Feb. 26, 2026
Ep 207: Raising Focused, Resilient Children With Simple Daily Practices
Kids today face a world of constant pings, pressure, and comparison—and their brains are adapting to it. We explore why mindfulness is no longer optional for modern families and break down four research-backed reasons it matters: stronger emotional regulation, better attention, lower anxiety, and deeper resilience. Along the way, we translate science into simple, kid-ready practices that fit real homes, real schedules, and real personalities.
We start by reframing mindfulness as a practical life skill: noticing what’s happening inside and outside, then choosing on purpose. That shift helps kids pause before reacting, build a steadier connection between the amygdala and prefrontal cortex, and handle everyday challenges with more ease. You’ll hear how schools see fewer disruptions and better self-management, and how parents can recreate those wins at home with tools like “name it to tame it,” one-minute breath breaks, and neutral debriefs after tough moments.
Attention becomes the superpower. With dopamine-driven distractions everywhere, we share ways to train focus like a muscle—breathing as “brain push-ups,” walking awareness for active bodies, and creative supports for neurodivergent learners using green/yellow task lists and body doubling. Then we tackle stress head-on: redefining anxiety as a sensation to observe, not an emergency to fear. From bedtime body scans to performance routines for sports, theater, and school, kids learn to convert nerves into fuel.
We close with resilience and self-awareness, showing how values-based choices lead to healthier friendships, quicker bounce-backs, and a stronger sense of self. Try our “after action reflection” and the question that changes everything: How do you want to feel next time? These practices don’t promise perfect calm—they build capable, confident kids who can meet life with curiosity and heart.
If this helped, share it with a friend, leave a quick review, and subscribe so you never miss our practical tools for calm, confident, connected families.
Resources mentioned in the episode:
Ashley Williams of Clymb: Strategies for Increasing Happiness
Kailey Lefko of Educalme: Add Calm to your child's classroom with one quick email
Letter to Schools about Mindfulness
From Top to Toe When Your Mind Won't Slow: Body Scan Relaxation Podcast
Lindsay Miller is a distinguished kids mindfulness coach, mindfulness educator and host of The Stress Nanny Podcast. She is known for her suitcase tricks and playful laugh. When she's not cheering on her daughter or rollerblading on local trails with her husband, you can find her using her 20+ years of child development study and mindfulness certification to dream up new ways to get kids excited about deep breathing. Having been featured on numerous podcasts, platforms and publications, Lindsay’s words of wisdom are high impact and leave a lasting impression wherever she goes.
To sign up for Lindsay's "Calm & Collected" Newsletter click here.
To review the podcast click here.
00:20 - Welcome & Today’s Focus
00:59 - Mindfulness Defined For Families
02:26 - Reason 1: Emotional Regulation
09:08 - School Wins & Home Applications
13:48 - Reason 2: Stronger Attention
22:04 - Focus Tools Kids Will Use
25:31 - Reason 3: Lower Anxiety & Stress
34:24 - Stress As Sensation, Not Emergency
WEBVTT
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Welcome to the Stress Nanny, the podcast where we take the overwhelm out of parenting and help kids and parents build calm, confidence, and connection.
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I'm your host, Lindsay Miller, kids' mindfulness coach and cheerleader for busy families everywhere.
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Each week we'll explore simple tools, uplifting stories, and practical strategies to help your child learn emotional regulation, resilience, and self-confidence, while giving you a little more peace of mind too.
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I'm so glad you're here.
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Welcome to the Stress Nanny podcast.
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I'm your host, Lindsay Miller, and I'm delighted that you're here.
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Today we're going to talk about why mindfulness is an essential skill for modern kids.
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This one's going to be a solo episode, and I'm going to share four research-backed reasons that this skill is crucial for modern living.
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One of the things that I think it's important to remember is that our kids are growing up in a world that's really, really different than anything humans have seen before.
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Their brains are being shaped by constant notifications, distractions, there's academic pressure, social comparison, and there's just information coming at them 24-7.
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So mindfulness isn't just like a nice-to-have skill or an optional skill anymore.
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It's a foundational skill for modern kids.
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So the way I define mindfulness is knowing what's going on inside of you, knowing what's going on outside of you, and making a choice on purpose.
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John Cabot Zinn, who developed the mindfulness-based stress reduction program, defines mindfulness as paying attention on purpose in the present moment without judgment.
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So the without judgment piece is really important, and we'll get into that in a little bit.
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But one of the things that I want us to keep in mind is that this life skill is something that humans have practiced for a really long time.
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But like the benefits of the practice are more pronounced today because of the world that we live in.
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So I'm going to share four reasons why it's essential, four reasons why we want to make sure our kids have this skill, and then give you some examples and research for each of those reasons.
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So the first one is that mindfulness builds emotional regulation.
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So kids today, we see tons of anxiety, right?
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We see a lot of social pressure at a variety of ages.
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And then the academic intensity starts even younger than we're used to.
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And so mindfulness allows the brain to regulate emotion more effectively so we can manage all those big feelings coming our way.
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So mindfulness is shown to increase activation and thickness in the prefrontal cortex, and it reduces activity in the amygdala.
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So this is something I talk with kids about all the time when I'm on my client calls, and we talk about how the amygdala, it's part of the more historic brain section, is always trying to take over and encourage us to be afraid and to make us really reactive to situations.
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And it's kind of where like explosive anger or intense anxiety often come from the amygdala.
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And if we can make a strong connection between the amygdala and the prefrontal cortex, what we can do is create a scenario where the amygdala gets activated, but the prefrontal cortex kind of soothes it and settles it down and takes over and makes sure that we're making a decision with our executive function powers in place and not our reactivity.
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So when we are able to create this strong activity in the prefrontal cortex, that's when we're able to manage emotions much more skillfully.
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So when schools adopt mindfulness-based programs, they see a lot of reduced emotional reactivity.
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They see improved self-regulation.
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So kids being able to kind of just manage themselves, manage their work, manage their emotions, manage their focus.
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And then a lot of times there are fewer behavior disruptions.
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And here on the podcast, we've done a variety of interviews with experts in the realm of school mindfulness, and I'll link to those in the episode.
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But if your child school is not doing any sort of mindfulness program, feel free to share these episodes with them.
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And then I have a blog post where I wrote a letter that you can personalize to your child school to encourage them to add mindfulness to the classroom.
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A lot of teachers feel like it's just one more thing, but because of this research, because of the fact that mindfulness builds emotional regulation, a lot of times classroom management gets a little bit more easeful.
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I'm not going to say easy, but there's a bit more ease when mindfulness is implemented because kids are self-regulating.
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So if you have a kiddo who's coming home and feeling super frustrated that the class is really distracted and there's so much going on and it's really hard to learn and the teacher's being disrespected, these are the types of resources that can be supportive in that kind of setting.
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What this role of mindfulness in building emotional regulation means at home and for parents is that mindfulness helps kids pause before they just react.
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And I work on this a lot with kids, the idea of making an intentional response to the situation in front of you rather than acting from that reactive amygdala place.
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We choose to act from the prefrontal cortex where we have access to our creativity, problem solving, and higher level reasoning.
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And so that can be supportive, right, in any kind of conflict between parent-child, conflict between siblings, conflict over different activities, like requests to put laundry away or do homework.
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Being able to tune into the prefrontal cortex and manage emotion is key to being able to facilitate those types of routine communications that we have at home.
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And then at home, having these mindfulness skills also allows kids to notice their feelings without being controlled by their feelings.
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Now, a lot of times parents feel like if they allow the feeling or give into the feeling or give space for the feeling, it's just going to get bigger and bigger.
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And a lot of the times it's actually the opposite.
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And we see kids settle or able or are able to work through the feeling if it's acknowledged.
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So Dan Siegel calls this naming it to tame it.
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So if we can help kids name it, then they can tame it.
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So that means we just take a minute, we pause, name the feeling, take three slow breaths, and then choose the next action on purpose.
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So this allows us at home to see our kids shift from being as impulsive as they might be when they start out to a little more intentional.
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Now it's not going to be every time, right?
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And I always encourage parents to recognize that learning isn't linear and mindfulness is no exception.
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So when we start to implement mindfulness practices at home, sometimes parents will see a really big shift initially and they'll be like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
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This is such a big difference.
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And then, and then, you know, they have ups and downs, kids will regress, kids will like pick up a new skill as part of learning phase they're going through, or maybe they're going through something really challenging and they have to dig deep in order to use mindfulness in like a higher emotion situation than what they've ever had to before.
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So it's up and down process, this learning, right?
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And so if you see an initial spike in their ability to manage themselves, but then it kind of deteriorates a bit, don't be frustrated, stick with it.
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That's just part of the process.
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And what we see over time, I see this especially with kids who have practiced for six months or longer with me, is that they start to make it the habit that it needs to be in order to practice independently.
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And again, it's not gonna be independent every time, right?
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You're still gonna need to be their helper and mindfulness coach if for probably the whole time they're in your house and until their brain is fully developed.
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But the idea is that as you are consistently encouraging their practice and helping them with their practice, naming their feelings, you're doing some of these other things we're gonna talk about in this episode, you are building over time the parts of their brain that are gonna be able to take this and run with it.
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So keep that big picture in mind and recognize that these skills and that like moment where all of a sudden they're a little more intentional and not as impulsive.
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And then the next day they're super impulsive, it doesn't mean it's not working.
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It just means it's taking some time.
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And so stick with it and don't give up.
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Okay, so the second reason that mindfulness is essential is that it improves our attention.
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So with all the distractions that we have, you know, like whether it's on phones with all the different apps or just getting homework done, having a longer time span where you can focus in and being able to manage like your desire for dopamine, because we're getting so many like attention-grabbing things coming our way, we're constantly getting a little hit of dopamine, right?
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When we play that game, or when we are like getting a text from a friend, or when we finally meet a goal on you know, one of the levels that we're working on, or when we're learning that new word, if you're using like a Duolingo or something like that, there are constant reinforcements of dopamine.
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And so it's important for us to be able to notice when our kids are kind of struggling to give their attention to stuff, right?
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And for some kiddos, maybe if they have an ADHD diagnosis, this is especially important, right?
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And maybe you're in a position where you have medication as a support, but being able to direct our attention on purpose is a competitive advantage for modern children.
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And so if your kid can do that, they're gonna be, you know, more focused at school, more focused at practices, more focused at theater, more focused with friends, right?
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There's good gonna be so many benefits to this, both personally and relationally for your child.
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So the research, again, I'll give you a school example and then an at-home example.
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There's a study out of University of Wisconsin Madison that talks about how mindfulness helps with sustained attention, working memory, and cognitive flexibility.
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And then another meta-analysis in developmental psychology, I found that small to moderate improvements in executive function after these mindful interventions.
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And so if we look at this idea of sustained attention and working memory, those are really important things, right?
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Obviously.
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But then cognitive flexibility, this is huge, right?
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So being able to direct where your attention goes and then choose to be flexible, choose to be creative if that's what is called for, choose to be hardworking if that's what is called for, choose to problem solve if you're in the thick of something, being able to communicate and really talk through a problem or listen, those things are all gonna be so beneficial, right?
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And if kids are kind of set in their way and only able to complete a task with certain parameters in place, or only able to be okay in certain, you know, if things are just right for them, then that that flexibility isn't gonna be there, right?
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And so it makes life harder because like conditions have to be just so in order for them to be okay or in order for them to focus.
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But if we can teach them this flexibility through devoting our attention to something, and we'll go into like a practice you can do in a minute.
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But if we can teach them and practice this flexibility, it's huge.
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I can't overemphasize the value of that skill, especially for modern kids, as especially in like the fast-paced changing world that we have.
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Cognitive flexibility is such an advantage and also just a life skill.
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And so what this means at home is that like we can help our kids learn to focus and then see that return on that on that investment in so many ways, right?
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Whether it's with chores, whether it's with siblings, whether it's just with family time, where we want everybody to be able to do the same thing for a little bit.
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That focus is so important.
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Also, mental stamina.
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So if they're completing a task that's taking some grit, taking some time, and they need to work through it, they're able to stick with it and not kind of throw in the towel and just get super frustrated, but they can drive their attention into that task in more depth, maybe take a break, but return to it.
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And those things all add up over time to different experiences, right?
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Than when with kiddos who have a hard time staying with a task and focusing.
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So this task persistence is important.
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And even with the kids that I work with who have, you know, like an ADHD diagnosis, we work on how to take into account a tendency or distraction and then work with it, right?
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So instead of fighting it, because remember, the definition of mindfulness is like being present in this moment without judgment.
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So instead of wishing that something was different or wishing we had more focus, we figure out what it will take to focus in this moment.
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So with the ADHD kiddos that I have, we'll do like a yellow and a green task list.
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So a yellow task list are the things that are a little bit challenging to complete, things we tend to procrastinate or just, yeah, not even do ever.
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And the green task list is things that we'll do without even being asked.
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Things that are fun, things that just make us light up inside.
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And the goal is just to recognize, right, what are the things on my yellow task list and how can I give myself a little something to make those tasks more agreeable for me?
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So maybe it's listening to music, maybe it's going outside and doing that particular project or assignment or subject.
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Maybe it's having a friend on, you know, a FaceTime call as you're working on the project.
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Maybe it's having mom sit next to you.
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Maybe, you know, you're just a body double right there, being a person next to them so they can sit down and settle.
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So whatever it is, we just look at like, what is it going to take for you in this moment to have the mental stamina, to have the task persistence that you need to stick with this until it's done.
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Again, we're not judging that anybody needs accommodations or different things.
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We're just using that cognitive flexibility to get creative, figure out what is needed in this moment.
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And again, like being able to stick with homework or listen in class or, you know, resist distraction, those are all really great tools.
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And it's not going to be every time again, right?
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We're not looking for perfection here, but we're just looking for progress.
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So one thing you can do is like help kids by practicing this sense of focus, focusing on the breath.
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So if you treat it like a brain push-up, what you can even do too is like have a have like PE time at home or have some sort of like activity time at home where you have them do push-ups for 60 seconds and then have them breathe for 60 seconds, right?
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So this is like we do a push-up with our body, and then we do a push-up with our brain, and that's like our breathing practice.
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So our brain needs exercise just like our body, and the breathing is what gives it that like stamina.
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So you sit still.
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Some kids need to walk so you can walk around focusing on the breath.
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And then if your mind wanders, as it will, because that's what brains do when we try to focus on the breath, and we just gently return our attention.
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Again, that idea of not in judgment.
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We're not beating ourselves up, or you know, if our kids like are off the rails and not breathing, we just try to refocus and try to refocus.
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For super active kids, I'll encourage them to like balance a stuffed animal on their head, or like I said, walk across the room.
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Sometimes I might have them walk across the room trying to balance something on their head, right?
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Depending on what level of kind of like tandem activity they need, will adjust.
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And the idea though is that we give them the parameters to focus on the breath and just give their attention to that for as long as possible.
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And for some kids, a minute is gonna seem like forever.
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For other kids, it's gonna be relatively simple.
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So just take where your child is at and then just figure out what type of breathing practice is gonna work for you so that you can invite them to this kind of focus on the breath for a minute a day.
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And it seems like a small thing, but a minute makes such a massive difference.
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Okay, so the next one, number three, mindfulness reduces anxiety and stress.
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Modern kids are like in the thick of all the competitions, right?
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Whether it's at school, whether it's at theater, whether it's in sports, they, if kids in your house have social media, there's comparison there.
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But if not, there are all the trends going around at school, right?
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There's so many things they have where they compare themselves.
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There's pressure to perform in a variety of situations.
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A lot of modern kids are super busy and their schedules are really full.
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And these types of chronic stress dysregulate the nervous system, right?
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And a dysregulated nervous system is kind of frantic, it's anxious, it's panicky, it's set off easily by seemingly simple tasks.
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So one of the things that I will hear a lot when families come to me is she just can't even handle the tiniest setback anymore, right?
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Like she used to be able to manage it, but now it's like the tiniest thing she's not able to.
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Or he's really having a hard time and getting upset at the drop of a hat all the time.
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Like he he has no, he's like zero to 60.
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And I can't, like, I can't keep him in this place where we can reason with him.
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He just goes off.
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And those are some signs, right, of a nervous system that's at its limit.
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And so what we just have to do is dial back the level of stress that kids are facing by raising their resilience to the stressors in their life and then maybe actively managing the things that are bringing them stress.
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And as we do that, and as we use our mindfulness-based interventions, we show reductions in anxiety, in cortisol, and in rumination.
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There's research from Johns Hopkins that reviews mindfulness programs and found moderate evidence for anxiety reduction.
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So when we adapt programs for adolescents, we can also show like reduced worry and then improve stress tolerance.
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And that's one of the things that I think is super important, and which is why I do the work that I do, is that when we can adapt these skills for kids and take these higher-level mindfulness concepts and make them fun and playful and make them applicable to kid problems and kid lives, then they are able to benefit right from all of these different like mindfulness superpowers that come when you practice.
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And so having a kid who's a little more resilient to anxiety, having a kid who's able to actively manage cortisol levels, like those things are massive.
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And they're they're serious advantages in any kind of like performance setting, right?
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So the kids, a lot of kids that I work with are like high-level performers in sports, in theater, you know, they're high achievers in school.
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And those kids already put a ton of pressure on themselves.
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And so what we do is we take that energy that they have for the activity that they're in and we help them like moderate that energy such that they can use the stress to help them without it getting in their way.
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And until you have an ability to kind of self-monitor and understand the impact of stress and recognize the signs and symptoms of it in yourself, it's really tricky to do that.
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But once you can dive in and then have a practice that allows you to actively manage your anxiety and stress levels, then you find like a totally different gear in terms of performance or in terms of achievement.
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And that's really, really cool to see because the stress that gets in kids' way, you know, it's preventing them from doing certain things that they're excited about or want to do.
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And even for little kids, it might be riding a bike, right?
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It might be learning a new skill or going to dance class or something that like they may really want to do, but just don't feel like they have the tools and the ability to manage the nervousness that they feel around that thing.
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So when we give them the skills, the anxiety and the stress don't get in their way anymore.
00:21:03.519 --> 00:21:11.039
And again, I like to remind parents that I like I'm not a mental health professional in terms of like a therapist, right?
00:21:11.279 --> 00:21:14.319
These are baseline life skills that I'm teaching.
00:21:14.480 --> 00:21:33.200
So if there's a child who needs additional support, right, who needs like a treatment for anxiety, then obviously we refer out and we create a scenario where they're either practicing mindfulness in conjunction with their therapeutic approach, or they're just you're doing therapeutic for a while until they can get the anxiety under control.
00:21:33.680 --> 00:21:44.079
But there is for baseline everyday normal types of stress and anxiety, there are so many things mindfulness can offer kids and adults.
00:21:44.319 --> 00:21:54.319
But if we can look at the mindfulness practices that allow this type of stress resilience, we really do our kids a huge favor.
00:21:54.559 --> 00:21:59.759
A few of the things that that they recognize when we practice this, and then we have the ability and the skill.
00:22:00.160 --> 00:22:04.799
skill set at home is that stress is a sensation and not an emergency.
00:22:05.119 --> 00:22:10.559
So we can they can manage their stress because they're not afraid of it anymore, right?
00:22:10.720 --> 00:22:19.279
When kids are really strung out and at the end of their rope in terms of like coping with stress and anxiety, they're afraid of the sensation itself.
00:22:19.440 --> 00:22:26.400
So anytime they feel stress or anxiety, it snowballs and then they're like afraid of the feeling and then it gets worse and then they're afraid.
00:22:26.559 --> 00:22:30.799
So if we can just teach them like, oh, that's a sensation in your body.
00:22:30.960 --> 00:22:32.079
Let's observe it.
00:22:32.240 --> 00:22:33.519
What does it feel like?
00:22:33.759 --> 00:22:34.160
Right?
00:22:34.400 --> 00:22:38.480
Then they're not freaking out just at the idea of having a sensation.
00:22:39.279 --> 00:22:43.440
And then we also, this also allows them to recognize that thoughts are in their mind.
00:22:43.519 --> 00:22:46.160
It's an event in their mind and it's not necessarily a fact.
00:22:46.400 --> 00:22:48.480
We don't have to believe everything we think.
00:22:48.880 --> 00:22:52.720
It also allows them to write emotional waves without drowning in them.
00:22:53.039 --> 00:23:00.240
So they the emotions can come and go, but they're not at the mercy of the emotion as much as they're responding proactively to the emotion.
00:23:01.039 --> 00:23:04.720
So one of the ways you can practice this is to do a body scan before bed.
00:23:05.039 --> 00:23:07.920
So you can help kids and you just go through the body.
00:23:08.079 --> 00:23:11.200
I have a body scan that I'll link to this podcast.
00:23:11.759 --> 00:23:15.359
But you just go through the body and you just can gently be aware.
00:23:15.759 --> 00:23:34.799
So you notice your toes, your feet your heels your ankles your legs your stomach your chest your face and you just go through you're not fixing anything you're just noticing it and it helps the nervous system settle before going to sleep.
00:23:40.160 --> 00:23:57.599
And the last tool we're gonna talk about is the way that mindfulness strengthens resilience and self-awareness so resilience isn't necessarily just being tough and gritty and pushing through right resilience is awareness plus recovery.
00:23:57.839 --> 00:24:24.079
So it's knowing what's going on and then again this idea of responding to it on purpose right so kids who understand what's going on inside of them understand their internal world they can recover faster from setbacks they can make better social decisions because they can kind of check in with their gut and they have stronger identity formation because they know what they like, what they don't like, what grosses them out, what they feel drawn to.
00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:51.039
And so when we can help them tune in again this is something that sometimes parents think is going to create selfishness or it's going to make them self-centered but it actually serves really well because it allows them to know themselves in a way that they like respect themselves and then can present or represent themselves in the world more authentically and in a way that aligns with their values.
00:24:51.200 --> 00:25:03.759
Instead of being at the mercy of whoever they're around or you know the the values of the environment they can bring their own values their own personal set of values into whatever situation they're in.
00:25:04.079 --> 00:25:21.680
So if they are connected with themselves, yeah, they they're able to also have reduced rumination the research shows that they have a better self-concept like their idea of themselves is more clear and they have increased psychological flexibility.
00:25:22.000 --> 00:25:31.359
So again this flexibility means if something's not going their way they're not like so tense and freaked out that they are stuck.
00:25:31.519 --> 00:25:34.559
Instead they're saying okay what could I do differently?
00:25:34.720 --> 00:25:56.640
And again this is something that I work on with the teens that I have the privilege of working with we talk through their values and we say okay in this situation if this value is something that feels tricky what could we shift in the situation or in your response that allows this value to still you know like be important or show up in the situation.
00:25:56.960 --> 00:26:09.759
So maybe it's a situation where they want to be connected with friends but they also feel drawn to their family, which is a really common thing for teens, even though sometimes they might fight you and it might seem like the family is not important at all.
00:26:10.000 --> 00:26:12.720
It's actually such an important launching pad for them.
00:26:12.960 --> 00:26:25.920
But like if they feel torn between time with family and time with friends, then that's something we can be flexible about and think about how, okay, in this situation, how could you hold room for both?
00:26:26.079 --> 00:26:32.240
Like how is there space in this weekend for you to prioritize both your time with your family and your time with your friends.
00:26:32.480 --> 00:26:58.400
And there are different ways we can do that right whether it's splitting time whether it's making a special effort with a sibling or a parent whether it's being really present in the moments you are sharing with whether it's friends or family and not being stressed out about like the things you're missing but just being really present when you're together those things all are ways you can balance like values that might seem like they're competing in any given moment.
00:26:58.640 --> 00:27:10.640
But again if kids are clear that those two things are important, it's not a fight to get them to come back home and spend time with the family as much as it's an observation that like hey we haven't seen you in a while what could we do together?
00:27:10.960 --> 00:27:16.799
Or hey I know you really wanted to be with your friends but it's time like to come home.
00:27:16.880 --> 00:27:32.559
And that's not to say you're not going to get pushback but usually what happens is on you might get pushback in the moment, but on reflection later they can see the ways that those two values showed up in that moment and they were balancing two things that were important to them.
00:27:33.440 --> 00:27:47.680
The other thing that we see with this strengthen three strengthening their resilience and increasing their self-awareness is a lower depression risk, greater well-being and improved peer relationships.
00:27:47.759 --> 00:28:22.880
And those are from longitudinal studies with youth who practice mindfulness and that means that if we can have kids who trust themselves and again like if we've planted the values that are important to us in those kids and they're then living them out like that self-trust becomes an asset because the kids can know themselves well enough in different situations to be who they are right and not be at the whim of who they're around it means that they bounce back quicker.
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So if something doesn't go their way they're not stuck in it for hours or days they're there for as long as they need to to feel the things and then they move through.
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And that's one thing I see a lot with mindfulness is the recovery speed.
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So the time they're stuck is less.
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And again it's going to happen sometimes still and there are going to be really hard things that come and maybe it's more time than what you're used to seeing from them.
00:28:48.079 --> 00:28:55.200
But overall kids who practice mindfulness can move through things at a way different level than kids who don't.
00:28:55.599 --> 00:29:24.640
And then in terms of peer relationships if you can bring self-awareness to a peer relationship you can communicate clearly if something didn't go the way you wanted to if you're disappointed if you're frustrated if there's an interaction that really bothered you if you have the awareness to know what happened to know how you're feeling about it and to know what you would like to do differently you have the ability to create a totally different kind of relationship than if you're kind of oblivious to all those internal cues you're getting and you're just being really reactive.
00:29:24.960 --> 00:29:33.440
So those things create this like very, very cool person who can navigate hard things without getting stuck in them.
00:29:33.759 --> 00:29:34.799
And I love that.
00:29:35.039 --> 00:29:42.240
One of the ways you can reinforce or teach this at home using mindfulness is to do something called an after action reflection.
00:29:42.559 --> 00:29:50.880
So after something really hard we can you can talk about what they felt what they did what they might try next time.
00:29:51.279 --> 00:30:04.559
Again we do that without judgment right so if we come down really hard in those situations about how they handled something it's not going to go as well as if we're more neutral and we're just open to the learning that's going to happen.
00:30:04.720 --> 00:30:15.039
And then again of course in some situations if there's like potential for harm or you know they've really extended past something that's a rule in your house that that's it may be a different conversation.
00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:38.640
But if you're creating an environment where you're helping them to self-regulate you're helping them to know what they're feeling and what's going on around them, they're probably more actively engaged in the conversations with you about what they're up to, what's what they're struggling with and how they need to respond to different situations or how they'd like to respond to different situations.
00:30:38.960 --> 00:30:47.359
One thing that I've mentioned here on the pod before is this idea of asking them how they feel now about this thing and how they would like to feel.
00:30:47.519 --> 00:31:18.480
So as part of this conversation like what did you feel what did you do what might you try next time I look like to loop in the idea of like how do you want to feel next time so if you're around a group of friends and you come away feeling less than your best self you come away feeling kind of left out not included and you come away feeling like you're not sure you fit there okay like those are really good signals to look at right like let's pay attention to those what did you do?
00:31:18.640 --> 00:31:26.240
Did did that get in the way and you felt even more disconnected did you double down and be really extra to try to fit in and that made it worse?
00:31:26.480 --> 00:31:32.799
Did you just kind of sit with your feelings and then be as neutral and normal as you would be what did you do right?
00:31:33.119 --> 00:31:36.319
And then how do you want to feel in that situation?
00:31:36.480 --> 00:32:02.400
And a lot of kids right you want to feel included you want to feel valued you want to feel like you're you're your best self around these people right and so then we ask ourselves is this the group of friends you can be that around is that a reasonable expectation if you if that's the way you want to feel are these the people who can help you feel that way and then a lot a lot of times I'll hear kids say like oh this one person is that you know or this this person in the group I really do feel this way around.
00:32:02.559 --> 00:32:17.680
So then we notice like okay next time if you have the opportunity to kind of spend more time with this person or focus your energy on on this person who helps you move toward the person you want to be, maybe that's the best use of your energy.
00:32:17.920 --> 00:32:25.839
Or maybe if this group of people isn't offering you what you need, maybe you are a little bit brave and try spending some time with other people.
00:32:25.920 --> 00:32:27.759
And that's super hard for kids, right?
00:32:27.920 --> 00:32:29.119
Especially teens.
00:32:29.599 --> 00:32:34.000
But a lot of kids go through those friendship transitions, especially in high school.
00:32:34.160 --> 00:32:50.799
And so having awareness around how they want to feel helps them land in groups that help them get where they want to go instead of just like groups where it's like the lowest common denominator of what they have in common or it's like the people who they feel like they can get in with and it's less scary.
00:32:51.200 --> 00:32:59.200
But if we know what we want and we have the confidence and the awareness to go like trust ourselves to find it, it's a different story.
00:32:59.440 --> 00:33:02.960
And so that's mindfulness applied in those situations, right?
00:33:03.599 --> 00:33:12.640
So I think sometimes we think of mindfulness is like sitting still for 20 minutes only for calm kids or calm families or it's like a certain type of kid is mindful.
00:33:12.880 --> 00:33:24.559
But it really is this idea of like mental cross-training where we're teaching these different skills through the medium of this intentional attention on purpose coupled with the breath often.
00:33:24.799 --> 00:33:39.039
And as we build like these emotional strengths and we condition the nervous system, it's like we're training the kids' brains just like they train for a sport or just like they you know train for competitions or train for performances.
00:33:39.440 --> 00:33:46.720
And mindfulness is that tiny space in between and it can be the pause where a lot of character gets built.
00:33:47.039 --> 00:33:57.599
So let's just give you a few things here at the end to recap what you can do right now to help your kids learn this vital skill of mindfulness at your home in simple ways.
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