Mindfulness For Children And Young Adults: Is It Effective?

Mindfulness has had a huge following. This is a technique that has helped many people get rid of some of their stress and anxiety. It has helped them lead a much fuller and more fulfilling life.

What about mindfulness for children and young adults? Can it help them too?

stress

Children are also exposed to a lot of stress. They may be able to save themselves the trouble later if they learn these exercises at an early age. Today we want to take a closer look at some of the benefits of mindfulness for children and young adults.

Mindfulness for children

Children are like sponges. This allows them to learn these techniques from an early age, which has really great benefits.

However, for mindfulness to be effective for children and young adults, it needs to include some fun activities. This will give them what we really want for them to understand and integrate the techniques.

bee breathing

One of the first exercises may be to teach them to imitate the ‘bee breath’. This consists of sitting up straight and paying attention to the breath.

• From there, they have to tap their ears with their thumbs, while holding their hands behind their heads.
• Then they should close their eyes and take a deep breath. When they exhale, they imitate the sound of bees: ‘bzzzzzzzz’.

The worry tree

Another of the exercises is to tell the story of the famous worry tree. This is the place where they leave their worries so they don’t keep running through their heads. It ensures that the children are free from their worries.

If we teach them to do this from the time they are little, we can teach them not to walk around with a head full of worries. After all, these are thoughts that lead nowhere. This will benefit them in the future.

Other exercises

There are many mindfulness exercises you can do. You may already know what they consist of. They include games such as:

• The alert mental attitude
• The silent game
• Observe like detectives
• Pay attention, what do you hear?

They are all very effective if you do them regularly. This can be done both at home and at school as a new habit.

Mindfulness for young adults

Being a teenager is hard. However, if you integrate mindfulness into the maturing process, you can make it a little easier.

These techniques are ideal for teens. This means they can use variations of the exercises for kids we’ve seen. They are now at a stage where they understand it perfectly. That makes it easier for them to understand the benefits.

Also suitable for teenagers

The mindset of mindfulness can be passed on to teenagers. Just like other habits such as eating, sleeping or brushing hair. As a result, the long-term results will follow.

• This technique gives young adults more patience.
• They will learn how to better manage their emotions.
• Plus, they will learn how to perceive their thoughts without judging them. At the same time, they will leave their worries with the worry tree. It’s the best way to help them get rid of their worries, fears, stress about exams, stress about making sure the person they like will notice them…
• If they use mindfulness, they can get even better grades.

• As a result, they will grow personally and mature.

Support from parents

Parents have a great influence on their children. This is why starting this technique as early as possible is very valuable. After all, it’s a win-win situation for everyone! Plus, working on mindfulness together will also be a great opportunity to spend time with the kids. Everyone can learn something new together.

Don’t underestimate mindfulness

You can save yourself and your children a lot of unnecessary conflict, worry and stress. In addition, you will all mature and grow.

If applying these techniques becomes a habit, it will be very effective. To achieve this you need persistence and patience. Don’t expect immediate results.

Give it time

After a single session with your child, his or her grades will not improve. Also, he/she will not yet be able to control his/her outbursts of anger. This is only possible over time…