Kristen Hobby - Nurturing a Gentle Heart: Meditations for Children

Nurturing a Gentle Heart

Meditations for Children

By

Kristen Hobby

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Children Learn What They Live

If a child lives with criticism

They learn to condemn.

If a child lives with hostility

They learn to fight

If a child lives with ridicule

They learn to be shy.

If a child lives with shame

They learn to be guilty.

If a child lives with tolerance

They learn to be patient.

If a child lives with encouragement

They learn confidence.
If a child lives with praise

They learn to appreciate.

If a child lives with fairness

They learn justice.

If a child lives with security

They learn to have faith.

If a child lives with approval

They learn to like themselves.

If a child lives with acceptance and friendship

They learn to give love in the world.

Dorothy Law Nolte

Introduction

We all want our children to grow up to be happy and healthy. We wish them to find fulfilment and be resilient in the tough times. Are children ever too young to begin to learn to trust their inner wisdom? At what age do they even develop an inner wisdom? Can very young children have a sense of their spirit? What can we do as parents, teachers and carers of children during their early years to help this happen?

As a parent of a four-year-old I often wonder about these questions. Am I expecting too much from my daughter or am I encouraging her to grow and develop in a holistic way? How do I as a mother tend to her health and wellbeing at all stages of her childhood? I hope this book will answer these questions for you and provide you with some resources to help you and your children.

In todays busy world, I would like to offer an alternative to the two-minute grab for attention that is our lives. We are inundated with information every minute of every day by TV, newspapers, billboards and the Internet. Sometimes it can be refreshing to just be for a while, to turn off the outside and listen to our own messages. I wish to offer the alternative path, a place of quiet away from the everyday, a place where we can feel safe, happy and at peace.

How to Use this Book

The book is arranged in chapters following the theme of the heart. You will find the following chapters:

• The Gentle Heart
• The Peaceful heart
• The Present and Aware Heart
• The Creative Heart
• The Natural Heart
• The Reflective Heart

Each chapter invites you to look at your child in a new way. I have included activities and simple meditations or relaxation exercises in each chapter for you to try. Feel free to dip into whichever chapter is useful at the time; you dont need to read the chapters sequentially. You may find a particular mediation or activity that your child or prefers; if that is the case, use it as often as you need. If you sense that your child is anxious or upset, a few minutes of just quietly focusing on breathing may help, or an imaginary journey along a beautiful beach can calm him or her.

My aim in writing this book is to provide parents, carers and teachers with resources to gently invite young children to experience relaxation and quiet, to learn to be happy within themselves and to come to know that there is deep wisdom within each of us. If children are introduced to concepts such as loving themselves and others, being aware of their own feelings, and being comfortable with silence at an early age, this will lead to greater resilience and inner strength. By getting to know themselves and trusting their feelings, children will begin to find their own gifts that they can share with the world.

The underlying principles of this book are to nurture awareness of ourselves and our feelings, to learn to be honest and loving toward ourselves and to grow in awareness that we are special, unique and loved. I have kept the meditations simple and used topics such as love, wisdom and kindness. I would like to invite your children to know wisdom and love for themselves and others.

Chapter 1 Nurturing a Gentle Heart

What Is Spirituality and How Does It Apply to Preschoolers?

The focus of this book is around childrens spirituality . It might be helpful to define what we mean by spirituality.

Spirituality is about our sense of connection with the sacred.

David Tacey (1998)

Spirituality simply means our connection to the spirit, that part within us that connects us to each other and the source of all life. I want this book to be an inclusive one and not to exclude anyone of the basis of faith or religion. Some may easily use the title God as the source of life, but I encourage you use to use whatever word, term or feeling makes you and your children feel most comfortable. You might like love , life or divine higher being . It really doesnt matter because the focus of this book is to help children begin to recognise their own inner wisdom and their own sense of uniqueness and giftedness.

When my daughter began kindergarten at three years old, I was invited by her teacher to offer meditation to the children. I began by running some guided imagery meditations with a journey along a beach. I started with deep breathing then engaged the five senses, encouraging the children to imagine sitting down, their bare feet caressing the sand while the waves came in and out. I concluded with returning to breathing before I asked them what they had seen.

I was amazed by their responses. They saw purple starfish, sharks in the water, crabs walking along the beach and birds flying above them. I asked what colour the crabs were and they went on to describe them vividlycolours, shapes and sizes. When I asked the children how it felt being on the beach, many were able to respond. Some said, good, relaxed or warm.

After a few weeks of doing this, even the most active child began to relax and become quiet. Parents thanked me, saying how much their children had enjoyed the meditation. One mother told me how her daughter had set her dolls up in a circle and told them to close their eyes, as they were going to do some meditation. Another child told his mum that he now knew what to do if he got upset: I just breathe deeply. I took my daughter for a walk to the local park; when we walked past a bench, she said to me, Lets sit here and do some meditation, Mummy. Now come on, close your eyes, breathing in, breathing out.

Later I tried a simple relaxation meditation with the children in which I imagined a warm golden light starting at the top of their heads and travelling slowly down their bodies. The children responded beautifully, so I even introduced a one-minute silence during which I left them bathed in the light. When I asked them to tell me what it was like, a number of them said they felt warm or even hot. One girl said that she saw a starfish, but she may have associated my voice with a trip to the beach!

I was so encouraged by this exercise that I wanted to write a book, hoping to introduce other parents and carers to meditation and relaxation that they could use with their children. I have taken adult relaxation techniques and modified them for young children. In many cases I have written my own meditations, which is not hard to do, using the guidelines of beginning and ending with breathing and then undertaking a simple journey to a forest, a garden or any special place. You will find notes at the end to help you write your own meditations. Perhaps you have a holiday house or another special spot you visit often where your child feels safe and relaxed. If your child loves animals, invent a scene in which the animals visit the child in a way that is safe. Above all, always create environments where your child feels safe and secure and that no harm can come to him or her.