Latest / The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids / Bonus Mini Episode: Tips for Engaging Your Mindful Children in Meditation

Transcript

Bonus Mini Episode: Tips for Engaging Your Mindful Children in Meditation · The Spiritual Parent: Mindful Tools for Raising Spiritual and Conscious Kids

• 0:00
  Carrie: I'm going to watch that thought go into a little balloon and start to float away.
• 0:05
  Carrie: There goes my thought and if another thought comes, there's another little balloon and then it starts to float away.
• 0:13
  Carrie: So we're going to try that when we're doing our meditation.
• 0:16
  Carrie: That's something I would say to my kids.
• 0:18
  Carrie: I would say that to my five-year-old and my nine-year-old.
• 0:20
  Carrie: He would eat it up because he likes to do these things, and my nine-year-old, he would eat it up because he likes to do these things.
• 0:26
  Carrie: You can even talk to them about.
• 0:27
  Carrie: When we sit in this mindful moment, we're going to think about our breath.
• 0:31
  Carrie: When we inhale, our lungs are climbing up a hill.
• 0:37
  Carrie: So let's picture us slowly going up a hill as we're inhaling.
• 0:42
  Carrie: Look at little Carrie, she's going up that hill.
• 0:45
  Carrie: Look at little mom, she's going up a hill as we're inhaling.
• 0:46
  Carrie: Look at little Carrie, she's going up that hill.
• 0:46
  Carrie: Look at, look at little mom, she's going up that hill.
• 0:48
  Carrie: And then when we exhale or we breathe out, we push that air out, all of our air.
• 0:54
  Carrie: We're slowly coming down the hill, which is the part you guys like when we go hiking coming down that hill.
• 1:01
  Carrie: Welcome to Heart to Heart Parents.
• 1:02
  Carrie: Let's connect with our kids and learn together.
• 1:05
  Carrie: I'm Keri.
• 1:06
  Carrie: I was a former teacher and speech therapist.
• 1:08
  Carrie: I'm also a parent of two spirited, gifted, highly sensitive kids.
• 1:13
  Carrie: I was quickly brought to my knees as a parent when I thought that I would see a rosy lens version of parenting, just as they present on Instagram, but I quickly learned that's not real life.
• 1:24
  Carrie: I will provide real life experiences and transform them into moments for connections and change for you to use in your house.
• 1:34
  Carrie: Hi there conscious parents.
• 1:35
  Carrie: It's Carrie here and I have a little something I wanted to share with you guys.
• 1:38
  Carrie: I have a free guided meditation for parents.
• 1:41
  Carrie: It's a way to rediscover your passion before you had kids.
• 1:47
  Carrie: It's a guided meditation to help us calm our nerves and rediscover some pieces that may have been put on a shelf for a little while.
• 1:54
  Carrie: So if you'd like more info about this, you can check out the show notes.
• 1:58
  Carrie: Hi there moms and dads.
• 1:59
  Carrie: I'm back with another mini experience for you guys.
• 2:03
  Carrie: Today I wanted to talk about meditation.
• 2:04
  Carrie: Sure, it sounds ridiculous to maybe have a five-year-old sit and think without having any thoughts, or sit quietly without any thoughts, because, yes, they are little monkeys when they're five.
• 2:16
  Carrie: But I'd love for you to try guiding some examples of how to do it with your kids.
• 2:22
  Carrie: It doesn't hurt to start early, and we're not going to do it for 45 minutes.
• 2:26
  Carrie: We're not going to expect the five-year-old to sit there for 45 minutes and stare into space or to calmly release their thoughts.
• 2:32
  Carrie: It's going to look different for a kid, right?
• 2:34
  Carrie: There's a lot of really cool guided meditations out there now.
• 2:38
  Carrie: I think Headspace has some for kids.
• 2:40
  Carrie: I'll try to think of including some here for you guys as well, and I'm actually working on creating some with my son.
• 2:46
  Carrie: He loves doing some.
• 2:47
  Carrie: I think there's even an Orca one that he has creating.
• 2:50
  Carrie: We're just trying to figure out how we share that with you guys.
• 2:54
  Carrie: So I challenge you guys to think about introducing meditation to your kids.
• 2:59
  Carrie: I'm talking maybe ages four, five and up.
• 3:03
  Carrie: I have even done it with my four-year-old.
• 3:05
  Carrie: That sounds a little crazy and she's an energetic, little, spicy girl and she's done it.
• 3:09
  Carrie: So you can start it for just a couple of minutes.
• 3:12
  Carrie: You can even do a couple minute meditations for yourself in between your workday, in a break room, in your car, in your bathroom.
• 3:21
  Carrie: Sometimes I hide out and meditate in my bathroom, quick little carry secret there, but daily meditation with your kid, just try it for a week.
• 3:29
  Carrie: You don't have to do it for a year.
• 3:31
  Carrie: I'm not asking for a year commitment.
• 3:33
  Carrie: I'm not asking for an hour meditation with your five-year-old.
• 3:37
  Carrie: What I want you to do is start to teach them the fundamentals.
• 3:39
  Carrie: Right, we're starting to.
• 3:41
  Carrie: We want to keep our kids conscious.
• 3:44
  Carrie: We want to teach them these conscious human tools that we're going to use up into the times that are hard, like teenage years.
• 3:52
  Carrie: If we instill it now, let's think about how it's going to help them be a change maker when they're 16 and they have a rough time and they don't want to hear it from mom or dad.
• 4:01
  Carrie: But maybe if it's in there, maybe if it's planted, they'll pull it out when it's when it times are hard.
• 4:06
  Carrie: Right, if we practice it now, it's just like getting ready for a fire drill.
• 4:10
  Carrie: If we practice it now, then it's going to be easier to pick up later on.
• 4:14
  Carrie: If we teach them Spanish now and they forget it for a while, they'll have a better chance of picking it up as an adult.
• 4:20
  Carrie: Me, that's me.
• 4:21
  Carrie: I learned Spanish when I was little and I pick it up now and I have a good, excelente accente.
• 4:26
  Carrie: So one thing we're going to start with is either sitting in a chair or sitting on the ground.
• 4:30
  Carrie: You can even use one of those yoga pillows if you want to have a little spot where they're not going to be moving their bodies right, or if you want to have a designated spot, that's more likely that they're going to keep their body there for a little while.
• 4:42
  Carrie: So I encourage them, I talk to them a little bit.
• 4:46
  Carrie: You don't have to go into eight-hour-length chat about mindfulness and meditation, but we can have an encouraging talk, quick talk, about a nice we're going to have a nice relaxing moment.
• 4:58
  Carrie: We can talk about how we're going to give our brain a nap, because during the school day and this is what I would tell my kids during the school day my brain gets really tired because I have to sit in my chair, I have to sit at my desk or on the carpet or listen to a story or do a worksheet or do a math problem.
• 5:17
  Carrie: So my brain gets tired.
• 5:18
  Carrie: So I like to give my brain a little rain nap.
• 5:21
  Carrie: I love that term.
• 5:22
  Carrie: My monkey mind sometimes gets really busy, so also that's a good time to give my brain a brain nap.
• 5:28
  Carrie: My brain's tired, it's had a busy day.
• 5:30
  Carrie: So while we're sitting here together.
• 5:33
  Carrie: During this time I'm going to let my thoughts just go through.
• 5:38
  Carrie: One way I can do that if a thought pops in, like I wanted to have crackers for snack, I'm going to watch that thought go into a little balloon and start to float away.
• 5:51
  Carrie: There goes my thought and if another thought comes, there's another little balloon and then it starts to float away.
• 5:58
  Carrie: So we're going to try that when we're doing our meditation.
• 6:01
  Carrie: That's something I would say to my kids.
• 6:03
  Carrie: I would say that to my five-year-old and my nine-year-old.
• 6:05
  Carrie: He would eat it up because he likes to do these things.
• 6:08
  Carrie: You can even talk to them about.
• 6:12
  Carrie: When we sit in this mindful moment, we're going to think about our breath.
• 6:16
  Carrie: When we inhale, our lungs are climbing up a hill.
• 6:22
  Carrie: So let's picture us slowly going up a hill as we're inhaling.
• 6:27
  Carrie: Look at little Carrie, she's going up that hill.
• 6:30
  Carrie: Look at, look at little mom, she's going up that hill.
• 6:31
  Carrie: Look at, look at a little mom, she's going up that hill.
• 6:33
  Carrie: And then when we exhale or we breathe out, we push that air out, all of our air.
• 6:40
  Carrie: We're slowly coming down the hill, which is the part you guys like when we go hiking coming down that hill right, and we're going to talk about that.
• 6:48
  Carrie: So then, when you go to do your meditation, you can choose any of the guided ones or you can create your own If you know your kid likes something specific.
• 6:58
  Carrie: My son's really into orcas.
• 7:00
  Carrie: I will tell you 35 facts about orcas later.
• 7:03
  Carrie: That's for another show.
• 7:04
  Carrie: My daughter is really into Barbies, dogs, pets.
• 7:10
  Carrie: She loves animals, so I could do an animal guided meditation for her.
• 7:14
  Carrie: I could talk about the puppy running along, the puppy's going to.
• 7:18
  Carrie: You know, the whole piece of this is having them focus on something that's not in their minds and training them how they can break their thought pattern to focus on something else, how we can eventually change our negative thought patterns to thought positive thought pattern.
• 7:30
  Carrie: How we can eventually change our negative thought patterns to positive thought pattern.
• 7:34
  Carrie: Right, it's like lifting weights and we're training them early.
• 7:36
  Carrie: So for my son I could do something with orcas.
• 7:39
  Carrie: I could talk about.
• 7:41
  Carrie: Waves is awesome, because you can talk about the wave coming in with our breath, the wave going out with our breath.
• 7:46
  Carrie: So that's a great one.
• 7:47
  Carrie: I love whenever we can bring in the ocean.
• 7:49
  Carrie: My daughter loves sea turtles, so I could do it with sea turtles too.
• 7:52
  Carrie: So I challenge you guys this week See if you can do it.
• 7:56
  Carrie: Seven-day challenge Can you guys handle that?
• 7:59
  Carrie: I think you can, because I know you guys are conscious already.
• 8:02
  Carrie: You're listening to this, which means you're a changemaker.
• 8:04
  Carrie: Right, raising changemakers that's our challenge to you.
• 8:08
  Carrie: Try it out and be on the watch, because my little guy, he's been wanting to make these little mini meditations to connect with other kids.
• 8:17
  Carrie: He wants other kids to feel peaceful like he does and calming his monkey mind.
• 8:22
  Carrie: Well, that's a wrap.
• 8:23
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in.
• 8:25
  Carrie: Changemakers.
• 8:25
  Carrie: This is Keri, and if you haven't done a review for us, five stars and a little few words about what you've enjoyed in our podcast episodes, we would really appreciate it.
• 8:36
  Carrie: If you guys would like to ever message me, I would love any questions you have or any feedback at info at heart to heart lifecom.
• 8:45
  Carrie: We also have a brand new website which we're super excited to share.
• 8:48
  Carrie: It's heart to heart lifecom.
• 8:51
  Carrie: Thanks so much for tuning in and happy life, happy times.
• 8:55
  Carrie: Changemaker families.