If you’re reading this blog post, I’m guessing you’re at least a little bit interested in mindfulness for kids. Maybe you want to teach mindfulness to your kids. Or perhaps you want to expand your practice and add a few more tools to your arsenal. But I’m also guessing that your kids are similar to mine, and sitting down to quietly meditate for 30 minutes (or even 10 minutes!) every day is not their idea of a good time. But do they like craft? Are you nodding right now? Awesome! What about mindfulness crafts?
The great thing about mindfulness is that it doesn’t have to involve quiet meditation at all. When teaching mindfulness to kids, we want to make it as fun as possible! Mindfulness for kids can be active, noisy, and messy. It works best when we incorporate their senses and make it a whole-body experience for them, so craft is a great way to practice mindfulness with your kids.
For those of you not familiar with mindfulness, it is simply the practice of being aware of our internal and external environments to be fully present in a moment. This blog post will help you understand the basics of mindfulness is still new. Otherwise, read on for five super fun, easy mindfulness crafts for your kids.
Focusing on the breath is a simple and quick way to introduce little ones to mindfulness. Deep breathing resets our nervous system and acts as a trigger to switch off the stress response. When we breathe slowly and deeply, we send a message to our brain that we are calm and safe. And so our brain feels quiet and safe. Pretty cool, huh?!
When introducing breathing techniques to children, have them start by just noticing and exploring their breathing. Encourage curiosity. Get them to put a hand on their belly and feel how it goes up and down as they breathe. Get them to do some star jumps and notice how their breathing changes; talk to them about how our breathing also changes in response to our emotions – we breathe faster when we’re scared or anxious and slower and more profound when relaxed.
Little people do well with breathing techniques when they have something to focus on and direct their breath towards. Using things like pinwheels, bubbles, or even dandelions is a helpful (and fun!) way to help kids practice mindful breathing. But if you enjoy getting crafty, you can also make your unique breathing tool!
I saw these “breathing wands” while browsing on Pinterest a little while ago, which led me to discover Kristina Marcelli Sargent’s fantastic blog! Like me, Kristina is also a mental health therapist working with kids and families, and her blog is full of creative activities for developing social and emotional skills in kids. You can see her original post about breathing wands here.
Cut a small strip off the top of one toilet paper roll. Stick it to the top of the other in the shape of an arch, then attach your ribbons to the hook and decorate your wand. When they breathe out, have the kids focus on moving the stripes on their wand.
My son keeps his in his calm down box and uses it when he needs to manage big emotions. It works well!! Check out this video to see Finn’s wand in action.
Mandalas have been used for meditation in Eastern Cultures for centuries. Circular in shape and usually containing geometric patterns, they are ceremonial symbols of the universe in both Hinduism and Buddhism.
Their often complex and intricate patterns also make them an excellent mindfulness tool. You can, of course, create mandalas with just about anything, but we chose to use items from nature for ours. The natural elements made it a peaceful, grounding experience.
Have the children engage their senses as they work. Notice the weight of the stone in their hand. The smell of the leaf or flower. The texture of the shell. The colour of the feather. It’s a lovely way to mindfully connect with the earth and the environment around you.
Just gather your supplies together and get creative! Mandalas are typically symmetrical, with a repetitive pattern or sequence. But of course, this isn’t vital to this particular exercise! Encourage the children to suspend their judgment about whether their mandala looks good or “right” and focus on creating and being aware as they work.
I first saw this fabulous idea from Ciaran at Mindful Kids London and loved it! I loved it so much I introduced the strategy to my kids, who each painted one of the “traffic lights”.
Each stone and colour represents a different action and step towards your child managing their emotions.
Red = STOP and notice what is happening in your body. Is your heart pounding? Do you feel tense? Are there butterflies in your tummy?
Orange = ACCEPT and acknowledge how you’re feeling and what you are thinking about. For example, my heart is pounding, and I’m feeling nervous. I’m having the thought that others will laugh at me.
Green = ACTION. What’s the plan now? Which tools can you use to help you calm down or manage how you feel? Can you go to your calm-down space? Do some mindful breathing. Talk to someone about how you’re feeling.
When children first start using this method, they’ll need your assistance. But eventually, they’ll be able to do it on their own, possibly even with a simple “traffic lights” prompt from you. Check out Ciaran’s original post here to see what she says about the strategy!
Paint each stone to match the colours of traffic lights, and then leave them somewhere accessible for your child to spot so they can act as a visual cue when your child needs them!
A Mind Jar is a super fun way to try mindfulness with children. Ask your child to imagine that the jar and glitter are the thoughts inside their head. The glitter swirls around when they shake the jar, just like their thoughts when sad or angry. This makes it hard to see inside the pot -their emotions take over, and they cannot think clearly.
But when they place the jar and watch it quietly, the glitter settles to the bottom, and the water becomes clear again. The same thing happens to their thoughts when they calm their body and notice how they feel. The feeling passes, and they can think again.
Fill the jar most of the way with water. Add a few spoonfuls of glitter glue and extra glitter if you use some. Place some hot glue on the inside of the lid and pop it back onto the bottle to prevent any leakage. And voila! One mind jar. These work very well in calm-down spaces.
Colouring is not inherently mindful, but we can do it mindfully if we choose to! As with any mindfulness activity, mindful colouring focuses only on the here and now and what you do while completing it. So, when colouring, we note how the pencil moves on the paper. Perhaps the smell of the pencil or the paper. The feel of the pencil in our hand, the way our hand makes contact with the form as we move it along.
Just colour!
To help children complete this activity, encourage them to talk about what they’re doing. We are not making any judgements about the quality of the colouring. We are just focusing on the activity itself. Encourage them to say what they are doing, e.g. “I am colouring the grass green. I am picking up my blue pencil and colouring in the sky. I am using yellow to colour in the sun.” This keeps them focused only on the task.
They will inevitably start to judge their colouring, like, “Oh no, I’ve gone outside the lines”, or “This colouring is not my best work. It’s messy”. If this happens, we encourage them to continue describing their actions. If their mind wanders and they start to think of other things, again, we gently remind them to focus on the activity of colouring and say aloud what they are doing. As they get used to this process, they can do this in their heads rather than out loud.
So that’s it – our five favourite mindfulness crafts for kids! I hope you enjoy getting creative and completing these activities with your kids. If you try any of these mindfulness crafts, I’d love for you to share a pic of your creations on my Instagram or Facebook page! And if you’d like even more mindfulness activities and games to play with your children, check out my Mindfulness Activity Book for Kids here.
Mindfulness for Children (7)
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