Yoga For Adoptive Families: Mindfulness for Children and Parents (Part Three)
- Barbara L. Ley
- Jun 27, 2015
- 4 min read
In part one and part two of this post, I discussed several foundational mindfulness practices for children--mindful breathing, mindful listening, and mindful seeing. As you begin to practice these and other mindfulness activities with your child, it is important to keep their therapeutic needs in mind.
Mindfulness, Sensory Needs, and Trauma
One set of issues relates to your child's sensory health. If your child is sensitive to loud sounds or certain types of sound, you may want to research which type of chime would work best for your child or start off by ringing the chime softly. When it comes to watching the color-changing tea lights, make sure to choose the ones that change colors slowly, as opposed to ones that flicker through the colors quickly. Another set of considerations relates to your child's possible trauma triggers and reactions. On the one hand, mindfulness practices--including mindful breathing, seeing, and listening--can be used to help manage distress and disassociative episodes by helping your child regulate his his nervous system, come back to his body, and reconnect to his immediate surroundings. On the other hand, some children may find that certain mindulness activities exacerbate distress. For example, mindful breathing, which encourages one to turn their attention inward, may bring difficult emotions and physical sensations to the surface in ways that overwhelm your child. If this happens, you can gently redirect your child's focus outward toward their immediate environment through mindful seeing or listening. Of course if you have any concerns about the possibility of mindfulness practices causing distress for your child, consult with his health professional beforehand. Also see my earlier post about trauma-sensitive yoga for other ideas about pracitcing mindfulness with your child.
Making Mindfulness a Family Activity
When deciding which mindfulness activities to do with your child, remember that you do not need to do all of them all of the time. You can start off by experimenting with different activities to see which ones your child likes and to which he best responds. You can work with one activity, you can combine them (e.g., mindful listening followed by a minute of mindful breathing), or you can do different ones at different times during the day (e.g., mindful breathing before meals and mindful seeing at bedtime). Whatever activities you chose, though, try to work with them on a consistent basis. Even if you only practice for a few minutes each day, a regular practice helps to plant and water the seeds of mindfulness.
Also remember that the goal is not for your child to do these activities perfectly but to give him the opportunity to practice on a regular basis. If he could do them perfectly, he would not need to practice mindfulness! Also, we all go in and out of states of distraction and reaction on the one hand, and mindful awareness on the other, throughout out day. Practicing mindfulness allows your child to better understand, at a visceral level, the difference between the two states, recognize when he's in distraction and reaction mode, and cultivate his ability to come back to a place of mindful awareness and healthy response and self-regulation. And ultimately, that's what mindfulness is for everyone. As mindfulness expert John Kabat Zinn noted, we can't get ride of the waves, but we can learn how to surf them--mindfully, of course.
Just as importantly, your participation in your child's mindfulness activities matters. By practicing alongside him, you serve as a model model for how to focus one's attention, identify how the activity makes one feel, and reflect on one's one's experience with non-judgment and kindness. Additionally, your participation puts you in a better position to help your child move through these three dimensions of the mindfulness activity, as you will have an embodied sense of what potential difficulties might arise. In particular, you will be better able respond to his experiences with nonjudgment and kindness, which will further reinforce to him how to cultivate these qualities in and toward himself.
Finally, you can use these mindfulness activities as opportunities to connect with your child. Participating in the activities with him provides you with moments throughout the day to enhance your own wellbeing and ability to parent from a place of compassion and calm. Taking the time to share your experiences with one another, model nonjudgment and kindness, and respond to your child's experiences with nonjudgment and compassion can also help to foster trust, safety, and a shared experience between you both. You can connect through the physical nature of the activities themselves, too. If your child is comfortable doing so, consider doing mindful breathing in back-to-back breathing position (described in the "Teamwork Poses and Activities" section of this post); facing one another while lying on the ground observing your lights; and/or taking turns ringing the chime and listening to the sounds together together. Be creative, as you know your child best, and you can work together to find ways to integrate your family's mindfulness practice and connection efforts.
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