Kids are often encouraged to think through their problems in order to solve them. When they feel stressed and anxious, however, worrying about what’s going on and endlessly mulling it over will heighten the body’s stress response. The secret to putting the brakes on an overly heightened stress response lies in children’s learning to notice when their bodies are sending them signals that anxious thoughts and feelings have started to take over. Then kids can relax and lightly Focus on a simple neutral object to anchor their attention. Perhaps because it is always with them, the most commonly used anchor is the sensation of breathing. It can be especially calming and self-soothing when kids place a hand on their hearts to feel their chests move up and down as they breathe. This suggestion comes from the Mindful Self-Compassion program developed by the psychologists and researchers Drs. Christopher K. Germer and Kristin Neff. Germer explains why anchors for attention are important, especially to manage strong emotions, in his book The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: “Most of our mental suffering arises when our minds jump around from one subject to another, which is exhausting, or when we’re preoccupied with unhappy thoughts and feelings. When we notice that the mind is behaving in this way, we need to give it an anchor—a place to go that’s neutral and unwavering.”
It’s common to associate meditation with sitting still, but staying still can be hard for children and teens, especially when they feel stressed, anxious, or their minds are busy. That’s one reason why mindful games in which kids walk, stretch, and shake are remarkably useful. Besides being fun, they offer children an opportunity to notice the differences in how their minds and bodies feel before and after they move. In Trauma-Proofing Your Kids, Dr. Peter Levine explains that structured physical activities are effective ways to release excess energy, especially when they’re designed “so that highly energized periods of excitation are interspersed with equal periods of rest to give kids sufficient time for settling down. During both phases (the excitement and the settling), excess energy is automatically discharged.” Periods of both excitement and settling are baked into the next game, which might be why kids report that Shake It Up calms them down when they’re feeling overly excited or upset.
Sensations exist on a spectrum, with the strongest on one end and the weakest on the other. The strongest sensations are called “coarse” and the subtlest sensations are, not surprisingly, called “subtle.” Coarse sensations are easier to focus on than subtle ones, and the fast movements in Shake It Up are an example of coarse sensory anchors. Focusing on a coarse sensation is a smart Quieting strategy because coarse sensory anchors grab kids’ attention away from highly energized thoughts and feelings more easily than subtle sensations do. In a later section on Focusing, children will further refine and develop their attention skills by closely noticing subtle sensations when their minds and bodies are quiet.
We shake our bodies to the sound of a drumbeat to release energy and help us focus.
LIFE SKILLS Focusing, Quieting |
TARGET AGES All Ages |
LEADING THE GAME
1. Let’s pretend to put magic glue on the bottoms of our feet and glue them to the floor.
Mime putting glue on the bottom of one foot and stomping it on the ground; then continue with the other foot. Children will follow your lead.
2. Can you wiggle your knees and keep the bottoms of your feet flat on the floor at the same time?
Wiggle your knees while keeping the bottoms of your feet flat on the floor as if they’re stuck.
3. Let’s move our bodies to the sound of the drum, keeping our feet glued to the floor. Make big movements when you hear loud drumming.
Drum loudly. Demo the movements as best you can while drumming.
4. Make small movements when you hear quiet drumming.
Drum quietly. Demo the movements as best you can while drumming.
5. What do you do if you hear fast drumming?
Drum quickly, and children will answer, “Move fast.”
6. And if you hear slow drumming?
Drum slowly, and children will respond, “Move slowly.”
7. That’s it. See if you can follow these sounds, and when the drumming stops, freeze.
Alternate between fast, slow, loud, and quiet drumming. Children will freeze when the drumming stops.
8. Let’s relax and feel our breathing for a few moments, and then we’ll play again.
Run through the sequence again after children have had time to settle.
TIPS
1. If you don’t have a drum you can slap your thighs to make a drumming sound.
2. Use shaking to break up a long period of sitting still.
3. Let children take turns leading too.
4. Shake It Up can be played sitting (at desks or in a circle on the floor) or standing.
5. There are times when shaking isn’t a realistic option. In these situations, slowly swaying from side to side or squeezing a pillow are useful sensory anchors to help children settle.
6. Other sensory experiences that children and parents commonly use to calm and self-soothe are rocking back and forth, holding hands, hugging, and singing.
Interspersing gentle movement with periods of rest to discharge excess energy helps everyone Quiet their nervous system, not just kids. Tsokyni Rinpoche, the author of Open Heart, Open Mind and a Tibetan teacher with remarkable insight into Western psyches, draws upon this basic understanding when he teaches meditation to adults. (If you’re not familiar with the word Rinpoche, it is an honorific title used in the Tibetan language to indicate that a teacher is an accomplished meditator.) Rinpoche’s father, the late Tulku Urgyen Rinpoche, was born in Tibet and later settled in Nepal with his wife. He was one of the great meditation masters of modern times, and each of his four sons is now an important meditation teacher. I’m lucky to study with two of them—Tsokyni Rinpoche and his brother Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche who is also an author and the founder and guiding teacher of the Tergar meditation community.
The first time I took a class with Tsokyni Rinpoche, he started the week-long retreat with a movement-based practice designed to help us relax into our bodies and feelings. While sitting with our backs straight and our bodies relaxed, he asked us to raise our arms to shoulder height and shake them. On his signal, we were to breathe out forcefully and drop our arms and hands. We rested with our hands on our knees for a moment, without trying to control our thoughts and emotions. Rinpoche repeated the practice a few more times, asking us to shake our arms and hands again, drop them suddenly, and rest. In an article that was later published in Lion’s Roar, he explained, “Whatever happens, wherever you land after dropping your arms, just let it be. Don’t do or try to block anything. Just rest. There is no need to search for something new or try to achieve some special insight or state. Feel whatever feelings and sensations arise and be lightly aware of them. Feel them naturally and softly, and don’t try to change anything. When uncomfortable feelings come up, you can relax and trust them, without analyzing or somehow figuring them out.” Given what we know about the nervous system, it makes sense that Rinpoche’s practice is calming. Woven through it are brief periods of excitement, brief periods of settling, and an emphasis on the out-breath—three strategies that likely work together to release excess energy and activate the rest-and-digest branch of the autonomic nervous system.
Rinpoche’s instructions to rest with whatever feelings show up and let them be, without analyzing them or trying to figure them out, is another mindfulness-based strategy that can put the brakes on an overly heightened stress response. Young children are not yet developmentally ready to hold back from thinking about their thoughts and feelings, but older children and teens can give it a try, even though it sometimes feels counterintuitive.
Using a glitter ball (or, if one is not available, a snow globe or jar of water with baking soda in it) as a prop, the next demonstration helps children better understand how to dampen a heightened stress response. It employs a time-tested two-step strategy: having someone lightly Focus on a simple neutral object, to anchor their attention, and leave their thoughts and feelings alone. The glitter in the ball represents stress and strong emotions. When you shake the ball, the particles whirl about, making the water cloudy. When you leave the ball alone, the water slowly clears. This visual experiment—the equivalent of going from feeling calm and clear-eyed to feeling stressed and overwhelmed and then back to feeling settled—helps kids connect the activity in the ball to the activity in their minds and bodies.
seeing clearly
We shake a glitter ball to help us understand the connection between what happens in our minds and what happens in our bodies.
LIFE SKILLS Focusing, Seeing |
TARGET AGES All Ages |
LEADING THE GAME
1. Talking points: Can you describe how your body feels when you’re stressed? Can you describe what your mind is like when you’re stressed? When you feel stressed, can you think clearly?
2. When the ball is still, like it is now, can you see through the water to the other side?
3. What do you think will happen if I shake the ball? Will you be able to see through the water?
Shake the ball. The glitter will whirl about, and the water will become cloudy.
4. Now place your hand on your belly and feel your breathing.
Stop shaking the ball, and the glitter will settle.
5. Can you see through the water now?
6. Did the glitter go away? Nope, it’s still there. Thoughts are like that, too. Our minds can get so busy that we can’t think clearly. But if we feel our breathing and leave our thoughts alone, they settle down, and we can think clearly again.
7. Let’s try it once more.
Repeat the demonstration.
TIPS
1. It’s helpful to generate a little energy up front with a brief period of physical activity so that the child is able to feel herself settle during the demonstration. If she feels focused, calm, and relaxed before the demonstration, she probably won’t feel differently at the end.
2. Meditation isn’t about having a blank mind or getting rid of thoughts, yet some children think it is. Kids can also believe that it’s “bad” to have thoughts when they meditate. If you point out that thoughts and emotions are beautiful, just like the glitter that’s swirling around in the ball, children can then see that even beautiful thoughts can be distracting.
3. Once a young child understands the metaphor, use a phrase like “See if you can settle your glitter” as a gentle prompt for him to focus on his breathing when he feels overly excited or upset.
4. Point out that meditation doesn’t get rid of the stress in everyday life just like the glitter doesn’t go away when it settles at the bottom of the ball. Even though meditation doesn’t get rid of stress entirely, it can help us manage stress by teaching us to relax and let our minds settle when we feel overly excited or upset. Then we can see what’s happening in and around us clearly.
Quieting tools are of no use if kids don’t believe there’s a connection between what they think and how they feel. The next game allows skeptics to experience a mind-body connection firsthand by imagining that they’re biting into a lemon. Just thinking about biting a lemon usually makes kids’ mouths pucker up or water, even when there’s not a lemon in sight.
mind-body connection
We imagine biting into a lemon to help us understand the connection between what’s happening in our minds and what’s happening in our bodies.
LIFE SKILLS Focusing, Seeing |
TARGET AGES Older Children, Teens |
LEADING THE GAME
1. Talking points: Can your thoughts change how your body feels? Can how your body feels change your thoughts? Can your emotions change how your body feels? Can how your body feels change your emotions?
2. Resting your hands on your knees, sit with your back straight and your body relaxed and close your eyes.
3. Picture yourself sitting at a kitchen table. There’s a lemon in front you. Imagine picking up the lemon. Imagine that it’s wet and cold in your hand. Picture yourself cutting the lemon in half, picking up one half, smelling the lemon, and then biting into it. Is anything happening in your mouth?
4. Talking points: Did your body react to thinking about biting into a lemon as if you were actually doing it? Is this an example of a mind-body connection? Can you give other examples of mind-body connections?
TIPS
1. Once children understand what you mean by mind-body connection, they’ll notice mind-body connections on their own. Ask children to share some of them with you.
2. When leading more than one child, you can use Pinky Pointing to help them see that others often have similar reactions to stress.
3. When children listen to a guided visualization, it’s common for them to analyze the visualization rather than follow it. Analyzing takes them away from the present moment and is one explanation for why everyone doesn’t have a physical response. This will probably change with practice, so if the lemon visualization doesn’t work the first time, try it again another day.
The games Mind-Body Connection and Seeing Clearly lay the conceptual groundwork for conversations about heightened stress, psychological pressure, and how to mitigate their negative effects. When I ask children and teenagers for examples of how their minds have affected their bodies, it’s common for them to report that their stomachs ache when they’re anxious or that they have trouble sleeping when they’re worried or overly excited. Because it can be reassuring for them to know that they’re not alone in these experiences, I find it helpful to share similar ones that I’ve had. When offering examples of mind-body connections, don’t forget to include thoughts and emotions that make you feel better, too. This will set the stage for similar discussions that you’ll have in connection with the kindness visualizations that come later in this book.