tips for teaching mindfulness
It is by teaching that we teach ourselves, by relating that we observe, by affirming that we examine, by showing that we look, by writing that we think, by pumping that we draw water into the well.
HENRI-FRÉDÉRIC AMIEL, Amiel’s Journal, 1882, translated by Mary A. Ward
In sharing mindfulness and compassion with kids, there are challenges as well as rewards. There is no “one size fits all” when it comes to teaching. This chapter covers the basics of best practice for teaching kids mindfulness, compiled from my own experience and from discussions with leading colleagues. I include not only advice for generating interest and getting buy-in, but also techniques for facilitating conversation after a practice. This information will be helpful whether you are teaching your own child or working with children as a professional.
We play many roles with the kids in our lives: parents, teachers, therapists, friends, and more. I was a teacher for a few years before I became a psychologist, and now I am also a parent. Each role has shaped how I think about mindfulness and sharing mindfulness with kids. Kids probably spend more time in school than almost anywhere else; thus, educators have a unique opportunity to introduce kids to mindfulness. Historically, monasteries, in both the East and the West, were the places of learning; prayer and meditation taught people to concentrate effectively, to learn more effectively, and to think more creatively. Bringing mindfulness back into spaces of learning just makes sense.
If you are a therapist, you have unique opportunities to integrate mindfulness into your work with children. Mindfulness has been shown repeatedly to help with mental health and other struggles, and you have structured one-on-one time in which to teach and practice it. Mindfulness can help you if you are a nurse or a doctor who works with kids. Evidence shows that it helps you to be more focused, empathic, and effective, while helping your patients recover from illness and injury faster and more fully.
If you are a parent, you have plenty of opportunities to bring mindfulness and compassion to everything you do with your child, throughout their lives. Younger children may be more open than skeptical teens, who might not want to hear it from you. Fortunately, other adult mentors can share mindfulness practices with them. If their practice takes root, you might find your grown children eventually sharing practice with you, as I now do with my own parents.
Sustaining our own practice is often a challenge, but it’s particularly challenging when we’re also trying to share mindfulness practice with others. Traditionally, practice is sustained by three elements: solid teachings, inner motivation, and community support. In Buddhism, these elements are described as the three jewels: the dharma, the Buddha, and the sangha. These three elements enable a practice to grow and thrive over time. When we’re sharing mindfulness with kids, good teaching, a supportive community, and the right techniques must match the kids’ learning needs and tap into their intrinsic curiosity and motivation. Finding this sweet spot may seem like alchemy, but the best practices for teaching, which I share in this chapter, will help you get there.
HOW TO SUPPORT KIDS’ DEVELOPING PRACTICE
It is helpful to consider the following steps and priorities as we support our kids’ mindfulness practice:
1. Cultivate our own practice.
2. Create or join a community that supports our practice and that of young people.
3. Begin formal instruction, teaching kids and leading them in practices, as well as practicing with them.
4. Share informal practices to integrate mindfulness into everyday life.
5. Bring mindful awareness into regular activities.
This model also helps us with kids’ resistance. At each step, if we encounter resistance, we can move back down the list to the previous step.
The Practice of Teaching
Many of us want to share mindfulness with young people because we’ve experienced the benefits ourselves. We’ve likely also experienced the challenges of bringing what we’ve learned on our meditation cushions into our daily lives. Even more challenging is translating that wisdom into teachings for kids, so that they can learn and grow from our practice and their own, and take the wisdom into their playgrounds, classrooms, families, and neighborhoods.
For many of us, going from practicing mindfulness to teaching mindfulness feels like a big step. It can be strange, after years of what for most people is a very personal practice, to start sharing it with others. It may raise feelings of insecurity and doubt: I’m not good enough. Who am I to teach this? I’m not Thich Nhat Hanh! They’ll laugh at me. I’ll screw up! This is especially true if we are sharing with teenagers, whose self-doubt, self-consciousness, judgment, and skepticism can be contagious (but is rarely fatal). If you have such feelings, you’re not alone; doubts are common when we’re starting out and common even after we’ve been teaching for a while. If you have doubts about your ability to lead a mindfulness practice, check in with your own meditation teacher or mentor. And if you have no doubts and feel supremely confident, then definitely check in with someone. Seeking guidance is not weakness. By asking for support when we need it, we are modeling humility for our children, while also demonstrating our interdependence.
The intention of this book is to help you plant the seeds of mindfulness in kids, which often means merely offering the experience of the basic elements of mindfulness—present moment contact, awareness, and focus, as well as acceptance and nonjudgment—or sharing what Susan Kaiser Greenland calls “the new ABCs”: attention, balance, and compassion. When we have done that, we have done our job and met our intentions, whether a formal practice blossoms in the kids’ lives or not.
Begin with Beginner’s Mind
Approach teaching with a beginner’s mind attitude about yourself, the setting, and about the kids. If you can, let go of preconceptions and expectations. Whether you are a parent expecting a fight (or even an eye roll), a teacher who just heard some gossip about the kids, or a therapist who just read a two-inch-thick case file before meeting a kid, try to meet the kids with open heart and mind. If you can be open-minded and open-hearted, the kids will feel safe enough to respond in kind. If you go in with a predetermined idea of how things will go, the kids will respond in kind, with closed minds and hearts. And if you can see the kids with beginner’s mind, this perspective has a chance of spreading.
A pre-teaching ritual or practice will help you find your beginner’s mind. Perhaps say some gentle self-compassion phrases, find a way of settling yourself, or make an effort to clear a space mentally, physically, and emotionally.
Maybe you are a parent or grandparent; maybe you are a therapist or a teacher; perhaps you play an entirely different role in the life of the kid to whom you wish to introduce mindfulness. It’s easy for us, as adults, to forget what being a child is like, even though we’ve all shared the experience! If you can comfortably reconnect with the positive aspects of your own childhood, you will be able to connect more effectively and authentically with the kids you want to reach.
Leading Practices
Whether you lead practices in your living room, classroom, or office; work with breath awareness or creative expression; or teach joyful kindergarteners or juvenile convicts, the intention is the same: to engage the kids and offer a positive experience of mindfulness.
Starting with practices that resonate with you will up the odds of the practices resonating with the kids. Building up to a goal together—perhaps practicing for ten breaths or ten minutes—can inspire and motivate kids. The clearer we are with instructions, the easier they are to follow, and the safer and more comfortable kids feel.
For some kids, slowing down with mindfulness may be a relief; for others, it may be unfamiliar and uncomfortable; and for others, it may feel unsafe. Saying “We are going to sit quietly with our thoughts” can sound boring, ambiguous, or even scary, depending on the child. Silence has different meanings in different contexts and cultures. In therapy, silence often means a healing space, but in school or in families, it can signal danger, trouble, or loneliness. On the other hand, instructions such as “We are going to sit for one minute and just listen to all the sounds we can hear, and then we’re going to discuss what we noticed” are both clear and containing. Starting with a concrete practice such as listening to sounds, rather than starting with an abstract practice such as noticing thoughts, is a way for kids to feel successful and to keep their motivation up. Definitions of mindfulness—of which there are many variations for kids—should be clear and concise. A good rule of thumb is that the definition should be simple enough for a kid to explain to family members or friends.
You may need to loosen your attachment to what meditation looks like for you. For kids, meditation might not mean eyes closed, back straight, or feet on the floor—positions that can feel unfamiliar, uncomfortable, unsafe, or have different meaning in different cultures. Asking kids to close or lower their eyes helps to alleviate distraction as well as self-consciousness, but again, know your kids; some may find that uncomfortable.
Length of meditation time is also going to be different. A good length is what your kids can tolerate until they begin squirming, plus a tiny bit more. Longer seated meditations are often easier when we’re in a certain posture, and so rather than explain the “right” or “wrong” way to sit, I just say, “The best posture is one you can maintain for a while without getting uncomfortable or sleepy. For me, that’s sitting upright.” The stance becomes an invitation, rather than a command, which is fundamentally different from what most kids get at school and at home. Rather than saying, “Sitting longer is better,” I invite kids to sit more by saying, “Sitting for longer times or more often means more opportunities to notice your thoughts.”
Your flexible but supportive attitude gets away from the predictable dichotomy of right and wrong that many kids live in. It helps simply to let go of your own attachment to what meditation should be. These preconceived ideas come out of cultural traditions which may not align with those of the kids you’re working with. Rather than showing up with a rigid curriculum and expecting the kids to adapt, it is better for us to adapt ourselves and our practices to suit their minds, bodies, and spirits.
When possible, practice alongside the kids. The kids may or may not do the practice themselves, but you are still teaching them in the moment, with your presence, to be fully present for the time you are together. Although I don’t always close my eyes when leading a meditation, I find it helpful to model a mindful posture, and by following along with a script, I can see what is working in the language. Practicing together demonstrates that you’re not asking the kids to do anything you wouldn’t do—which is also unlike the authority-figure dynamics that many kids are accustomed to. Of course, it’s hard to talk with chocolate in your mouth during an eating meditation, and some movements of a movement practice might wear you out. In those cases, do everything you can while still leading.
Remember that, when you’re starting out, the intention is just to introduce mindful awareness and set kids up for a positive experience. If you can do that for a few of the kids, consider your work a success. I like to set the intention that one person will experience awareness and be helped by the practice; that way I can usually be an overachiever. Even with kids who are rolling their eyes, you can plant seeds that may blossom in time, if not on your timeline or in your lifetime! Being aware of our egos is critical. All we can do is create the conditions for mindfulness; if we take too much credit for the “success” or “failure” of the young minds who are learning, we are not modeling self-care or right view of the situation.
TIPS FOR LEADING GUIDED PRACTICES
Here are some ways to avoid the missteps new facilitators often make when leading practices, especially guided meditations:
Speed: Speaking too fast is a common mistake, but speaking too slow can put your audience to sleep. Pace yourself with your breath.
Volume: Be sure you are loud enough. If you are too relaxed or speak too softly, people in the back might not hear you.
Tone: A calm, confident, and assertive tone is ideal. Take care not to sound hypnotic or solemn.
Words: If the words of a practice script don’t resonate for you, improvise with ones that fit you and your kids.
You may find yourself teaching in someone else’s space. If you are an outsider, remember that you are a guest and must be respectful. Say thank you and always ask before rearranging anything. If you haven’t set up the space yourself, use what is already there.
If you are in a school and know the school well, you can make connections between mindfulness and other lessons the kids are studying by checking in with teachers. Can metaphors be pulled from astronomy charts on the wall? Can you tie information about mindfulness of body to an anatomical model in science lab? Using your hosts’ material has the added bonus of ingratiating yourself with them. An empty room can even work as its own metaphor. The room may be stripped bare to withstand destruction; we empty our minds so as not to damage ourselves with destructive thoughts. Working with whatever is present builds the important skill of creative improvisation. We are also modeling the practice of accepting what is here and making meaning of our environment.
If you can, put mindfulness reminders in the space where your group regularly meets, or even around the entire building. Be sure that your meeting is always listed on the school, hospital, or clinic calendar.
If the person whose space you are using is present, invite them to participate. Don’t just ally with the other adults; empower them to assist and even lead practice. Keep coming back and asking every time. Your confidence and consistency create a sense of security for the kids and adults alike. Even if they decline every time, keep asking. In your personal practice, you didn’t give up the first time your mind wandered and left you with your chaotic thoughts. So don’t give up the first time an adult wanders off and leaves you with their chaotic classroom.
Making your space sacred is an important, though challenging part of working in institutions. These days, I am fortunate to have my own teaching space, but it was not always that way. When I worked in inner-city schools, my colleagues and I conducted therapy just about anywhere, including backstage in the auditorium, a storage closet, the top landing of a stairwell, and—no, I’m not kidding—a bathroom that had been converted into a supply room. Teachers, janitors, and other kids regularly interrupted our sessions. That didn’t discourage my colleagues, who brightened up these otherwise dull therapy spaces with fresh paint and decorations to make them sacred for everyone. Do what you can with whatever space you’re given.
If you do have your own space try to make it sacred, or at least special. I fill mine with things that symbolize important people and events in my life. Mementos from my favorite places, family furniture, and books I cherish are all around me. I look across my grandparents’ carpet to see photos of my travels framing my patient’s chair, and I see books by favorite teachers alongside objects that remind me of my mentors. You can liven up a space with inspiring quotes or poetry, brought in by you or by others. To give the kids you’re working with a sense of ownership, ask them to bring objects that remind them of mindfulness and place them in the space.
Even in your own space, there may be limitations. Maybe the most you can do is create a mindfulness corner. If there isn’t space even for that, then just a photograph, a poster, a bell, or a splash of paint can be your anchor, reminding and inspiring you and everyone who enters your space or walks past.
If you are teaching a group, you might want to think about how the children are seated. There is a range of opinions about sitting kids in circles versus rows; to me, this is a matter of knowing your kids. Does your group get silly and set one another off, or can they compliment each other and engage in discussion? Will your kids feel more self-conscious in a circle, or safer with everyone in sight?
If you are in an institution or school, what’s the larger culture? Get to know the other adults, and cultivate allies and sources. Knowing the dynamics of the group is vital, so ask staff members about its emotional pulse, or have someone with you who knows its relational dynamics. They can tell you who should or should not be seated near whom, either for support or for safety.
Consider whether there is a certain time of day, or a context, in which kids are most open to new ideas and have a healthy attention span. Meeting regularly, on a particular day and at a certain time, and preferably when hearts and minds are most likely to be open, will make the experience feel predictable and safe for the kids.
When You Encounter Resistance
Encountering resistance, active or passive, is tough. The key, as in our own mindfulness practice, is to not take resistance personally. The best teachers in the world cannot get through perfectly to every student. So, go easy on the kids and on yourself.
Some forms of resistance are informative. Falling asleep is common among beginners, and I often joke: “We’ve been practicing for only five minutes, and you’ve already learned something—that you need more sleep! How can you get yourself the rest you need?” Giggles are also common, and you can draw attention to them as sounds or as a reaction to new experiences. I smile in acknowledgment but with a seriousness in my face as well—a look many parents and teachers have mastered. Kids may exaggerate the sound of their breath, or a certain movement. Sometimes they’re being silly, but sometimes the exaggeration makes it easier for them to focus on the chosen anchor, so consider how you respond.
If a kid is really resisting a particular practice, there may be a good reason, and a different practice may be better. Some kids struggle to sit still, so asking them to play another role during a practice may be helpful. It may seem counterintuitive to offer the squirming kid the opportunity to be the bell ringer or the timekeeper, but they may rise to the occasion and, as a result, not disrupt the group.
Remember that while resistance can be frustrating, it is how we grow. A colleague pointed out that resisting gravity by learning balance is how babies learn to walk. Resistance offers you an opportunity to learn and do something differently the next time. Also remember that the more you cultivate clear-headedness with your own practice, the more able you will be to respond skillfully to a resistant kid, rather than becoming overwhelmed.
As you finish a longer practice, check if anyone is drifting off to sleep and needs a more direct reminder to come back. For example, if you’ve had the kids focused on an inner anchor, such as the breath, you might encourage them to bring their awareness outside, to the body as a whole or to the room. If you’ve had them focused on a sense, ask them to tune in the rest of their senses one at a time, wiggle their toes, or follow the sound of the chime until it fades, then have them open their eyes. I also like to remind kids that they are clearing a path back to how they felt in the practice, and that they can return to their mindfulness at any time through the breath, sound, body, or whatever anchor we just used.
If the resistance becomes too discouraging, or you veer into burnout, take a step or two back, as suggested by the “How to Support Kids’ Developing Practice” list, lean on your community for support, or check in with your own teacher and deepen your own practice.
After Practice: Leading Discussion
Skillful inquiry and reflection after a practice can help kids discover how mindfulness is useful in their lives. Allowing kids to discover the benefits for themselves, rather than telling them the benefits, is an example of teaching by showing rather than telling, and allows them to make mindfulness their own.
We can encourage kids to discover insights by reporting back on their practice and discussing their experience with adults and peers. Help kids put their insights to use in real life by making real-world connections to times and ways they used their mindfulness.
The kind of questions we ask and the direction in which we take a discussion may depend on our role: therapist, parent or teacher. Remember that every experience is valid, and we can validate the child’s experience—positive, negative, or neutral—regardless of whether we think a practice “worked” or not. The more accepting we are with kids and their experience, the more open they will be with us and one another. Open, connected, compassionate curiosity is the best stance for helping kids feel heard and seen.
Processing, whether it’s through specific questions, open discussion, or a moment of quiet writing or drawing, will help kids synthesize the experience and internalize the insights of the practice. It also empowers them by offering them a voice. If they struggle to express themselves aloud, you might encourage them to think, draw, move, or write. My collaborator and co-teacher Joan Klagsbrun says, “I’d like to hear what that experience was like for you—in a sound, words, images, movement, sensation, or however you would like to express it.” In a group, we can ask kids to listen to each person, then reflect back what they’ve heard, giving everyone a chance to share.
A group discussion may not be best for all kids, so you might break it into smaller groups or pairs for reflection. Consider what form the sharing and discussion should take—open discussion, facilitated discussion, or maybe having one speaker at a time hold a talking stick or stone.
Avoid leading questions, but encourage discussion. Some people will like a given practice, and some won’t, but they will all likely be quiet at first. Beginners in mindfulness practice tend to feel insecure and might ask, “Was I doing it right?” Remind the kids that there is no right or wrong and normalize their experience. Normalizing questions like, “Did anyone else’s mind wander?” or “Did anyone wonder if they were doing it right? That’s very common,” are helpful. You can set the tone by sharing common beginners’ experiences, maybe even your own beginning experience.
Asking younger kids about their experience is challenging, because, developmentally, they generally don’t do well with open-ended questions. But we can still ask for specifics in open ways. Rather than the therapist’s classic, “How did that make you feel?” we might ask, “How did you feel in your body and in your mind?” or, “What did you notice? Did you notice anything different from how you usually eat (or breathe, or walk)? What surprised you? Have you felt similar to that before? How did paying attention to a certain thing or in a certain way affect your experience? What did you like?” Don’t be afraid to ask, “What did you not like?” or even “Any haters in the crowd today?” If a kid volunteers that they were bored or hated the practice, ask them to describe that feeling more deeply: “How did you know you were bored? What was boredom—a sensation in your body or thoughts in your mind? What did hating it make you want to do instead?”
The kids’ reflections can give us a lot of information. Therapists half-joke that everything is diagnostic. Well, it is and it isn’t, but everything can certainly be useful. When kids say they feel like they are doing a practice wrong, that opens the door to a conversation about how we judge ourselves and where that pressure and those voices come from. It also tells us something about how they feel about themselves. When they mention like or dislike, we learn about how they deal with discomfort or pleasure in the moment. In the discussion, we can connect the microcosm of the practice with how they deal with larger, real-life situations.
Our job includes giving positive feedback and praise, and both are most powerful when specific and immediate right after a practice. We can thank the kids for being open and for creating and sharing a space of stillness. When you catch kids being mindful and compassionate in their daily lives, name it for them and others, draw attention to it, and reinforce it.
You can also follow up by asking when kids used their mindfulness in the last day or last week. This positive behavioral support and reinforcement is far more effective at changing and reinforcing behavior than criticism or guilt. Shifting the praise-to-criticism ratio doesn’t come naturally to all of us, and the more stressed we are, the more likely we are to nag about the negative rather than praise the positive. That’s one more reason to renew your own practice: so that you can be mindful enough to recognize what’s working well. You can also encourage kids to teach mindfulness to their friends and family. At the end of a therapy session, for example, I typically bring in the parent and ask the kid to teach the parent what we did that day.
Sharing from Your Own Experience
Part of considering how to get kids to open up is considering how much we want to open up ourselves. Sam Himelstein talks often about skillful self-disclosure as a mindfulness facilitator. We want to encourage kids’ natural curiosity, but they may ask personal questions which we don’t know how best to answer. Personal comfort, and our role in relation to the kids, will dictate what is appropriate to share. If you are a parent, you will likely share a lot. Teachers will share less. And many therapists are trained to disclose nothing about themselves. What is the balance between your role in the child’s life, your personal comfort, and the safety and comfort of the kids? You need to know before you teach, or you may be surprised by how quickly your buttons are pressed and you reveal personal information without realizing it.
Questions to consider when we’re disclosing information about ourselves include: What is my intention in sharing this? Is what I’m about to say in these kids’ best interest? Is sharing this more about me or about them? Am I projecting something onto them? What are the potential consequences both long- and short-term of sharing this?
I have noticed that I share more in a group or school setting than I do as a one-on-one therapist, but as a therapist, I share enough so that kids know I’m human and that I’ve struggled with and benefited from these practices. Modeling comfort with our own imperfections offers kids a valuable lesson, but this does not mean being self-deprecating. Kids learn from our behavior, as well as our speech; we don’t want to model putting ourselves down.
In the end, it’s not about you and your experience—it’s about their experience. The most important thing is to have an idea about what boundaries are comfortable and appropriate for you.
A Note on Trauma and Vulnerable Kids
For some kids, mindfulness practice can bring up a lot of stuff—good stuff, but also scary stuff. This also happens when a close relationship forms between teacher and student.
The good news is that stuff coming up is a sign that you are probably doing something right. Still, it may be overwhelming for both of you, especially if you’re not working with your own children, or you aren’t trained in mental health or trauma. Know and recognize your limits and the limits of your training. If you’re a teacher, don’t try to be a therapist, and vice versa; if you’re a therapist, don’t practice outside the bounds of your training or comfort. Seek help, support, and supervision when things get challenging. Always know your personal and professional boundaries, and also know your ethical and legal obligations for mandated reporting if a kid shares about abuse or neglect. Don’t try to handle hard situations yourself, and never promise to keep a secret if you can’t.
If you are teaching kids who aren’t yours, especially vulnerable kids, the support of a community and close collaboration with other professionals is essential. Find out all you can about the kids’ triggers, and who you, or they, can consult if their problems are beyond your scope. Mindfulness can trigger strong reactions: that’s why it works and why it can be dangerous. As with medicine, the right dose is powerfully healing, but too much too fast can be hard on vulnerable kids. Know what you are doing, know your kids, and know your professional supports as much as you can.
It has been said that growth happens only outside of your comfort zone. I think it is more accurate to say that growth happens in the area between your comfort zone and your safety zone. So, we need to identify both the comfort zone and the safety zone for ourselves, and for the kids.
In the end, no book, workshop, or certificate program can offer the perfect advice for every moment of crisis in your life and in the lives of the children you’re working with. No curriculum or technique will save you. As Vinny Ferraro from the Mindful Schools program says, “The curriculum is way down the list of what you have to offer.” The best recourse in a challenging moment is you: your wisdom and your compassion—which will be more available to you if you yourself practice.