Ideally you should be a meditator yourself if you want to teach meditation to children. You will then have had first hand experience of the difficulties and the pleasures involved. However even if you are new to meditation you can still introduce it to children. The most important thing is your mental attitude. If you are calm, supportive, and sympathetic and keep to the broad guidelines provided below, most children will respond favorably.

1. Don’t expect too much from children. Some may enjoy meditation and others may not. That needs to be ok.

2. Young children have a short attention span. They may enjoy meditation but may not want to do it for long periods. Don’t force them to.

3. Never show disappointment or impatience with children. Remember you are offering meditation to them not forcing it. Impatience on your part will make it harder for them to learn or may just put them off meditation for the rest of their lives.

4. Make it clear that children are not in competition with each other. Make it clear at the outset that meditation, like breathing, is not an area in which we compete with each other. Reinforce this by taking care not to praise some children at the expense of others. Keep praise general and don’t rebuke one child in front of the others.

5. Keep all instructions simple and use as few words as possible.

6. Use an appropriate tone of voice when guiding children. The voice should be quite gentle and soft but not hypnotic. You don’t want to send the children to sleep. Deliver your words confidently and without rush.

7. Remember that children learn best from adults they admire and who provide them with a good example of the kind of person they themselves would like to become one day. If children see you as patient, caring, happy and relaxed (qualities that meditation can help develop) they are far more likely to be motivated to practice than if they see you having the opposite qualities.

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