What if Teaching Our Kids to Be Present is Our Only Job?
Written By Shannon Harrison
What if Teaching Our Kids to Be Present is Our Only Job?
Wouldn’t that make life so much simpler?
Ever since I posed this question, I have been very curious about ways parents use to teach their kids how to become present. This is what led me to listen to Episode 6 of Amy’s Soul Path Parenting about mindfulness and meditation.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SOUL PATH PARENTING PODCAST
She speaks with Angela Wolf, founder of Meditot, a children’s academy for mindfulness and meditation who has some great suggestions for how to meditate with kids. There are even links to specific exercises (super useful and creative like meditating on the feel, smell and sound of a cookie…brilliant!)
When it comes to the whole being present idea I have often thought:
What if being present is our only job as parents?
What if being present is your kid’s only job?
When I say that, the response I often get from adults is, “Well, if all I’m doing is being present then I would just sit around on the couch all day and do nothing!”
Not true.
What I find is that when we are truly present two things happen – one is that we regain our energy back and two is that the next action becomes clear.
When we are present to our kids, often the answer of what to do next comes naturally. It’s like what Amy talks about in her podcast about developing intuition, it seems logical that to get in touch with our intuition, it has to begin with being present.
CLICK HERE TO LISTEN TO THE SOUL PATH PARENTING PODCAST
When a child is having an emotional meltdown, what if our first job is to be present to the meltdown, to ask questions about it – what they are feeling in their body? What is the name of the emotion they are experiencing? Essentially, having our child get present.
And in this presence, the intuition can be heard and the next action often becomes crystal clear.
Many adults also believe that being present is being calm or still.
Not true.
What I believe being present means is being present to everything that is happening right now and not trying to change it – whether it’s peace or stress, frustration or joy.
For a kid, it could look like being present to how angry they are because their sister ate their cupcake, or how disappointed they are because their friend can’t come over to play.
It is not removing feelings, it is being aware that they are there.
As I listened to the podcast on mindfulness and meditation, I remembered the only technique I employed with consistency to help my child be present.
This is what it would look like if he was angry, for example. I would kneel down in front of him and ask:
How mad are you? (for scrapes, how bad does it hurt, etc.)
On a scale of one to ten, two being “not so mad” and ten being “really really super mad!” how would you rate your anger?
If your anger had a color what would it be?
Do you feel it in your chest? In your head?
It worked like a charm. Suddenly, my wound up little ball of anger of a kid would unravel, become present, and many times simply let go of whatever was bothering him. It was magical.
The benefit wasn’t only that now we could continue whatever we were doing, getting in the car, playing a game, cooking…the true benefit in my world was that I was teaching him to be present. Now, obviously this only works if I am present enough to actually remember and take the time to do this. I certainly wasn’t perfect at being present all the time (still the case) and I do relate to those times where I did manage to have the presence to do this as the most important contributions I have made to my kid.
For a Buddhist approach on being present and kids see Episode 14 of Soul Path Parenting…
Author: Shannon Harrison
Shannon is a therapist, former school teacher, and mom. She is the co-author of the book "Sweet Spot: Leveraging Your Talents in Leadership and Life" Currently, Shannon writes about the areas that align with areas that she is passionate about...letting go of the energetic ties that keep us down, personal evolution, and true self-expression.
