Mindfulness for parents and children finding balance

Emotions influence significantly in our memory, attention and learning, and this is something that has been demonstrated on numerous occasions. When we feel emotionally blocked, for whatever reason, we find it tremendously difficult to learn. On the other hand, when something is passionate about, we capture everything without effort.

Living with haste

Today we live in a very demanding world that goes at a dizzying pace. Especially in the big cities, it seems that we lack hours to perform all the tasks that we have marked, and the same goes for the little ones, who live immersed in a world of strict schedules and a multitude of school and extracurricular tasks, in such a way that They have no time to focus on them pampering, being in a world of continuous stimuli that prevent them from connecting with their emotions.

We live in a culture that stimulates the disconnection of the body, blocking a healthy mind-body integration. We are teaching them to grow in a world in which, To mitigate difficult emotions, the anxiety  And the traumas, we encourage them to get away from their feelings using distractors constants such as television, video games, youtube, etc. In the West we work by presupposing that there is a split between the mind and the body since the seventeenth century, when René Descartes established a duality between mind-body that does not reflect the reality that both are one.

A recent study found that young people prefer to receive ten minutes of low voltage electric discharges, rather than being alone with their thoughts without electronic devices. Taking drugs, self -harm and showing bad behavior, are other ways to abandon your immediate experience.

Mindfulness for the little ones

Luckily not only adults can benefit from cultivating a centered awareness at the present time. Research is beginning to shed light on the power of mindfulness as an intervention to improve the understanding and tolerance of the emotions that children face daily. We are also beginning to recognize that The practice of full care can be beneficial for children for the same reasons that help adults, because they contribute to reduce stress, improve sleep quality and increase attention.

In increasingly young ages, children face higher levels of stress, and this entails a significant toll for their health. Stressing events in childhood can increase the risk of developing health problems such as adults, But the impact can affect much earlier. A recent study of the University of Florida showed that stressful events can affect the health and well -being of a child almost immediately, and can contribute to the development of physical and mental health problems and learning problems.

We must bear in mind that mindfulness with children does not have to mean twenty minutes sitting silently in a meditation cushion. It can be about playing with a teddy doll on the floor in a calm way until we sound a bell and perform several conscious breaths before and after the game. The secret lies in teaching them to establish contact with their emotional experience, rather than to move away from it, thus developing the Emotional Intelligence.

Some of the benefits of full care for children

There are many benefits for children and adolescents who can benefit from full care training, such as:

• Have greater awareness and self -confidence
• Greater capacity to self-regulate their emotions, especially difficult emotions such as fear and anger, through breathing and other self-consciousness techniques.
• Build a strong resilience giving children skills to help them deal with stress, as well as participate more fully with themselves and with the world.

Full care training has also been demonstrated can help reduce the severity of depression, anxiety and ADHD in children.

Research shows that parents and caregivers who practice mindfulness with children contribute to substantially improve their sense of self -esteem. That is why the best that parents can do to help their children to be more aware of some simple techniques such as those that can be found in the book "Mindfulness for parents and children". Here are more than 75 practical, simple and fun exercises for the little ones in the house that anyone can put into practice easily and funnyly.