Mindfulness Meditation for Children

Mindfulness Meditation for Children

The development of teaching mindfulness in our nation’s schools has sprung up across the country.

It is a profoundly "beneficial development for the education of children. Research shows that mindfulness decreases stress, depression, anxiety, hostility, and attention issues, while benefiting their health, well-being, social relations, and academic performance. Children can easily learn these techniques, and when learned young, they become life long tools.” (Information obtained from the Omega Institute.)

Mr. Kahan has created a special program dedicated to his sister Harriet Ann Kahan, a second grade school teacher in Brooklyn N.Y. Ms. Kahan first introduced mindfulness meditation to her second grade classes in the early 1970s. Mr. Kahan has an ongoing mindfulness meditation program with 3rd and 4th grade home schoolers in NYC. He invites all children to join him in mindfulness meditation training. Mindfulness is being in the present moment! It’s being connected to the now, going inside the self to be with the moment.
 
“As I breath in I know I am breathing in ….As I breathe out I know I am breathing out.”
 
Mindfulness consists of paying attention to an experience from moment to moment, without drifting into thoughts of the past or concerns about the future, or getting caught up in “thoughts” or “opinions” about what is going on. It is a way of learning how to quiet down our overactive analyzing, judging selves (brains). It is a way of developing the skill and art of “no thought.”

Mindfulness will bring your body and mind into balance while you are breathing, sitting, standing, walking, lying down, playing, and even working. Mindfulness fosters inner calm, increased awareness, and a sense of well-being.

Mindfulness is the essence of Buddhism. Thus every form of Buddhism utilizes mindfulness as the foundation of its practice.