Teaching your Teenager Mindfulness

Nap Lab Fireside Chat

Chats between you and me.

Teaching your Teenager Mindfulness

Teaching your teenager to find peace and happiness is a tall order, especially for a generation that’s used to being connected all the time. But with social media, texting, and the 24/7 news cycle, teens have more stressors than ever before. It’s up to you as parents to teach your kids how to balance their lives — just like you do every day. Here are four mindfulness strategies you can use right now to help your teenager achieve success in school and life.
1. How to teach your teenager to be mindful
Teaching your teens to be mindful is not necessarily about teaching them how to meditate or be “zen”. It’s more about teaching them how to be present, how to be cognizant of their thoughts and feelings, and how to be patient with themselves and with others.“The real benefit is not in doing the practice, but in developing a state of awareness in which they can maintain it. A mindful person doesn’t have the form of the Stoics, the gray persona of Joe Smith. Instead, a sensitive and mindful person has an open and spacious mind, which allows him to see things clearly, feel things clearly, and think clearly.” — Logan Neff, myspace.com
According to Tested.com, a mindfulness and meditation app, teens are more likely to be overwhelmed by their world and to drop out of school. Greater mindfulness could help foster peace and happiness.
Though there’s no standard meditation program that works for everyone, there are several meditation apps, meditation routines, and mindfulness techniques you can use on your phone or computer to help boost your teen’s focus and mindfulness.
Namely, calm the mind. In its simplest form, it means bringing your attention entirely to your breathing and noticing, focusing on your breath. You can use meditation apps like 1020, Calm, or Anjelly to practice mindfulness.
When you practice this, 1020 recommends that you train your mind to listen for these five sounds, consciously bringing your attention to each one as it happens (audio cues here). Next, say them out loud (audio cues here). Continue to train your mind to listen and pay attention to these sounds as they happen, making it easier for your mind to develop a state of calm. 2021 is the year you have to master this one.
To find a short and easy to follow manual on how to exercise access to your emotions, try The Access Guide to Emotional Freedom. Or, you can take a guided mindfulness walk to ground you in the present moment.
2. How mindfulness can help teens be successful in school and life
If you’ve noticed that your teenagers are texting and spending hours on social media, you might want to give them some strategies. It may be time to set a time limit or intervention if they continuously reach their phone screens too early. My daughter and I agreed that if she texted before her boarding class at 6:45, she got back on track by then. If she did it after, I checked on her until after school. (This was my tradition before Sync launched.) A few times throughout the day, I reviewed the text messages my daughter’s received as she used her phone. It seems like it’s working, because she hasn’t been as chaotic on social media lately.
The other day, I was reading an article on how kids prefer to listen to music instead of interacting with their peers. The author mentioned another study that found that parents who favored quiet time with their children consistently performed better in a series of tests and were more satisfied with their own parenting. That small act of self-care is arguably what had helped me loosen up with my own parenting style.
If you’re trying to avoid lectures or disruptions from those in authority, you may want to find something that’s peaceful, like the lullaby or self-care playlist that you created for yourself. While you wait for your teen to be done with school and texting, you can watch a short film, read an article, or go for a walk. When your teen gets home, tell them to get some sleep and get ready for bed. Then disconnect from whatever their devices may be providing you with.
3. How to use relaxation techniques for stress relief for teens
Stress isn’t just a problem for adults. Teens get stressed out too, and it can impact their performance in school and in other areas of their lives. The good news is that there are simple relaxation techniques that teens can use to cope with stress and reduce the negative impact it has on their lives.It took me a long time to realize this and deal with it, but it’s one of the best practices I follow to help my teen feel more relaxed and less stressed out.
The most common thing we do as teens is text our worried or upset friends. We talk about what’s going on in our lives, often to the point of making light of things. In psychology, text anxiety is a type of stress we create either because we feel uncomfortable in our own skin or because of our desire to make contact with the source of the problem. Texting can also lead to negative repercussions like isolation, emotional battering from your friends, or manipulating people into solving your problems for you.
Texting isn’t conducive to developing healthy relationships, and it’s been linked to higher levels of depression and anxiety in teens and young adults. It’s up to you to teach your teen how to handle this type of text anxiety. What can we do to be mindful? Planting a few mindful texts in your teen’s line of sight every day can help the 16-year-old overhear and feel less anxious.
Try to start the text on a safe, helpful place like the bottom of the phone so your teen can whisper whatever is on their mind. This doesn’t have to be a lengthy conversation — just a couple of sentences will do. Putting a bunch of messages in your teen’s inbox is not a bad way to get to know each other and see if there’s something you can talk about. Once written, these messages should be saved for a time when your teen is available.
4. The 4 ways mindfulness can help teenagers achieve success in school and life
Mindfulness is a practice of being aware of your thoughts, feelings, and surroundings. It’s all about paying attention to the present moment and not worrying about the past or worrying about the future. Being mindful is a way of training your brain to focus on the present moment.
Recently many parents told me that some annoying the kids repeating bad words to them are the worst. They told them never to say that kind of word again and to give the word a tap if they said it. But if you’re like me, these annoying words that you told to your child are just too annoying.
But doing something like telling your kid to take a break once in a while wasn’t enough. So I decided to focus on using different techniques to be mindful.
I popped in the TV programme ‘Being Mindful’ on Netflix and watched it with my daughter. The programme had a lot of techniques that helped me become aware of my thoughts and then to choose what to think about and what not to.
Some of the more common techniques you can try to become more mindful:
– Do it for yourself before trying it for others. Plus, it’s not an easy thing to do.
Are you antsy and restless around the house? Focus on your breath. Notice how it feels before it becomes a full-fledged panic attack. It’s okay to try to let go for the first couple of minutes. Is everything okay around the house? Is everybody else in the house? If not, take a step back.
– Look at the environment around you. Your surroundings might be a distraction, but the way you see it is important. Can you notice the traffic? Do you want to leave the house? Can you notice people on the street?
Every time you notice a distraction, make an effort to turn your attention back to your breathing.
Mindfulness is all about awareness. If you’re not aware that you’re stressed out, you’re more likely to feel stressed out.
Conclusion: Mindfulness is a powerful tool, especially for teenagers who are under a lot of pressure today. Teaching your teen to be mindful will help them manage their stress levels and achieve success in school and life.
Mindfulness is a powerful tool, and it is especially helpful for teenagers who are under a lot of pressure today. Teaching your teen to be mindful will help them manage their stress levels and achieve success in school and life.
According to psychological researchers, mindfulness has a positive impact on a number of mental health conditions including anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and PTSD. These psychological disorders can be especially difficult for teens to deal with, and it might be hard for them to establish mindfulness as a new habit.
So how can you encourage a mindful mindset in your teenager?
One of the best ways to do this is to show your child daily routines you keep up yourself.
For example, you spend time washing your face each morning and brushing your teeth at night. Doing these actions makes you mindful. And nothing feels better than being reminded of your own care and concern for yourself.
Why doesn’t most parents keep an afternoon routine up themselves? Because most adults stop doing daily tasks after working all day long and miss out on daily mindfulness.
Before they go to bed, you try to do one simple thing: stay still. That’s it. You try to feel your body, breathe, and feel the present moment in front of you. You notice your thoughts and their power as they come and go. And most importantly, you notice how your day feels and what you enjoy doing.
By going after these two activities first thing each evening, you ensure that your mind is still and at peace, and your productivity is high. But you can try to do these things with your kids, too.
Write down your teen’s morning schedule for the day. It can be books they will read, a favorite TV show, and any other routine you can think of.
Cart
Skip to content