Teaching Meditation to Children: The Practical Guide to the Use and Benefits of Meditation Techniques

Book excerpt: Meditation is one of the best tools we can offer children to help them cope with the intensity of their feelings and ease the pressures in their lives - among family, with friends and at school. It gives even very young children power over their thinking and emotions through enhanced self-understanding and is perhaps even more valuable in helping adolescents to navigate the emotional peaks and valleys of the transition from childhood to adulthood. This book explains the varying techniques for working with children in different age groups (from five to eighteen) and shows how the benefits of meditation can help in a range of ways: from relieving shyness, anxiety and tension to reducing hyperactivity, aggression and impatience. Meditation has also proved helpful when treating asthma, insomnia and depression, and in improving concentration, establishing emotional balance and enhancing imagination and creativity.