Calm Kids: Help Children Relax with Mindful Activities

by Lorraine E. Murray

'At school, we believe education should touch the whole child. This includes the physical, emotional, spiritual, social and cognitive aspects of the child's life. We teach children quietness as a skill to reflect and recharge their inner lives. Lorraine Murray helped us on this journey.'
-- Sheila Laing, Head Teacher Stress and behavioral disorders are common in children, who are increasingly bombarded by marketing campaigns, faced with school and peer pressure, and able to sense the stress of adults around them. Mindfulness and meditation can help children recognize and cope with these pressures, releasing bad feelings gently and giving them simple tools to deal with tension and stress throughout their lives. In this practical and inspiring book, Lorraine Murray shows parents, teachers and youth workers how to lead fun and peaceful meditation sessions with children. Lorraine explains a variety of different approaches, from meditations around daily activities for busy families, to ideas for group 'quietness' sessions in schools. She provides fun, tactile rhymes for toddlers to help them calm down before bedtime, and suggests ways to help teenagers reduce anxiety. She goes on to explain how these methods can help children with ADHD and those on the autistic spectrum, giving a range of case studies. This book is suitable for complete beginners, or those with some experience of relaxation and meditation techniques. It offers all the advice needed to lead sessions with children, whilst encouraging the reader to adapt and develop their own ways of helping children to feel calmer, happier and more peaceful.

Genres: Parenting, Meditation, Nonfiction, Reference, Self Help

160 pages, Paperback

First published March 1, 2012

Reviews

[Kay · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an amazing resource for anyone wanting to learn more about meditation and how to teach it and practice it with children. It's written so that even a complete novice can understand the purpose of meditation and the basic steps to doing it. The book is chock-full of actual meditations that you can use with kiddos, or that you can use as examples for writing your own meditations from. The chapters are short enough to not bog one down, and are titled well so that you can skip forward if you're not needing to lead meditations with toddlers, for example. This is one of those rare books that I've checked out from the library and then purchased for my own book shelf. Congratulations to the author for writing and great resource for teachers and parents!

[Liane · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic for both parents and teachers. Lots of really good practical tips written in a lovely style.

[IE · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a helpful book, but it took a long time to read through, especially the first half. I think this book should have been better condensed for busy parents, and a lot of the unnecessary repetition could be removed. There were plenty of helpful ideas though, so I do recommend the book. I wish the scripts were formatted to be all on one page (then it would be easier to take a photo to reference on the go).

[Jesse · Rating 5 out of 5]

This books gives a lot of different meditation techniques for both children and adults. I can’t wait to start working on these with my kids!

[Kim · Rating 4 out of 5]

I got this book from the library to see if would be useful for my niece, who is 7 years old. My niece is having trouble dealing with a divorce, and as a result, she is failing first grade. I thought it might be helpful for her to learn calming exercises or meditation. I have read that schools that have introduced mindful meditation to their students have had good results with it.

While the book offers concrete examples and meditation scripts to use with children, it does require an adult to lead the child through the process. My sister is very busy, and I am not sure if she would be willing to do this with my niece. I was hoping it might be something I could show my niece how to do, and then she could do it herself. Maybe if she were older, that would work.

Besides meditation, the book also offers suggestions about the use of meditation tools, such as healing crystals, and aromatherapy for children. Aromatherapy seems to work for people, but I think healing crystals are bunk. However, I don't have any actual experience with either. So some parts of the book may require an open mind. If it works, who cares if it seems silly?

The end of the book provides a list of further resources, such as where to get guided meditation CDs by the author and other books and websites that might be helpful.

This website is particularly helpful: http://ilovefgt.com/

[Judith Schrauder · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wanted to give it 3.5 stars...
Especially good for those with younger children and those who want to create their own guided meditations. If neither fits you, then def 3 stars.
She uses the word "whilst" quite a bit, which gets distracting for a U.S. reader lol. For me, there was a bit of a "flake factor" but I know not all would agree - that's just me.
Still, a nice book with good ideas.

[Kathryn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thoroughly enjoyed this book. So practical and was helpful on many specific levels relating to my child who has ADHD and is on the Autism spectrum. Feel inspired to write some guided meditations on Christian themes to relate the methods more to our family.

[Nicky · Rating 3 out of 5]

This books includes scripts for relaxation sessions which is really helpful. I have a few bookmarked to try out.