Mindfulness Games for Kids & Teens
We often get stuck on negative moments and enlarge their significance. This game teaches children and youth to pay attention to the events of each day and intentionally focus on the positives. It encourages paying close attention, living in the moment and appreciating all that life has to offer. Learning to pay attention to how different moments/events make us feel is an important skill leading to emotional intelligence, improved self understanding and greater compassion and empathy.
Five Good Moments
Suggest to your ‘Negative Nelly’ (my apologies to all the positive Nelly’s out there) that they pay attention today/this week to moments that make them feel good and try to find five different ones. The moment might be a thought that inspires, a view that is lovely and makes them pause, an interaction with someone, etc. What it is doesn’t matter. What matters is that for at least a moment it made them feel good. You do the same. When you get together at the end of the day/in class next week, share your five good things with one another.
We do this as a family each evening, each person saying one thing at a time in a circle, and call it “Thankful For.” Often at the end of a full day the responses are, “I’m thankful for bed, pillows, sleep, etc.” When the offerings get generic and often repeated (my family, my friends, my home) we remind the kids to think of something specific from today (a trip to the park, the colours of the clouds at sunset, the taste of fresh picked berries, etc). We also occasionally switch it up by saying “If I were so-and-so (the family member to their right or left) I would be thankful for…” This is always an interesting exercise and prompts some insightful observations. It also helps teach children to think about others and what happened of importance in someone else’s life that day.
Find this and many other fab ideas in the
Thanksgiving Kids & Teens Yoga Class
photo by Hamed Saber
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I especially love the ‘If I were so and so…’ idea! So helpful to showing different perspectives. After all our reality is only one perspective. Switch your perspective and you can change your reality (ie, how you feel and react, etc.). Love this. Thanks!
I agree that kids and adults really enjoy this and its great to do it everyday not just Thanksgiving.
I heard Obama on The View talking about doing something like “One rose and one thorn” with his kids at the end of each day. Seeing both can help us change what we don’t like – but that gratitude has got to be there!
Love this!!! I have some students in mind that this will be great for! Always looking for writing activities, too! This would be great for a daily yoga journal.
Thank you so much for sharing this and all of the other games! I had a great time teaching children’s yoga on Saturday. We played musical mats and freeze statues. We ended with five good moments before savasana. I wrote about it on my blog: http://www.veggievinyasa.com under the post, “Yoga Fun With Young Ones.” Keep the ideas coming!