The summer holidays are here. After months of studying, exams and school routines, the time has come for your children to unwind and relax. The summer break is a time to rejuvenate and de-stress, and practicing mindfulness can play a crucial role in this process.
Whilst summer holidays can be a wonderful time for bonding, it can also present challenges as parents balance their needs with their children’s. Exercising mindfulness can be beneficial for both parents and children, fostering a peaceful and positive environment at home. If you practice meditation yourself, for instance, you could be a positive influence on your children, and they could easily be drawn to join in.
An effective way to introduce mindfulness into your child’s holiday routine is to turn everyday activities into an opportunity to practice mindfulness. Everything from having a shower, eating, going for a walk to swimming in the sea can be a chance to use the senses and be present with the activity and moment.
Here are some mindfulness practices you can easily add to your child’s day to day holiday life:
1. Using the Stix Remotes
The Stix Remotes are an excellent tool to teach and integrate mindfulness into children’s daily habits whilst on holiday. The Stix Mindfulness programme gives children a complete introduction to wellbeing techniques, allowing them to continue to practice these techniques whilst engaging in everyday activities. We are covering all the Stix Mindfulness activities in a blog series, the first instalment of which can be found here.
Short and simple: Stix activities can easily be integrated into your child’s summer holiday as each activity is only 5 minutes long and the instructions are easy to follow.
Healthy screen time alternative: They are an effective equivalent to passive screentime and a healthy way to keep your children occupied during the summer holidays.
Reminders and rewards: You can use the Stix app to set mindfulness time reminders and children are rewarded for consistently completing activities through streaks and character customization.
Importantly, children love using the Stix and for that reason they will be easy to integrate at home during the holidays. At a school where Stix are regularly used by its pupils, we were happy to hear that during their end of year reflection many children commented that they would miss the Stix remotes over the summer holiday. One of the teachers commented that it ‘shows the impact that they have and how much they are needed by everyone’.
2. Mindful Walking
This is an example of how you can turn an everyday action into a mindfulness activity this summer holiday. Mindful walking is especially useful for children who find it difficult to be still. Easily integrated into their routine, it can help them access the benefits of mindfulness through movement and their bodies.
Tips for mindful walking:
Body sensations: You can introduce mindful walking by paying attention to the sensations of the body. How do the feet feel? How do the muscles of the body move for changes in balance? Note how your arms swing as you walk. Pay attention to each step and their contact to the ground and ask yourself do you feel grounded?
Environmental awareness: Ask children to become aware of their surroundings, opening up their senses and enjoying the sights, sounds and smells. Stay present and immerse themselves in the experience. Studies have shown this practice reduces depression, anxiety, stress, and overthinking. For 5 minutes during your walk with your child, discus what they can see, hear, smell, and feel - you can call this their ‘super-senses’ to make it fun.
Mindful walking can be performed anywhere, a mountain top, country lane or even a bustling street. Rather than a walk to the local playground, the store or their best friend's house being an annoyance, it can become an opportunity for children to appreciate the here and now.
3. Creative mindfulness
Engaging in creative activities like drawing, painting, or crafting can be a great way for children to practice mindfulness during their holidays. Through these activities, they can explore their feelings and emotions, expressing them and remaining in the present moment. It helps children focus their mind on creation and helps them look at the world around them in an engaged way.
Tips for creative mindfulness:
Focus on the process: Encourage your child to focus on the creative process, not the end product. Ask them to notice the colours, shapes, and movements they use as they create.
Colouring mindfulness: Colouring allows children to find calm and focus. When stresses or thoughts of the future or past come into their mind, they can refocus their attention on mindful colouring.
Drawing what is seen: Ask children to look around their environment, whether that be in nature or at home and ask them what interests them. Once they find something they can then draw it, focussing on its colours and what emotions it generates in them.
4. Mindful eating
Another day-to-day activity, practicing mindfulness whilst eating this summer holidays can be very beneficial for your children. Summer is filled with delicious seasonal fruits, ice cream and other treats, it is important to pay attention to the experience of eating and savour each bite.
Tips on mindful eating:
Observe your food and its taste: Ask your child to look at the food closely, noticing its colours, textures, and smells. Then to consider where the food has come from- has it come from the earth? A plant? Recommend they take small bites and chew slowly, thinking about taste and texture.
Stay present: Get your children to focus on eating, avoiding distractions like TV or smartphones that can decrease appreciation for food and foster unhealthy eating habits.
5. Mindfulness in nature
Connecting with nature is a good option to practice mindfulness with your children this summer. Nature meditation involves immersing yourself in the natural world and tuning unto sights, sounds and sensations. This could be a picnic in a park, a game of football, a trip to a safari park or going swimming in a lake. As children explore and observe nature, they become more aware of, and empathetic to, the plants and animals that share the natural world.
Tips for Nature meditation:
Play 'nature bingo': You can create a hunt for certain elements of nature with a checklist - for example bird, leaf, flowers, ant, rock. This will encourage children to remain present and focus on what they can see and how it makes them feel.
Use nature as metaphors of life: You can explain different elements of life to children whilst in nature. The body can be likened to a tree - strong steady and alive. The breath, like waves on the beach, coming in and out. Thoughts and feelings as clouds - rising and then passing away. Finally, awareness and warmth, like the sun.
Use touch: Recommend your child takes opportunities to engage with their sense of touch, creating a tangibility to what they are seeing. Touch the grass, the bark of a tree or the cool touch of sea water/a stream and ask your child to pay attention to the different textures.
Beginning the summer holidays with these everyday mindful activities can set a positive and relaxed tone for the rest of the break. Mindfulness can help you and your children enjoy their time off.
We hope your children enjoy their summer holidays, taking the opportunity to relax, recharge and of course keep practicing mindfulness techniques learnt from the Stix activities.
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