Photo credit: Matt Lien Photography
Editor's Note: Johnna Holgrem's book,
Tales From a Forager's Kitchen, has been pulled from the market. It is no longer available for purchase.
My favorite mornings are the ones where we walk to the backyard woods, where two enormous white pine trees reach to the sky. I tell my girls, “These aren’t ‘our’ woods. We are simply here to care for them for the time being.” We gather the fallen green needles from the ground, put them into our baskets, and come back inside to an almost-boiling pot of water. We chop, steep, and stir in raw honey. Of course, they always want to mix the tea themselves and it gets all over the counter, but it feels so empowering at age two to mix your own tea, doesn’t it? We carry our mugs over, gently take out our carpet squares, tattered and somewhat torn, and lay them in a circle to begin family meditation for the day. “What are you grateful for today? What do you hope for?” my five-year-old asks me. We go around voicing intentions, taking breaths, engaging with stretches and movement and practiced silence.
Meditation With Kids
When we first moved into the A-frame, we started a weekly family meditation time. The same day of the week, same rectangle carpet squares, same humans. It felt like we were experiencing a lot of change — moving into a new house is a lot to take in for a little one. It was a simple way to reconnect as a family and share our hearts, apologize if needed, start fresh, talk about intentions, and share what we were grateful for, what we want to work on, while we moved our bodies through stretches or yoga. We all enjoyed it so much and found that it provided so much value to our family life to slow down together. So now we do it closer to every day if we can — the carpet squares are torn and worn, and a year later, they definitely needed to be replaced.
There are many ways to incorporate meditation, rest, or slowed activity into a child’s world, and I can’t express what a difference it’s made in our lives and throughout our homeschooling journey as well.
How To Meditate With Kids
1. Start small. Don’t expect much.
2. Give them a physical space to be on. A blanket, a carpet square, a log, a rock. But don’t expect them to stay there and don’t shame them if they wander away from that space.
3. Everything stays positive. Draw them back in with a tender voice, an open mind, or a story. Keeping a smile on your face and an open lap or arms lets them know they are welcomed and heard and seen.
4. Find your flow. We begin by going around the circle saying what we are grateful for and what we are excited about. Max and I will take turns asking: Are there any worries on anyone’s minds? What do you want to get better at today? What is one thing you are grateful for?
5. Bring a reading or a song — a poem, a verse, a children’s story with intention, or a quote.
6. Verbalize mantras. Max always leads us through these, and they are simply phrases we repeat to each other and ourselves. With many things in life, the way we speak to ourselves and our kids becomes the voice in both our heads and theirs. It sets the tone for the morning, the day, and essentially, our life.
My body is healthy.
I am grateful to be alive.
I will love myself and others today.
I will offer those around me grace and kindness.
Meditation © 2018 by Max Holmgren
7. Bring in physical movement of some kind to either warm up or cool down. Yoga, stretching, expansion of the lungs, or literally jumping up and down until all the wiggles are out, and then sit calmly.
8. Integrate a bell or have your children choose a timer sound on your phone or timer. Start small by telling them that for the next 10 seconds, 25 seconds, 45 seconds, 5 minutes, or 30 minutes, “we will all sit still without talking and our eyes will be closed until we hear the song play.” No shame! Let them watch you do it even if they don’t want to or can’t. Gently welcome them back to their space with a kind smile and voice and a simple “shhh.” Listen for the sound. Point to your ears. Smile. Each time you practice, they will get better and better, and even if they hate it the first 10 times, number 11 might just be the magic moment.
9. If they scream, “No!,” try saying, “That’s fine if you don’t want to join us. Right now it’s quiet time. You are welcome to sit with us when you are ready.” Carry on, even if it's just you having a moment of peace. They are watching regardless.
10. The goal is connection and trust-building. The less expectation we have as parents, the greater the results. Guide them in, welcome them, accept them for wherever they are at that day, showing that not only can they trust you, but also that they are enough just the way they are.
We hope to incorporate this into our girls’ lives for as many years as we can. I imagine the topic of conversations will change as the years do, but to come together as a family at an intentional time to just exist seems to build a level of trust and openness that we hope to give and have with the girls for the rest of their lives. An “it’s okay if you come to your mat angry, sad, excited, or happy. We just want to meet you there.”
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Johnna Holmgren is the blogger behind
Fox Meets Bear and runs the chalk illustration and design company Bear Fox Chalk with her husband, Max Holmgren. She lives in the woods of Minnesota with her husband and three daughters.