Mindfulness for Children: Simple Activities for Parents and Children to Create Greater Focus, Resilience, and Joy

Simple and fun mindfulness activities to do with children up to age 11 to build beneficial life-long skills that promote resilience, joy, focus, and calm, and improve overall wellbeing.

Helping children to be more mindful is a powerful gift. By being mindful they will learn to recognize and manage their emotions, be more able to calm down when they are upset, become better at focusing on important tasks, and more able to interact with others with empathy and generosity. These are fundamental skills that children will need throughout their life, but that they often aren't taught explicitly. Think of how often we demand that children “pay attention” or “calm down”, without ever having shown them how to do so. Now parents can with mindfulness expert Sarah Rudell Beach. Parents first learn how to be more mindful themselves before teaching their children basic mindfulness skills. With easy-to-follow activities, chapter by chapter children learn to Soothe, Focus, Feel, Pause, Appreciate, and Connect. Each activity includes variations for different age groups, along with "emergency" how-tos for particularly stressful moments.

Sarah Rudell Beach has had a personal mindfulness practice for many years, holds a master’s degree in education, and is a Mindful Schools Certified Instructor. She is the executive director of Brilliant Mindfulness and teaches mindfulness courses to children, teens, and adults. She is the author of Mindful Moments for Busy Moms, published by CICO Books, and writes about mindfulness and healthy living for the Huffington Post. She lives in Minneapolis with her husband and two children.