced with an individual child rather than in a group.
When children or teens feel anxious or upset, encourage them to “breathe in a little bit and breathe out a whole lot,” making a soft whooshing sound as they exhale. If a child is sobbing and having trouble catching his breath, ask him to raise his first finger and pretend it’s a candle. Encourage him to breathe in through his nose to “smell the flowers,” then to “blow out the candle” by pursing his lips and breathing out. Have kids blow so slowly and gently that the imaginary flame flickers instead of going out entirely. It can take a few breaths or a few minutes for his breathing to return to normal.
It doesn’t matter whether children are sitting, standing, or lying down when they practice mindfulness and meditation. What’s important is that in every posture they keep their spines relatively straight and their muscles relatively relaxed. The next game leads young children through a movement sequence that ends with them sitting or standing up straight. Zip-Up, along with several other movement activities in this book, is inspired by the work of the dance movement therapist Dr. Suzi Tortora, a friend, collaborator, and the author of The Dancing Dialogue. Rather than asking older children and teens to zip up, I ask them to sit or stand with their backs straight and their muscles relaxed.
zip-up
We imagine there’s a zipper going up our bodies to help us keep our backs straight and muscles relaxed.
LIFE SKILLS Focusing |
TARGET AGES Young Children |
LEADING THE GAME
1. Let’s pretend we have a zipper running up and down our bodies, from our belly buttons to our chins, that helps us sit or stand straight and tall.
2. Without touching your body, put one hand in front of your belly button and the other hand at your lower back, like this.
Demonstrate by placing one hand in front of your belly button and the other hand at your lower back.
3. OK, let’s zip ourselves up: ZIIIPPP.
Demonstrate by moving your hands up your spine and chest, past your chin and head, ending with your hands in the air.
4. Now that we’re zipped up, let’s take a few breaths together with our bodies straight and tall.
TIPS
1. Extend the game by adding a silent cheer at the end, while children still have their hands in the air.
2. Extend the game further with a mime that’s similar to the song “Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes.” Ask children to keep their eyes on you and follow your movements. No talking—only watching, listening, and mimicking. Sitting or standing tall, without saying a word, and while children follow your lead, touch your head with both hands, then your nose, your shoulders, your belly, and, if you like, your knees and toes. To make the game more challenging, you can mix up the sequence and speed up the pace. Alternating between big, small, fast, and slow movements gives children an opportunity to practice concentration and self-control.
Once kids are sitting or standing with their backs straight and their muscles relaxed, they’re ready to play mindful games. Here’s one that helps young children notice how different ways of breathing can change the way their minds and bodies feel. To play you’ll need a pinwheel for each child and one for yourself.
breathing with a pinwheel
We blow on a pinwheel to notice that different ways of breathing—quick, slow, deep, and shallow—affect how our minds and bodies feel.
LIFE SKILLS Focusing, Seeing |
TARGET AGES Young Children |
LEADING THE GAME
1. Sit with your back straight and your body relaxed. Pick up your pinwheel.
2. We’ll blow on our pinwheels together using long, deep breaths and notice how we feel.
Talking points: Does your body feel calm and relaxed? Is it easy or hard for you to sit still after breathing deeply?
3. Now let’s blow on our pinwheels using short, quick breaths.
Talking points: How does your body feel now? Do you feel the same way after breathing quickly as you feel after breathing slowly?
4. Let’s blow on our pinwheels now, breathing normally.
Talking points: Was it easy to keep your mind on breathing, or were you distracted?
TIPS
1. Have a longer discussion about the different types of breathing:
Can you think of a situation when breathing deeply would be useful in daily life? (Maybe to calm down when you’re upset, or to help you concentrate.) What about breathing quickly? (Maybe when you’re tired and want to feel a little more energized.)
2. When leading more than one child, ask them to put their pinwheels down before each set of talking points.
In the next section children will learn Quieting strategies in which they shift their attention away from thinking about what’s upsetting them and toward a present moment—a sensation (something they hear, see, taste, touch, or smell), a word (counting breaths), or a task. If you ever squeezed on a stress ball or rubbed a worry stone, Focusing on sensations rather than thoughts is a familiar strategy. Many kids find these Quieting tools to be calming, which may be an indication that they decrease the fight-or-flight response in the nervous system and increase the rest-and-digest response.