Sunday, June 14, 2015

Teaching children to meditate

I taught my son the 4 stage mindfulness of breathing. He is 11 years old. He wakes up early like me, and I was going to sit and meditate so I asked him if he wanted to join me. He did. So I explained the 4 stages and reminded him at each bell.

I have taught my sons and some cousins to sit once for 5 minutes. And I have sat for 5 minutes here and there with my boys. But this felt more serious and real to sit for a full 20 minutes with my son.

I read in One Breath at a Time: Buddhism and the Twelve Steps that one of the ways to teach children to meditate is to tell them to pretend to meditate. You can kind of sheep dog them over time towards what you want.

Next step is to teach him Metta, and get my younger son involved.

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