How to get your child(ren) to meditate- Simple technique

Want your children to meditate?

Kids get bored easily. In this video I share with you the meditation technique that actually worked after trying (forcing) a few on my nephew lol.

It had him captivated!

PS below is the video transcript, I’d recommend watching the video!

Namaste and welcome. It is Rishi here from MEDITATEWITHRISHI.COM And today’s video is for all the parents out there, that want to teach their kids how to meditate. Now why teach your kids to meditate? There are tons of benefits. The main of one for me is, you know think about it a child who meditates from a very young age. There is no doubt that they are going to grow up to become a spiritual Powerhouse! Know the meaning of life, the purpose of life, know how to conduct themselves and really be a force of greatness in this world! But apart from that there are more immediate benefits to you as parents right now. Tthink about it, right? I’m sure you want your kids to be calmer. I’m sure you want your kids to have better concentration and to ask you for less stuff (lol), you know not want every new iPhone and every new video game that comes out, right? So there’s tons of benefits. Now the reason I’m doing this video is that what becomes really important when teaching kids how to meditate is the actual technique that we give them — because kids get bored easily. And what I’ve done is I’ve actually tried this out with with a few kids in my family, my nephew for example, and essentially I would give him a technique and then I would sit next to him and meditate but really I’d been watching him. What I found, and look there’s no hard and fast rule here. I’m giving you something that you can use, but definitely make it your own. Okay, so what I found is that when we give a child a mantra, okay, let’s say for example OM, or Om namah shivay, or whatever. It is a really common object for meditation, but, If they don’t connect to that mantra or they don’t know what it means, then they’re going to get bored. They’ll just be trying to either finish quickly or not really be in the meditation and that means they’re not getting the benefits that they’re supposed to. Another object, common object is the breath right, t the breath again know is a great object for meditation, but for kids, it’s very subtle and it’s just plain, you know, it’s easy to get bored again. So we want to give them something that will essentially capture their attention and will keep them captivated in the meditation. So what I tried was giving them, giving my nephew a statement essentially and the statement was a statement of gratitude. “Thank you God for everything that you’ve given me.” As a statement, you know using it like a mantra and saying it repeatedly,repeatedly doing the Japa of that statement essentially. And I was, I was taken aback — it works so well and it continued to work, day after day, he was really he was engrossed in the meditation. He loved doing it and I think the reason behind it was, with a statement like that, you know, Thank you God for everything that you’ve given me. Naturally, it makes you think about the things that you have so he’s probably thinking about the things that he has and it helps when as parents you’re reinforcing that in the day-to-day life, you know, you already have so much — you have food on your plate every single day. You have your parents’ love, you go to a great school, You have amazing friends. You have all this care — compared to what most of the world has, you know, and when the’rey thinking about these positive things, it’s nice. It’s easy to actually stay focused when you’re thinking about positive things, right and that’s the point. We want essentially to give them an object of concentration that they can rest their mind upon and stay there for a prolonged period. Okay. So the first thing I wanted to discuss was the actual object — the statement. Thank you God for everything that you’ve given me is a fantastic one. You can use other ones, you know make them your own essentially, and the second thing I want to speak about is the actual technique — so what are we doing? How are they actually doing the meditation? So the first thing I would say is to get them a Mala. Okay. I’m sure you’ve, I’m sure you’ve seen one of these before, if you haven’t it’s a meditation Mala also called a Japa mala, which you can get on Amazon regardless of what country you’re in. It’s a set of beads usually a hundred and eight beads for meditation, for concentration essentially, so whether you’re focusing on the breath, reciting a mantra, with every new recitation, you are moving to the next bead, moving to the next bead, moving to the next bead, moving to the next bead. And what this does is because the mind wanders off really easily, because you have to move to the next bead, it brings your attention back to the present moment, back to the present moment. So it’s a really really effective as a tool for concentration, especially for kids, who are not used to doing this type of meditation and you know, The mind is going all over the place. So get them a Mala. Now the way that they would practice the meditation, This is a very simple example. Okay, so there’s a hundred and eight beads on here. Okay, hypothetically speaking the way you want to do it is take a deep breath in, and on the out-breath, mentally say thank you God for everything you’ve given me. Take a deep breath in, thank you God for everything that you’ve given me. Okay. So how you’re doing that on the Mala then, for kids especially, is we’re going deep breath in on one bead, change bead and say thank you God for everything you’ve given me. Deep breath in next bead, Then switch the bead again, thank you God for everything you’ve given me. Deep breath in again, next bead. Change the bead again, Thank you God for everything that you’ve given me. So essentially you’re alternating one bead for the in-breath, one bead for the out breath and the statement. One bead for the in-breath one bead for the out breath and the statement. The reason we’re doing this is we’re shortening the time. So this will take roughly 10 to 15 minutes depending on how deep they’re breathing, how slow or quickly they are breathing essentially. But yeah, see 10 to 15 minutes is a great place to start righ,t then they can always increase from there. But that’s it. So just to summarise again, the technique is you take a deep breath in and you say a positive statement on the out-breath, a statement of gratitude, a statement of love, make your own or use the one I’ve given you and the technique is that you’re using one bead for the in-breath one bead for the out breath. Okay. Now in case you’re still a bit confused about the Mala itself, I’ve done a video on how to use a japa mala correctly. How to really honor it because it is a very sacred tool for meditation. So you can head over to my website MEDITATEWITHRISHI.COM or the YouTube channel and watch that video to see how to actually use one. Okay, but that is it. That is the technique. What is the outcome of this? The outcome of this essentially is the kids are going to be much calmer. They’re going to have much better concentration. But most importantly they’re going to be really grateful for what they have, you know, imagine sitting down for 10–15 minutes, or sitting down for all the repetitions on the Mala and just saying again and again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you God for everything you’ve given me. Slowly but surely the software, the inner, you know, what is essentially the core of their being is getting rewired to feeling gratitude all the time. And when that happens then, getting the next video game or the latest iPhone or whatever it is, It doesn’t seem that important because they already have so much, right? Quite often, I think everyone’s guilty of this is when the kids come home seeing their friends, you know getting these new toys, get this get that and let’s say, you know, you don’t want to give it to them. Or you can’t afford it at this point in time. It becomes kind of a battle and a quarrel, right? That hardly works, you already know this, do you don’t need me to tell you that right? But changing the inner being, just changing how they’re wired makes all the difference, then they naturally will not want these things. They’ll just be grateful. I’m not saying that they’re not going to want anything, but I’m saying that there’s going to be a balance. The balance is what we’re looking for. We don’t want to go to the extreme on either side, the balance is what we’re looking for essentially, so that is it. I hope that was helpful, definitely try it out and you know, make it your own. Comment below and tell me if you know, you’ve tried something else that works so that other people can benefit from that as well. That is it. Thank you for listening. Namaste.