Meditating Six-Year-Olds

Each morning at school, my students and I start our day with meditation.  It began at the beginning of the year as a desperate attempt to ground out the energy that was pinging around the room and shooting out of my little six- and seven-year-olds like poison darts. There was a reason I was too stressed to write once school started, and it had about 19 names.  I can now look back fondly at those crazy, early days. The children have come a terrifically long way, and the nightmares have long since abated.

Little Energy Workers

Early on, I taught them energy visualizations, very similar to the ones I shared in my posts a while back in my Meditation for Moms series.   I wanted to give their active minds something to focus on other than just sitting quietly, which just wasn’t going to happen at this stage.  We’d begin with grounding, then we’d choose a color and run energy, and finally, skipping the chakra focus, we’d move right into protecting our energy.  Though they started out squirrely, once they accepted that this was a daily event, they soon began to relax into it.  Some shared that they were trying this at home before bed or when they wanted to calm themselves down.  Though I didn’t have 100% full participation each day, most of the kids were on board with it most days.  This was encouraging, and I believe our morning ritual contributed to how quickly we were able to transform our classroom dynamic.

Stillness in First Grade??

More recently, I’ve been revisiting some Eckhart Tolle talks, and those, coupled with a wonderful children’s book called Peaceful Piggy Meditation by Kerry Lee MacLean, inspired me to try shifting our classroom meditation practice toward stillness, presence, and silence.  The results of my first attempt at this were stunning!  After reminding them of proper postures and inviting them to close their eyes, I rang a little chime to begin our practice.  I softly encouraged them to feel the cool air coming into their nose, and to feel the warmth as they exhaled. After a few slow breaths, I invited them to focus on the words “just” on the inhalation, and “this” on the exhalation.  The energy of the room began to settle.   

After a few rounds of “just … this,” I asked them to bring their awareness to the silence between the sounds for a few moments.  That’s when the energy of the room shifted dramatically.  I opened my eyes to check it out.  All eyes were closed; the children were peaceful, relaxed and focused.  It felt as if a giant magnet was under the floor of our room, and our bottoms were made of metal.  All of the random energy and thoughts were like little metal shavings being sucked out of the air around us and pulled to the earth.  They stayed like this for close to one minute.  That’s a long time for 19 first and second graders! Some could have gone much longer if left on their own.

I hit the chime to end our practice, inviting them to listen to the sound until it had completely faded, and then they opened their eyes.  The children remained in this still, alert state, and I asked them to share how they felt.  They shared words like peaceful, calm, focused, joyful, relaxed, and happy.   We sang our good morning song and then, as I took attendance, each child shared one word to set their intention for the kind of day they’d like to create for themselves.  I love listening to what they say, “Creative, exciting, happy, joyful, easy-going, love-full, focused,” and so on.  It’s beautiful.

This is our 15-minute morning meeting, and it’s how we begin each day together. 

Making it Their Own

We’ve been doing this stillness meditation for the past three weeks.  Last week, we decided to put a sign up outside our door that said, “Meditation in progress. Please wait here,” so that kids who arrived late wouldn’t disrupt our meditation.  On the first day of the new sign, I heard a little kerfuffle of multiple voices outside the door just as we were settling into our meditation.  “Darn!” I thought to myself, “I should have added ‘Please be quiet’ to the sign, too. They’re still going to distract us.”  We continued our meditation, and I discovered we were not being distracted by any noise.  Had they left? 

When we finished, I opened the door to find five girls grinning ear to ear, eager to tell me that they’d done their own meditation outside.  “We even clinked our water bottles together for the chime!” 

It was gratifying to see how much they valued this practice; that meditating would supersede chit-chatting with their friends when no teacher was around.  Maybe it’s just habit now, but I’d like to think it goes deeper than that; that they want that stillness and silence, that calming sensation in their bodies.  But, even if it is just habit, I can’t think of a better one to be forming at this age.

How about your thoughts? Have you tried meditating with your own kids or students?  How would you feel about your own children meditating at school? I’d love to hear from you in the comments!