Collection: Meditation - #14 Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche 'How to Teach Your Kids to Meditate'
[Transcript]
AUDIENCE MEMBER 00:00
We all have awareness from childhood, but it's very difficult to teach awareness or mindfulness to a child. How can we at least start teaching them from young age?
YONGEY MINGYUR RINPOCHE 00:10
Yeah. So, for the child, you have to know how to approach them.
Not like – how to say – giving order, it doesn't work. And then if you give too much order then they build up resistant. Next time when they hear meditation [aww]. Then not good.
So you have to make it something like reward, fun, playful and don't meditate too long for child, only few minutes. Maybe ask them like, for example, ring the bell. (Bell ringing) So when the bell sound going higher and higher, ask kid raise your hand. And then lower the volume of sound and then let hand down, down, down. Up, up, up.
And awareness of the body, maybe put something – object – let kid lie-down, and put something on the belly and feel it – that object maybe dinosaur or something. So [let them feel it]. Feel. Something like that.
(Source: https://youtu.be/ukTaodQfYRQ)
[YAPSS Takeaway]
Don't force it, make the meditation rewarding, fun, playful and don't meditate too long for child.
