Meditation For Kids - PDF
Meditation For Kids - PDF
Meditation For Kids - PDF
Childhood and teenage years are foundational in our development as human beings. It is
when our personalities are formed, our view of the world developed, and our ways of
relating to others and to ourselves established. The skills and tools we learn in our early
years have a huge impact on the rest of our lives—and that is why meditation is such a great
gift to give to a child.
I started meditating when I was just 14—and this practice gave me many things in my life. I
am grateful that I came to meditation at such an early age, and I know that many other kids
and teenagers would also greatly benefit from it. So on this page I explore why kids should
do meditation, how to teach them, and the different types of meditation for kids. If you are
a parent, or you work with kids or teenagers, this article is for you!
That is not only one man’s opinion. In fact, the American Academy of Pediatrics
(AAP) encourages parents to share meditation with their children—and teachers to
incorporate mindfulness training into their lesson plans. Let’s see why this might be so.
In our modern society these problems are aggravated by social media (which amplifies the
effects of bullying and social pressure), excessive stimulation from media and technology
(leading to more restlessness and to a shorter attention span) and a climate of increasing
violence (school shootings being its extreme manifestation).
• Better behavior. A school in Baltimore replaced detention with meditation class for
kids, and had no suspensions throughout the entire year, after the meditation room
was installed. A school that had the highest rates of gunfire, fighting, and
suspensions in San Francisco integrated “quiet time” into the curriculum, and saw
suspension rates drop by 45%, attendance rise, and grades improve significantly
(source).
• Less ADHD. A Midwest elementary school conducted an 8-week mindfulness
program with 3rd-grade students, after which teachers reported less
inattentiveness, less hyperactivity, and fewer symptoms of ADHD (source). A similar
result was found by a study done at the National Therapies Research Unit at the
Royal Hospital for Women in Sydney (Australia), where children who were taught to
meditate improved attention spans markedly, and either reduced or stopped their
medication completely.
• Better school performance. San Francisco schools offering meditation programs
reported satisfactory English scores on the standardized California Achievement Test
at a rate twice that of non-meditation schools. A California middle school providing
daily meditation programs to their youngsters saw an increase in grade point
averages for most participants in the program. Another study done in the San
Francisco Unified School District with more than 3,000 students found a dramatic
improvement in overall academic performance, including a spike in math test scores
for students who practiced mindfulness meditation and “quiet time”.
[Learn more about the scientific studies on the benefits of meditation for kids here.]
Meditation was also found to help kids improve their relationship with their parents,
improve impulse control, build self-esteem, improve empathy and social skills, decrease test
anxiety, and reduce post-traumatic symptoms. We can expect that many other 76 benefits
of meditation would also apply to them as well.
With meditation, kids learn how to better manage their bodies, their energy, and their
emotions. There is an increase in emotional intelligence, positive outlook of life, and in the
ability to regulate oneself. Kids develop better organization skills and learn to be more
present and less judgmental, responding rather than reacting to their life events. They feel
better, learn better, and sleep better.
The skills that will come about as a result of meditation will unfold in many aspects of that
child’s life, and will be carried over into the teenage years and on into adulthood. It
becomes an integral part of their development and their resources for navigating the world.
It helps set them up for a happier and healthier life.
Teaching kids is different from teaching adults. Kids have less patience, shorter attention
span, and less capacity to sit still. On the other hand, they have a greater imagination, a
sense of playfulness, and they learn by example.
As a result, in order to teach meditation effectively to kids, keep the following six principles
in mind.
The principle of “make it fun” means that you need to choose techniques that are by nature
more engaging for kids—such as working with their senses and imagination. It also means
that you need to adapt the meditation instructions so that they are more interesting.
For example, instead of asking the kid to “watch your breath”, you can ask her to place a
small toy on her belly, and watch the toy move up and down as she breathes deeply. Ask
her to try to make the toy move as slowly as possible. There you go, you just taught her
deep breathing without her even noticing!
Of course, the approach depends a lot on the age—is your “student” a kid (6-9), tween (10-
13), or teen (14-17)? The way you would teach a 5-year-old is different than the way you’d
One way to do this is framing the meditation as a challenge. You’ll have to get in touch with
your own creativity and imagination for this, and it depends a lot on the kid. For example:
• Physical stillness is a powerful door to meditation. When teaching that, you can
frame it as a challenge: “Let’s play a game called Buddha-Statue. We sit in this
special posture, pretend to be a statue, and slowly count from 100 back to 1. If you
move before that, you lose.”
• If your kid likes action movies, you could create a metaphor like this: “Your breath is
like a sneaky secret agent, that likes to disappear from time to time. Your mission is
to protect him, so you need to follow him very carefully and silently. But be careful,
in a blink of an eye he is gone!”
Another way is by creating an interesting “meditation space” at home or at school. Kids love
to be transported into another world, with different experiences and weird objects. You can
add an extra layer of meaning by saying things like: “This is a sacred space, a magical space.
Whenever you enter here and practice meditation, all your problems disappear, and you
start feeling very calm and happy.”
3. Keep it short
Kids don’t have the patience to sit still for 20 minutes. So keep the practice short, especially
for kids under the age of 10. They should never get bored with the practice, but leave it with
the feeling of “wanting more”.
A general guideline is to make the sessions as long as the child’s age, plus one. So if your kid
is 8, make the session at most 9 minutes long. You can use a meditation timer app with a
bell, to make it more interesting (I recommend Insight Timer).
4. Lead by example
This also means that you need to meditate with them. Do you want them to be regular and
disciplined in their practice? You’ll need to be disciplined yourself, and make meditation a
family practice.
(If you are having difficulties with creating your own meditation habit, have a look at
my Master Your Mind meditation course for beginners.)
Then, whatever they share, validate it. Accept everything the child says, even if he is clearly
exaggerating, as we are allowing space for his imagination to develop.
If you are leading a group of kids, reaffirm everyone’s experiences, and make sure no child is
confused, lost or unhappy about it.
But it will give him or her valuable tools to know themselves better,
manage themselves better, and create a space of calm and
strength inside themselves.
I reviewed dozens of meditation techniques that I have practiced and taught, and selected
the most suitable ones to be taught to kids and teenagers. Here you will find some of them,
with brief instructions (not the full scripts, otherwise this article would be more like a
book!). All these practices are adapted from traditional meditation techniques, and the
essence of each meditation is presented. Adaptations will need to be made according to the
age and personality of the kids.
For all these practices, apply the basic guideline of “whenever you notice that your mind has
wondered, gently bring it back to the practice”.
Benefits: Encourage the kid to use the sense of hearing as a door to being present, open and
calm here and now. This helps develop non-judgement awareness, and bring about mental
stillness.
Play an instrumental music piece, and ask the children to listen carefully and imagine what
is the story that the music is telling. In the end, ask them to share their stories.
1. Close your eyes, and pay attention to the sounds you hear.
2. Now listen carefully to the sound of the bowl. [Hit a singing bowl]
3. Follow the sound back into silence. See how long you can follow it before it
disappears. Try to find that last moment when the sneaky sound escapes into
silence.
4. Now hear the silence.
5. [Instructor repeats the process a few more times.]
Benefits: Great for calming down the child, and sharpening their sense of hearing.
You may want to skip steps 6 and 7 with younger kids, and just keep it to the vocal
repetition.
Benefits: This is an excellent practice for developing focus, self-confidence, and the ability to
visualize. For full details and variations, see this article.
1. Find a toy, picture, or object that you like, and place it in front of you.
[A mandala can also be used, as kids find them interesting and attractive.]
2. For one minute observe all the details of that object/toy.
3. Close your eyes, and visualize the object in front of you.
4. After some time, open your eyes and take a second peak at the object.
5. Close your eyes again, and now try to visualize it in your mind with even more detail.
Benefits: Both practices further develop children’s ability to visualize. It also makes them
more imaginative and increases their power of focus.
Version 1: Counting
Instead of counting the breaths, visualize that you are breathing in a golden color, and
breathing out a grey color. Breathing in, the gold color fills your entire body with good
things—happiness, calm, energy. Breathing out, the grey color takes away all bad things.
Benefits: Great for calming down, relaxing, and developing body awareness. Also a good
practice for falling asleep.
As a variation, after step 4, you can ask the child to imagine that he or she is visiting another
planet. This makes the practice more imaginative and creative, which some kids might
enjoy. If you adopt that variation, at the end ask the child to share how the journey was,
and what the planet was like.
Benefits: Helps to deeply relax and cool down. Problems and emotions feel very small after
this exercise. It’s good for kids who are emotionally stuck, overly shy, or sad.
For this method, you will need a metronome app (such as this one), or a real metronome.
1. Set the metronome to a fast speed, such as 150 or 200 beats per minute. Ask the
kids to walk (nearly run) with steps in sync with the beats—every beat is one step.
2. After a minute, start slowing down the beats, and ask the children to pay attention
and keep pace with it.
3. Slow it down all the way to 30 beats per minute. At this point, the kids will be
walking calmly and peacefully.
4. After a while, instruct them to sync their breath with the steps, so that each breath
in takes two beats (4 seconds), and each breath out also takes two beats.
Benefits: This method is very dynamic and engaging. It will take the kids from agitated
to zen.
Benefits: This method easily creates a sense of calmness and ease in kids, regardless of their
capacity to focus and pay attention.
This particular technique is better practiced after other techniques, once the kid is already
calm and attentive.
Instead of the clouds in the sky metaphor, you can use any other suitable image. Examples:
bubbles in a creek, cars on the street, scenes of a movie, etc.
Benefits: This practice develops greater self-awareness, and the ability to regulate one’s
thoughts and feelings. The child learns to observe thoughts and emotions, rather than just
take them at face value and react automatically.
Benefits: This is a great meditation for developing positive emotions, and letting go of
negative emotions such as anger, hatred, indifference, selfishness, ill-will, and sadness. It
also helps develop empathy, compassion, kindness, and a sense of social connection
(especially the second variation).
Parting Thoughts
There is a movement of teaching kids meditation, mindfulness, and yoga. It is growing, and
the children who master these tools will, as adults, have an unfair advantage over those
who didn’t learn those tools early on.
My intention with this article was to share the benefits of meditation for kids and to explain
some of the many methods of meditation that can be adapted for children and teenagers.
Each kid will have different techniques they will benefit from the most, so it’s important to
allow them to be exposed to different practices.
Meditation can help you transform yourself. It is a powerful path for overcoming anxiety,
stress, and mental noise. It empowers you to be calm, centered, and focused.
Figuring out and practicing these three pillars on your own can be very hard. It requires
dedication, time, effort, self-discipline and patience.
But it doesn’t need to be that hard. You don’t need to do this all on your own.
Over the past several years I’ve helped thousands of people start, deepen and integrate a
meditation practice. And I have created an online program that helps you build those three
pillars gradually, with the support of a community. Check it out: Limitless Life.