Meditation & Well-Being for Children
Independent
Article 28th May 2009
Licence
to Chill - click here to view
Blue
Room on Teachers TV
http://www.teachers.tv/video/21977
The
Book that helped us design the Blue room
http://www.teachers.org.uk/greatbooks/hogston.html
Blue Room Designer
-
Amanda Russell at Soulfood
Studio (email: design@soulfoodstudio.com )
www.soulfoodstudio.com
Latchmere
applauded at the Happiness Conference - October 2008
Latchmere was represented at the annual happiness conference in London
where our Well-being philosophy and Blue Room was widely praise by delegates.
Our approach to pupil well-being and personal development was also highly
praised by Ofsted during our last inspection.
Further details at:
http://teachersupport.info/news/press-releases/2008-Happiness-Conference.php
 
Meditation, Relaxation
and the Blue Room
At Latchmere we have developed a Blue Room.
This is a calm space for the
children (and staff) to learn relaxation, meditation, visualisations
and reflection.
All classes are timetabled to use the room with the meditation club
running every Wednesday lunchtime.
Why meditation?
Some pupils are stressed in today’s world; the demands of the education
system and society have increased these problems over the last few years.
Children lack the skills to relax and de-stress. You need to be calm
and at ease with yourself to be creative and reach your potential. Meditation
& relaxation helps pupils with their learning and thinking skills.
It develops the imagination. Other benefits of meditation include: finding
‘inner peace’, reflection time, greater energy, more productive, more
restful sleeps, reduces tension & stress, reduces headaches, reduces
blood pressure, you are less anxious, it helps relationships, the voice
of self criticism is quieter, it’s easier to make decisions, we get
a feeling for who we are. It’s too good to be true, you must try it.
It also develops:
• Focus
• Self-esteem
• Memory and concentration
• Helps pupils learn about their 'inner self'.
• Develops philosophical enquiry & visualisations
• Develops imagination
• De-stress and relax
• Increased tranquillity
• Control over the thought process
• Enhanced spiritual development.
What meditation is NOT.
• Daydreaming, trance, sleeping
• Playing with ideas
• Brainwashing or religious
• Stopping thinking & doing nothing
Helpful Hints for Meditation:
Don’t force the children to take part. Let the parents know what you
are doing, this will avoid any misunderstandings.
Keep the sessions short to begin with (3-4 mins)
Meditate every day, in the same place and the same time (start of the
day, after playtimes & end of the day are good times).
Keep the sessions simple. Pupils should remove their shoes during the
sessions.
If children lie down they may fall asleep – especially during relaxation
activities, keep these sessions short.
Set up a relaxation/meditation room in a quiet area of school.
Start all sessions with a breathing activity.
Use calm music to help meditation and visualisations.
End sessions by sitting in a circle and breathing correctly for 3 times.
Sit still for 20 seconds in silence. Spend time discussing meditation
and ‘what the children experienced’ during the sessions.
Breathing:
Breathing correctly helps prepare the mind and body for relaxation and
meditation. The body needs to be upright not slumped, head needs to
be upright with both feet flat on the floor with hands clasped on lap.
• Breath in through your nose for 3 seconds (hold for 3 seconds) breath
out through your mouth slowly out for 5 seconds. Repeat 10 times. Inflate
stomach as you breathe in.
The following breathing activities should be used at the start of meditation
and relaxation activities.
• Balloon Breathing: Close eyes, put one hand on stomach. Imagine your
stomach is a soft coloured balloon. Breathe in gently inflating the
balloon; breathe out slowly to deflate the balloon.
• Breathe as above. Start to breathe normally, focus only on the out
breath.
• Breathe normally-Slowly count to ten in your head, visualise each
number in your head, using different colours for each number. Repeat
10 times. If you lose count, start back at one.
• Become aware of your breathing. Focus upon the feeling of coolness
at your nose when you breathe in, and the feeling of warmth as you breathe
out. Pretend you’re a sentry who is on guard, watching carefully everything
that goes in and out of the city.
Relaxation:
Relaxing is a key element of meditation, the following activities help
pupils to de-stress and calm down.
• Focus on all your body parts starting on your toes moving up to your
head. Every time you breathe out you will feel more relaxed.
• As above, but tense each area first then relax each body part slowly
moving upwards.
After completing the breathing and relaxation activities the pupils
will be ready to meditate. Keep the activities short and approach the
sessions calmly moving through the sessions with a gentle tone and pace.
Do not force the children to take part. The children quickly adapt to
the sessions. Take time to read up on meditation.
Meditation Activities:
• Kim’s Game (memory): Each child or group has a pencil and paper. You
will need a timer, a tray, and a range of everyday objects (at least
20), as different from each other as possible (E.G. pencil, ruler, spoon,
apple…)
Place the objects on a tray, children to look at the tray for a given
amount of time. Remove the tray, pupils to list as many object as possible.
Repeat, but remove one object, pupils guess the missing object.
• Love (emotions): Experience the feeling of being just who you are,
let yourself feel love and acceptance for yourself. You are who you
are, and you are happy to be who you are. Become aware of sharing this
love spirit with the people you care for most in the world, focus on
sharing this love wider. Share this love on yourself when you feel angry.
Share this love to people you don’t know across the world
Visualisations:
• Ask the children to visualise different smells and create that smell
in their mind.
e.g. an orange, sweet smell, chocolate, grass, a flower,
Try the above but with different sounds/tastes/senses.
• Pool: Sit and imagine a circular pool of water in your mind. Imagine
the pool being utterly still, without a ripple to disturb the surface.
Find yourself thinking of nothing but the smooth surface of the water.
• Orange: Ask the children to visualise an orange in their mind. Focus
on the orange. Spend a few minutes slowly peeling the orange paying
careful attention to details (smell, touch, taste).
• Special Place: Think of your special place. Is it a real place? Are
you on your own? Visualise the colours of the place. Visualise the objects
in the space. Visualise the smells and other details of your special
place. You feel calm and relaxed in this place. Imagine a pet is with
you. Visualise what you are doing in your special place.
• Encouraging Creativity: Imagine there is a white screen just above
and behind your eyes. See the outline of a house on the screen. Now
see the front door, now the windows. Now focus on the chimneys. Now
the house is being coloured. Next you see the details of the garden,
perhaps the trees, flowers and a pond. Then the birds arrive, and the
squirrels come to the lawn. Now the sun begins to shine, then fills
the garden with lights and shadows, and the front door opens and the
children come out to play.
Resources:
David Fontana – Teaching Meditation to Children
Isbn 1-86204 0184
Guy Claxton
Building Learning Power
David Fontana – Nightlights
Isbn 0-8118-3955-9
Mary K Stone – Don’t just do something…sit there.
Isbn 1-85175-105-X
Maureen Grath – Moonbeam. Book of meditations for children
Isbn 1-86371142-2
Maureen Grath – Earthlight
Isbn 0717127788
CDs
Music – Philip Chapman – Keeper of Dreams + Return of the Angels
Relax Kids range:
Sparkling Meditations
Princesses
Superheroes
Wizards/Nature
www.relaxkids.com
Meditation & Relaxation
written
by Kevin Hogston - Deputy Head
AST Latchmere School, Kingston. Surrey.
email: khogst1@rbksch.org
Teachers
TV film on Latchmere
(you
need to log onto the site to view)
http://www.teachers.tv/video/21977
http://www.teachers.org.uk/greatbooks/hogston.html
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