Mindful Parenting

 

How to Mindfully Parent

You don’t need to change your entire lifestyle to start practicing mindfulness strategies today.

• Open your eyes, literally and figuratively. Pay attention to your surroundings and how you feel on the inside and out. Take in things with all your senses — touch, hearing, sight, smell, and taste.
• Be in the moment. Resist living in the past or planning too intently for the future. Find the good in what’s happening right now, right in front of you.
• Practice acceptance. Try your best to accept your child’s emotions and actions, even when they frustrate you. (And extend this acceptance to yourself.)
• Breathe. Having a crisis moment? Focus on your breath. Take a deep breath in, filling your lungs with air and keeping your mind on your breath. Exhale and feel your breath as it enters and exits your body. Encourage your child to breathe during tough times, too.
• Meditate. Focusing on the breath is a big part of meditation. You only need to carve out a few minutes each day to truly connect with yourself and Hashem. 

I'm mentioning mindfulness techniques for parenting, because for my patients and myself, it's the most challenging areas in our lives (for those of us who've been blessed with children). But it's just as good when you feel depressed or anxious. 

Even for children, some mindfulness techniques can help them:

- improved attention span,

- helps manage stress,

- increases a sense of well-being,

- improves communication skills,

- reduces stress. 

Here are some exercises for them to try at home - don't be afraid they won't want to do it. They'll at least try it once because they'll be happy to do something with daddy or mommy!

Sophrology Exercices for Children 

Meditation techniques to master confidence and concentration

Channel your energy

Too much energy leads to difficulties with attention and concentration. To channel one's energy is to gather one's forces, to center one's energy, to remedy this impulsiveness.

Exercise 1: Deep Breathing

Goal: To calm the child from intense emotions

Position: Sitting, standing or lying down. 

Time: 3 minutes

Procedure:

• Place your hands on your stomach, eyes closed or open.
• Inhale through your nose, expanding your stomach like a balloon. Your hands placed on the belly help you to feel it inflate.
• Hold your breath for 1 or 2 seconds.
• Then, blow slowly and gently through your mouth. Blow as long as possible to empty as much air as possible from the lungs. Deflate the belly while exhaling.

Repeat a second time: inhale by inflating the belly, then exhale (blow) for a long time, and deflate your belly.

One last time, inhale through your nose, then exhale very slowly.

Exercise 2: Jerky Breathing

Goal: Reduce, Lessen, inner tensions.

Position: Sitting, standing or lying down. 

Time: 1-2 minutes

Procedure:

With your eyes closed or open, inhale through your nose, expanding your stomach.

• Hold your breath for 1 or 2 seconds then exhale (exhale)

short and repeated, like a locomotive.

• Repeat a second time: inhale by inflating the belly, then exhale (blow out) as many times as possible without taking inspiration again.

• One last time, inhale through your nose, then exhale jerkily.

Exercise 3: The Tree

Goal: Relax body and mind

Position: Sitting, standing or lying down. 

Time: 3 minutes

Procedure:

• Take a deep breath and then gradually stand up. Feet flat on the ground. Blow.

• In a standing position, stretch both arms above the head. Hold out your arms

towards the sky, like a tree.

• Inhale then exhale as long as possible, letting the body become trunk waver gently and the arms become branches dance in the wind.

• Then, start again: Squat then rise gradually, stretching your arms towards the sky, like a tree. Blow.

• Take a deep breath and then exhale imagining that you are a tree, arms dancing in the wind.

Exercise 4: Palming

Goal: To calm down quickly

Position: Sitting

Time: 1-2 minutes

Procedure:

In a seated position, elbows on the table, rub your hands together.

• Then gently place the palms of his hands on the eyelids and close your eyes for a few moments.

• Inhale slowly, expanding your belly and exhale (exhale) gently.

• Then, still keeping the palms of the hands on the closed eyelids, inhale a second time then exhale gently.

• Then very slowly, with your eyes still closed, remove your hands from your eyelids and after taking a deep breath, blow out while opening your eyes gently.

Feel More Confident

Self-confidence is knowing your true value, your strengths and weaknesses, your strengths, your skills.

Exercise 1: Breathing Confidence

Goal: To calm the child from intense emotions

Position: Sitting, standing or lying down. 

Time: 3 minutes

Procedure:

Eyes closed or open, inhale through your nose, expanding your stomach.

• Then, blow out slowly and gently through your mouth, deflating your stomach.

• Repeat a second time: inhale by inflating the belly, then exhale (exhale) slowly as if your breath passed through a straw.

• One last time, inhale through your nose, then exhale very gently, through an imaginary straw.

Exercise 2: The daisy of Qualities

Goal: Become aware of your qualities and develop them on a daily basis.

Position: Sitting 

Time: 5 minutes

Procedure:

Take each a sheet and a pen and for 5 minutes list your qualities, your skills. Make a list of what you like about yourself.

• Then, each write down at least 3 qualities that you find in your neighbor at the table and give them.

• When you receive your qualities, read them and feel them within you. Highlight those

with which you feel in agreement.

• Once your panel of qualities is done, take a white sheet, make a circle with your first name written in the center and draw a petal for each quality. Write the qualities in the petals.

• Cheer ! You have made a marvelous quality daisy! Now you can watch it every day to be inspired by these qualities and develop them every day.

Exercise 3: The Storm

Goal: To calm the child from intense emotions

Position: Standing 

Time: 3-5 minutes

Procedure:

Two by two, take a sheet or any large piece of fabric (pareo, tablecloth, towel...).

• Grasp each two corners firmly.

• One of the two becomes a hurricane and shakes the blanket in all directions. The other must learn to brave this storm, to endure bad weather without

let go of its two fabric corners. 

• Then reverse the roles.

With children who have low self-confidence, this exercise can be difficult at first. But gradually, they will learn to squeeze harder, to become stronger.

 Children are Intuitive

from Angelica Lemke, Healing Complex Children with Homeopathy

Children are naturally more connected to their emotions, body and source energy. This makes them naturally intuitive and we can emulate them as intuitive teachers by being in the present moment with them and honoring their inner guidance. When a child is feeling upset or hurt, ask them to close their eyes, feel into their heart, and give them the space to express themselves. 

You can put an array of remedies, supplements, foods, flower essences, etc., in front of the child and using intention to connect to the child's higher self, ask the child to select an item that will nurture them. The adult/parent makes the ultimate choice, but if what they select feels right to you, support them by allowing them to take it.  

That said, children are often operating from their own limited understanding and will sometimes make choices, such as to eat too much sugar, that we need to be discerning with. Finding the right balance and trusting our child's inner light as much as possible allows them to become incredibly self-sufficient and confident, and to stay connected to their authentic source. 

Healing Meditation

- Relax, close your eyes, and take a few deep breaths.

- Feel into your body, what sensations arise as you connect into your body?

- Describe those sensations in detail- what additional adjectives describe the feeling you have?

- When you feel into specific areas of the body, with your eyes closed, do any images arise?

- Imagine holding the part of your body that you are feeling and that needs healing, as if it were a baby. 

- Imagine walking into nature holding this part of yourself. Picture the surroundings: the sky, the earth, the sun, the breeze, the smell of the earth. 

- Imagine holding this part of yourself in nature and asking nature: "Show me something in this place that will heal this aspect of me". It could be a rock, a gemstone, a tree, a flower, a source of water, a color, an object, an animal, anything! If something shows up, explore it, feel it, understand it, speak to it. 

- Close the meditation by thanking nature for what it has provided to you.