5 Kid-friendly Mindfulness Activities To Do At Home
Spending a lot of time at home with children or teenagers can be complicated. Stuck between four walls, they may get bored easily and may not be able to calm down.
That’s why today we’re offering you 5 mindfulness activities that you can easily do with kids for those days when everyone is home!
1. Self-Massage
The practice of mindfulness is, first and foremost, an exercise in reconnecting with the body in the present moment. This reconnection can take place not only through an awareness of one’s breathing, but also through touch.
Self-massage is an excellent mindfulness activity to reconnect with yourself in a calm environment. For this activity, you can suggest that your child start by sitting quietly and rubbing their hands together until they feel warmth between their palms.
Next, invite them to take one of their feet between their hands and massage it, asking them to follow their feelings. Where does it feel good? Where does it tickle? Do they feel pain in their feet? After a few moments, ask them to do the same thing with their second foot.
After the foot massage, suggest that they move up their body following the same process: they can massage their calves, thighs, stomach, arms, shoulders, and even their face.
Setting an example for your child by doing the same thing at the same time is a great idea and can help them feel like you are actively participating in their activity.
Finally, don’t forget to remind your child to go slowly when massaging, breathing deeply throughout the activity.
2. Observation Game
Spending a lot of time at home can be difficult for children, who may tend to repeat, “I’m booooored…” over and over again.
For those times, here’s a mindfulness activity kids can enjoy that will keep them busy for a good while, simultaneously anchoring them in the present moment.
The observation game is very simple:
- With your child, determine the space in which the game will take place. It can be a single room like the living room, for example, or only certain rooms, or even the whole house.
- Choose a category of objects to find in the house. Here, feel free to be creative. Some examples: “find 10 green objects,” “find 6 objects that make you laugh,” “find 7 objects that smell good,” etc.
- Next, determine how much time the child will have to find these objects in the house.
- Finally, determine what the child must do with the objects they find: either put them together on a table, name them, draw them, or you can even mime them to make it a guessing game as well!
- Have fun!
3. Stress Ball
When children are bored, they can develop stress and anxiety. Here’s an activity that will keep them busy with the advantage of helping them create a relaxing object that’s great to have on hand: a stress ball!
For this activity you’ll need a few items:
- Balloons (1 balloon is enough to make 1 stress ball)
- Flour, rice, semolina, or cornstarch, as desired
- An empty water bottle
- A funnel (optional)
This is the easiest way to make a stress ball:
- If you have a funnel, place it in the neck of the plastic bottle (if not, using a small spoon will do).
- Pour the flour, rice, semolina, or cornstarch into the bottle, either through the funnel or gently with the teaspoon.
- Remove the funnel and stretch the mouth of the balloon around the neck of the bottle.
- Turn the bottle upside down so that the contents spill into the balloon.
- Make sure you don’t overfill the balloon: once it looks full, stop pouring the contents of the bottle.
- Tie a knot in the balloon and the stress ball is ready!
If your child is very young and you’re worried that they’ll tear the ball, it’s possible to double it by sliding the ball into another balloon to make it stronger.
After making the ball, you can suggest that your child try drawing on it, maybe making funny faces or doodling their favorite things. They could also make several more to give to family members or friends!
4. Create a Story
Having to stay at home can be especially difficult for teenagers. To help them cope better with those times when they may feel alone, why not use their imagination?
This mindfulness activity involves having them create a story based on what they observe around them.
To help them, you can suggest a theme. Here are some examples:
- Imagine your life in 10 years from the objects you like best in your room.
- Imagine what this object would do if it were alive.
- Imagine what our house would be like if you could redecorate it entirely, while keeping this, that and the other furniture, etc.
To imagine their story, the child or teenager can choose the medium they prefer: writing, painting, drawing, singing, recording, miming…
The idea here is that they can express themselves in the way that is most natural to them!
5. Relaxing Crafts
It’s widely known that being close to nature can be very soothing. But when you’re at home you don’t always have the opportunity to be in touch with nature.
Fortunately, all you need is a little bit of soil, some seeds to plant, and a pot to remedy that by doing some gardening at home! This mindfulness activity is as much for children as for adults who need to relax.
Planting has many benefits:
- Plunging your hands into the soil can be very soothing, allowing you to feel truly connected to the present moment.
- Having planted something yourself brings a sense of responsibility: you have to continue taking care of the plant regularly, which young children especially enjoy.
- Watching the plant grow brings a sense of satisfaction. Children will love saying, “I did it!”
Here’s a roundup of 5 easy mindfulness activities to do at home with kids. Do any of these inspire you? Do you have any other kid-friendly activities you’d like to share with us? Let us know your experience in the comments!
Translator : Stella Debiaggi