Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity: Recent Episodes
Heather Lageveen
Mindful Practice Fueling Creative Energy:The merging of mindfulness and creativity has so many incredible benefits that fit into the social-emotional learning spectrum: interpersonal skills, self-awareness, relationship skills, self-management, and emotional well-being. Research shows that engaging in some form of creativity, paired with mindfulness, benefits children of all ages, and that there are no limiting cultural factors! Amazing!After School Classes, Before School Mindfulness,Teacher Workshops
Meditation has been shown to increase focus, reduce stress, and promote calmness. The practice has been shown to decrease distraction and rumination, make negative automatic thoughts seem easier to let go of, and promote greater enjoyment of the present moment.
The "Gratitude" meditation is a relaxing meditation that focuses on connecting mind and body.
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Support the show
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Support the showWebsite: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Meditation has been shown to increase focus, reduce stress, and promote calmness. The practice has been shown to decrease distraction and rumination, make negative automatic thoughts seem easier to let go of, and promote greater enjoyment of the present moment.
The "Release" meditation is a relaxing meditation that focuses on connecting mind and body.
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Meditation has been shown to increase focus, reduce stress, and promote calmness. The practice has been shown to decrease distraction and rumination, make negative automatic thoughts seem easier to let go of, and promote greater enjoyment of the present moment.
The "Balancing" meditation is a relaxing meditation that focuses on connecting mind and body.
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Meditation has been shown to increase focus, reduce stress, and promote calmness. The practice has been shown to decrease distraction and rumination, make negative automatic thoughts seem easier to let go of, and promote greater enjoyment of the present moment.
The "Love and Acceptance" meditation is a relaxing meditation that focuses on connecting mind and body.
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Meditation has been shown to increase focus, reduce stress, and promote calmness. The practice has been shown to decrease distraction and rumination, make negative automatic thoughts seem easier to let go of, and promote greater enjoyment of the present moment.
The "Floating On A Cloud" meditation is a relaxing meditation designed to help kids visualize and focus their attention on a nice relaxing sensory world - all in their mind - connecting mind and body.
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Meditation has been shown to increase focus, reduce stress, and promote calmness. The practice has been shown to decrease distraction and rumination, make negative automatic thoughts seem easier to let go of, and promote greater enjoyment of the present moment.
The "I AM" meditation is a relaxing meditation that focuses on connecting mind and body.
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
This episode presents ten suggestions for helping kids become more proactive in difficult social situations. These are some of my favorites to help kids become better at self monitoring and self regulating their own behaviors. Some they can practice ahead of time and others are good to discuss after an event or issue has occurred.
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
This simple meditation is short and sweet, yet so up-lifting. It will benefit both kids and parents to follow along.
Visit happykidsmindfulnesscreativity.com for kids class in mindfulness, yoga, creative exploration!
Namaste!
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
It may be the merriest time of year for some, but for countless others, the holidays can be a time of sadness and stress. There’s music playing, crowds bustling, events everywhere, and the sometimes overwhelming pressure for cheer.
I hope you don’t need this article. I hope this article is not for you. I hope your life is so filled with blessings and abundance that you can’t imagine feeling anything but joyous this time of year.
***But maybe, just perhaps, 2022 was not your year. And that may even be a huge understatement for how difficult it was. There’s a wide variety of reasons that this may be the case, from loss to longing, to mental health stressors and financial hardships. You may need some help getting through the season of lights, ugly sweater parties, and other obligatory things? Well, here are a few, 10 to be exact, suggestions I might offer.
For more ideas, blogs, articles, and specifics for kids of all ages....and now teens, visit the website: happykidsmindfulnesscreativity.com***
Website: happykidsmindfulnesscreavitiy.com
Facebook: https://fb.me/HappyKidsMindfulCreative
Happy Kids Mindfulness and Creativity - YouTube https://m.youtube.com/channel/UClznRspJ4bwJiLWDwsqd9lQ
Today’s children are on tight schedules, with child care, school, and extracurricular activities. Even if the children are outdoors, the activity is usually structured, and not one of free adventure and immersion into nature. Often, outdoor experiences are for a short period of time only. As adults working with young children, we need to find ways to support not only our own connection with nature, but the children’s as well.
Nature’s invitations
When young children are exposed to nature, they see the beauty just as we do; but more importantly, they begin to interact with its offerings. Children automatically become hands-on in nature. Nature provokes children into thought, action, and formulating their own ideas. When children are involved in experiences with nature, they are absorbed and completely attentive to what is at hand. This exposure to nature can be simply going for a walk, playing in the yard, or hiking in the woods. There are many advantages to all types of exposure to nature.
How can adults help?
Adults can help children by providing natural environments to explore and adding tools to enhance explorations, such as shovels, magnifying glasses, pencils and paper, cameras, and related resources.
It is important to observe where and what the children are interested in and support those interests by asking open-ended questions. What did you discover? How does it feel?
**What does it look like? How does it move? What should we do? Ask questions that will encourage the children to observe and to describe their observations. It is vital that adults share the natural world with children by planning related activities, but it is important for children to have the opportunity to discover nature on their own. When children connect with nature and freely explore its components, they develop their own personal relationship with nature. It is this relationship that will carry meaning into their understanding of nature.
For full blog or more ideas about mindfulness and creativity go to: happykidsmindfulnesscreativity.com**
There are many studies that show journaling is wonderful for kids. Here are my top reasons kids should begin a journal writing practice.
For classes your kids will love visit happykidsmindfulnesscreativity.com
Happy Kids and Mindful Eating
**Mindful eating is for anyone - parents, teens, kids, even the little ones. We can start with how we bring a new awareness to what drives our food choices. Mindful eating helps us to develop a greater awareness of the thoughts and feelings that drive our food choices, and a greater sense of appreciation for your body and the food that we eat. We can create exercises for kids that will help us to think about our current relationship with food and what we might want it to look like.
Head to happykidsmindfulnesscreativity.com to read the blog and find smoothie recipes too!**
In this episode my mom, Karin Moore (retired teacher), and I have a conversation about SEL. We discuss how SEL helps to build greater resilience, psychological flexibility, health and wellness (particularly during these difficult times). We have a dialogue about how social and emotional learning (SEL) is an integral part of education and human development. SEL is the process through which all young people and adults acquire and apply the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions.
We talk about how SEL advances educational equity and excellence through authentic school-family-community partnerships to establish learning environments and experiences that feature trusting and collaborative relationships, rigorous and meaningful curriculum and instruction, and ongoing evaluation. SEL can help address various forms of inequity and empower young people and adults to co-create thriving schools and contribute to safe, healthy, and cooperative communities.
happykidsmindfulnesscreativity.com
School starts and we, the adults, can get caught up with the school work, homework, routines, etc. What we should do is take some time and let kids play? Children often struggle with communicating thoughts and feelings, especially when they are very young. Planned play times may not seem like a way to communicate, but it is a wonderful and effective way for kids to communicate and gives adults an opportunity to teach.
Playing boosts confidence in children by providing and outlet for:
- Expanding self-expression
- Increasing self-knowledge
- Transferring ideas to real-life
- Problem-solving
- Relieving stress
- Relieving boredom
- Making connections
Adults can help to facilitate intrapersonal and interpersonal social skills and vocabulary. This will better overall classroom management for teachers and home base management for parents.
Example: How did you contribute to the group's activity?
Cultivating Growth Mindset In Kids (and my top 10 tips)
There are two main mindsets we can navigate life with: growth and fixed. Having a growth mindset is essential for success. In this episode, we explore how to develop the growth mindset in kids.
Carol Dweck, who is widely known to study human motivation and is often thought of when we talk about growth mindset said something really important during my teaching career that changed everything for me. It changed what I was doing when it came to lesson planning or putting together really cool units, etc. She said, “Your view of yourself can determine everything. If you believe that your qualities are unchangeable — the fixed mindset — you will want to prove yourself correct over and over rather than learning from your mistakes.”
I knew I had to see things from both the eyes of the student who outwardly struggled as well as the student who was too afraid to show they didn’t know the answer as well as the students who did really well at grade level and really was afraid to challenge themselves.
I have been teaching for over 20 years and in my early years I followed Daniel Goleman as he popularized the concept of emotional intelligence (EQ). It made sense then and it makes sense now, probably even more now in current times and through a pandemic and other volatile events that children have had to navigate through. Most recently updating and bringing the term to life for me is Marc Brackett, with new and relevant data, along with practical applications, like the RULER system. I have followed his work in blogs, websites, books and even and interactive book club he hosted. I believe it will be a key to how students approach and navigate today's world.
Let's discuss mindset, self-regulation, a toolkit, and HOPE for a happy healthy child, teen, and young adult!
Learn more strategies and grab on to a toolkit (teachers) - happykidsmindfulnesscreativity.com
As I sit here typing on my laptop, preparing an article for a newsletter that I will send out to parents and teachers about social media and kids I wonder about the irony. I definitely utilize social media.
I have observed the social, emotional, academic, and coping behaviors of students change over the years. Can technology have something to do with it? Well, research points in that direction. Studies show that daily overuse of media and technology has a negative effect on the health of all children, preteens and teenagers by making them more prone to anxiety, depression, and other psychological disorders, as well as by making them more susceptible to future health problems. The key is to find balance and create safety .
There are some monitoring apps, like Bark, that help keep children safer when using social media by giving parents more control over their child’s internet devices. Like the ability to monitor social media, text messages, & other activities for signs of cyberbullying, depression, inappropriate content, and more.
As a teacher, navigating the world of social media with kids is more than a bit of a balancing act. There are the pros; where I have been able to use social media as a vehicle for creativity, allowing it to form connections, and inspiring some genuine laughs.
The worst? Well, we all know what the worst is.
So how can we help our kids start on the path to a healthy relationship with social media?
One creative answer might be Zigazoo. Zigazooseems to have created the perfect platform of social media for kids. They've developed a safe and positive community where kids ages 3 to 13 can create short-form videos (max. length: 30 seconds) and form healthy online relationships. It's similar to TikTok-style in its video-sharing, but offers prompts for kids to inspire videos. Recent prompts include things like:
- What's your favorite riddle?
- Can you teach us how to play your favorite sport?
Zigazoo was started by parents experiencing the same tug and pull of social media we all do. Zak and Leah Ringelstein, parents of three young kids and former teachers, created the app in the early days of the pandemic when, like all of us, they were struggling with finding great content for their kids online.
The other key factor here is to monitor the amount of time spent on social media and limit it!
Creativity and Mindfulness
Why do I highlight the importance of both creativity and mindfulness?
Creativity is the ability to use the imagination to formulate original ideas and possibilities. This valuable quality can be attributed to solutions to some of our most compelling problems. Creativity is also responsible for so many of the wonderful innovations that make our lives pleasant. Research is showing that mindfulness enhances creativity in a number of ways. And the fantastic thing is that anybody can benefit from it!
The flexibility of thought is essential to creativity and studies show that mindfulness practice is positively correlated with cognitive flexibility. This flexibility of thought is necessary for divergent thinking or having a flexible mindset. This type of mindset is one that characterizes creativity. Divergent thinking involves the exploration of many possible solutions, in contrast to convergent thinking or a fixed mindset, which involves finding the one “correct” answer to a problem. A fixed mindset keeps you stuck because you have the belief that intelligence, talent, and other qualities are innate and unchangeable. When combining and focusing on the process, rather than the product, there is a greater potential for overall resilience, happiness, and self-esteem as well.
Creativity also often relies on insight. Insight problem solving is the sudden discovery or recognition of a solution rather than a step-by-step analysis of factors. People with a more effective mindfulness practice have been found to be more likely to use an insight approach to solving problems. Interestingly, many of the insights gained about human psychology through years support mindfulness and that of the inner experience. They are now being supported by modern science.
The merging of mindfulness and creativity has so many incredible benefits that fit into the social-emotional learning (SEL) spectrum: interpersonal skills, self-awareness, relationship skills, self-management, and emotional well-being. Research shows that engaging in some form of creativity, paired with mindfulness, benefits children of all ages, and that there are no limiting cultural factors! Amazing!
happykidsmindfulnesscreativity.com